"I'm hopping mad at State Farm," says Mark Hitchcock, from Atlanta, Georgia.
"Three years ago I was involved in a car accident. I was driving my 1997 Ford F250 extended cab pick-up truck with camper shell - all told the vehicle weighs in excess of 10,000 lbs.
I was driving along a two-lane road and stopped to make a turn. Suddenly, everything in the cubby hole of my dash flew to the back of the cab and I heard a horn. I saw smoke and I was well past where I was fixing to pull in. This kid rear-ended me in his Ford Ranger and knocked me forward 30 feet. He was doing about 70 mph and applied his breaks when he hit me - he skidded about four feet. It was a straight road and made a slight curve where I was turning. You can see almost ½ mile down the road behind me. I was shocked and stunned, but thankfully there was no blood.
I had just got a huge contracting job in a high-end subdivision, and had only been there for two weeks. I was picking up materials at the time and heading back to job site. After the kid and I exchanged insurance information, I started up the truck, and noticed the transmission was slipping.
My truck has only 80,000 miles on a diesel engine, and I just had it serviced. I told my insurance company about the accident. The next day I took my truck to the body shop to get an estimate, and asked them to check the transmission as well. I got a rental truck and went back to work. My back hurt a bit but I couldn't slow down on the job.
The body shop called two weeks later and said my truck was ready. The work was sub-par: I could still see the dent in the tailgate and a few other problems but State Farm approved it. I called the manager and pointed out the shabby work. He had to get another adjustor out to approve it. I said, "whatever you have to do, just fix my truck."
Another week passes and this time it still isn't fixed properly. I could see two different colored paints - they had painted around the camper shell. All told, the body shop had my truck for one month. It still isn't back to how I want it. I still have the kid's paint on my bumper where he hit me. State Farm said they are only going to pay a certain amount and I have to pay the rest!
I had to pay $500 out of my own pocket to get my vehicle back. Furthermore, State Farm said they don't care if I am not happy with the work. Then I found out that someone had driven my truck back and forth from the body shop to the transmission shop - 20 miles away. The owner of the transmission shop said that State Farm gives him more business than me and he won't help. I had to get a new transmission and paid $4,000 because they can't prove it was accident-related.
When I originally talked to the bodyshop manager and the guy at the transmission shop, they said that a State Farm adjustor had to come out and look at the damage. But later he told me that they just sent pictures of the damage back and forth across the internet. Nobody came out to see it. State Farm even wrote a letter and said someone went out to look and said the transmission was clearly not related to the accident and I had to incur all costs for repair. Another lie.
State Farm said if I can determine the problem, they will pay to have the transmission repaired, otherwise I am on my own. Here is the catch: I would have to pay $900 to tear down the transmission to prove it was due to the accident. Then I might still have to pay for someone to put it back together again...
My back pains got worse and I went to a chiropractor. State Farm won't cover chiropractors so I went to my medical doctor. Both my doctor and the chiropractor said I should take a week off due to soft tissue damage. My doctor and I signed a form stating as much, otherwise I would go against AMA medical advice. To this day I am still having therapy for my back. I finally had an MRI because my headaches were so bad that sometimes I couldn't see and would have to stop driving or working. The physical therapist says that my neck muscles are so tense they are pressing on my nerves.
State Farm is the kid's insurer - the guy that hit me. Mine was State Auto and they kept passing the buck back and forth. If I went through my insurance I would have to pay my deductible.
State Farm Insurance hasn't paid me a dime. Every month I lose a few hours of work time. At first I had to go to therapy three times a week, and I lost a week up front. My medical bills are in excess of $11,000 and State Farm offered my attorney $3,000.
That won't even pay for my transmission. At some time you just have to go on with your life and they know that, they will wait you out. They are worse than sharks, because these people just let you suffer."
____
Either way, this is a lose-lose situation for the policy holder.
In theory, State Farm should have covered Mark Hitchcock 100 percent, but it looks like State Farm basically writes its own rules.