My advise: NEVER deal with State Farm. They are still living in the stone age. Unlike other insurance companies like Geico, Progressive, nor 21st Century, everything is processed in mail. You should wait for at least one week to move a step forward, and for my case, it took me ONE AND A HALF MONTHS to get my refund back. And MOST important thing is, they fail to honor the promised refund, and makes their custumor to pay for it! Here are the details.
My wife and I purchased an auto insurance policy from State Farm agent Dan Dougherty in Wilmington, Delaware starting from 11/19/2013.The six month premium was $735.15.
Last December, since we have to move from Delaware to New Jersey, we decided to discontinue the policy. I made a call to my agent, and discussed our situation with him. He told me if I decided to discontinue the policy, the prorated amount would be refunded to me. I then specifically asked him what would be the exact amount, he made the calculation for about one minute and told me, since we decided to end the policy starting from 12/12/2013 12:01am, the prorated refund should be around $642. I did the calculation myself, and figured out that I was roughly required to pay the premium of 23 days (23/182*735=$93), which was the period our vehicle was covered under the policy. I was satisfied with the result, so I authorized my agent to end the policy and didn't ask for any alternatives.
After one month, I still didn't receive the refund yet. So I called again for the updates, and it turned out they got all the paperwork but forgot to process it. Two weeks later, I finally got my refund. However, the refund was only $558. I called the local agent again. This time it was a different man answered the phone. He said he didn't know how the refund was calculated, and he had to call another department and got back to me. I received his call hours later, and told me based on the calculation of the other department, I had to pay some penalty for the termination. I argued that I was not aware of this situation the day I decided to end the policy, and he told me the refund was all decided by the other department, and they had nothing to do with it. Then I asked if I could have the number of the department since I would like to check it myself, he refused my request, and emphasized that I could only contact State Farm through them and that was all they could do for me. Therefore, it leaves me no choice but file a complaint here to get some attention.
I am complaining of three issues. First, State Farm fails to honor promised refund. They charged me $84 more ($642-$558). If $558 should be the correct amount, then I was misled by the local agent, and resulted in ending the policy. If I was informed of the possible penalty at that time, I would make a different decision. Thus, I don't think I should be responsive for the penalty. And by the way, I have been with Geico, Progressive, 21st Century for years, none of them charged me any penalty fees for early termination. Second, the employees failed to process the refund for one month after they got all the paperwork, and if I didn't check it myself, it would take me forever to get my refund check back. Third, I am not satisfied with the attitude of the local agent. He didn't actively try to help the customer to solve an issue, instead, he used company policy as excuses trying to end the conversation as quickly as possible. The above three issues make me very uncomfortable as being a customer of State Farm. And I will definitely NEVER deal with State Farm again. Really frustrating experience. read more
