State Farm

by Tina
(Utah)

I was hit by an uninsured driver with $20,000 in damages to my 08 vehicle. State Farm wanted $21,500 to total it. They told us they didn't pay a diminished value and that no insurance company did. They also said that if we tried to trade it in or sell it, that no dealership or individual would be able to give us a lesser value than what the blue book told us. Believe it or not, the dealership offered to pay off our vehicle UNTIL they ran a CARFAX. Then they offered us $10,000 less. So now were $10,000 upside down in the vehicle. After the truck was hit, the claims adjuster told the body shop not to order new parts. To find them at junk yards. He also told the body shop to "patch" up what they could with tape and paint. Thank goodness the owner of the body shop was a friend of ours and told us each day what the claims adjuster was saying. In the accident, the airbags deployed, two rims were rammed and scraped against a median, and another rim was cracked in half inside the tire. Yet, they didn't want to pay for new tires and only wanted to replace one rim. My husband had to fight them night and day to get the money to properly repair these things. After we got it back from the body shop, the truck wouldn't start, and we had to take it multiple times to dealerships for repair. It seems that it will never work right. State Farm however says that it is just part of owning a vehicle and having car insurance that something bad may happen. My husband told them, well it's just part of being an insurance company that you will have to pay out money to a customer who's been with you for over 10 years and then use your own already paid lawyers to go after the individual responsible. Right now we are just frustrated and confused how we, who have insurance, and have a perfectly fine running vehicle, get hit by someone who doesn't want to obey the law and who doesn't have insurance, gets off scott free because he can't pay and doesn't have anything, yet we have to suffer and now have a crap vehicle that we can't sell or trade in.