Avoid at all costs!…read more
It will take 2 months (54 days and 42 emails, plus phone calls) to simply change the address on your policy and know that your policy is paid and current. How could it possibly take that long, you ask?
When you ask them to update the address because you moved, they tell you the website sucks and that you won't see the new address on the website until you get a new bill for a higher amount. OK.
Two weeks later, you login to the State Farm website, and now you see two policies, each with a different amount owed. You let the local agent know there are duplicate policies, and that you're not sure which one to pay, because they have the same address but different amounts owed. They tell you that you have to pay the bill with the lower amount. You tell them that you were previously told it would be for the higher amount. They say that it's fine if you just pay the lower amount. You ask them again, in email, so it's in writing, and they confirm it's the lower amount.
You pay the lower amount, and ask them to confirm receipt of payment. They confirm receipt of payment and that it's for the correct policy. You still see duplicate policies, and they say it can take up to two weeks for the system to update.
One month later, you log in to the website, and there is indeed only one policy, but it is now showing that your policy is past due on payment. So you email the local agent again, letting them know. They say they'll look into it. They say State Farm applied the payment to the wrong policy. (Seems more likely that the agent told me to pay the wrong policy, since online, you have to select the policy before making the payment, and the agent confirmed multiple times the one they told me to pay was the correct one. But they insisted the mistake was on State Farm's side, not the local agent's, nor mine.) They tell me to call them, so I do, and basically we just reiterate everything that's already been going on. They say they're going to look into it.
Two days later (this is now 54 days since I just wanted to change the address because we moved), I get an email from State Farm saying my policy will be canceled. I email the local agent, and get no response from them. I wait one week, them email them again. They say my policy is fine and I owe no money. I ask them if I am to ignore the past due notice on my policy according to the website, and they say yes.
Then two months later, you get an email from your apartment management saying they are showing that you have no renters policy and that you need to upload proof and add them as an additional interest. (This is probably due to the fact that the local agent messed up on creating another policy and telling me to pay the wrong one, but maybe State Farm's IT systems are as bad as the local agent says, but for something like taking payment on a selected policy... who knows.)
You go to State Farm's website to add an additional interest. You fill out the form, submit, and get an error message saying there's technical difficulties and that I'm unable to continue. This happens every day for five days in a row, so you finally reach out to the local agent again, and ask them if they can do this. No response.
Two days later, you email them again, and they say it's done and ask if you want a copy. You say yes, and they send you a policy with a mailing address that's the old address. How is this possible? That should have been taken care of with all the issues two months ago, one would think. You point out the mistake and ask if they can update it. No response.
You email them again the following morning, no response. So you call them. They say they don't know why it happened, but that it takes time. I point out when I log in to the website, I can see that the mailing address is correct, and that it is in just the document that the local agent sent that the mailing address is incorrect. They pass my call along to Franco, who interrupts me as I'm telling him what's going on to tell me that I'm overthinking it, and that they'll fix it. When I mention all the previous issues and how that may have led to the current issues, he gets super defensive, says I should find another agent and hangs up on me. (So it took 10 emails across 3 days, plus 1 phone call where you get hung up on, just to get an additional interest added and to correct a mailing address.)
If I ran State Farm, I would not want a local agent like this at all!
