showcrop

Well-known Member
For some time I have had all of my vehicles, home, buildings and farm liability all with a regional cooperative insurance company. Now that I have downsized their premiums are high for the amount of my farm income, yet I still have tractors still make hay but have no animals. The agent is poor about retuning calls. Are any of you other old fa#@ts in a similar position? do you have a company to recommend? I am in NH.
 
We use a really good independent insurance agency that writes insurance for several different companies. Their computer program will compare prices and benefits and recommend the best deal for our situation.

We used to use agents of main line companies until we discovered that they were charging us too much for coverage.
 
Your poor agent is overworked. Help the poor soul out and shop the package to someone who has time for you. My agent was too busy to talk to me until he lost the business.
 
Before you go jumping a cheaper insurance get online and check out the "new" company. See what customers who have filed clams are saying. Keep in mind that a lot of folks don't seem to find anything wrong with trying to pull one over on the insurance company and may bad mouth them because they were denied a fraudulent claim. But check to see how fast claims were settled, were they compensated a fair amount ECT. Cheaper isn't always better. FIL lost most of the roof on his house a few years back. Always shopped for the cheapest insurance. It took him almost 3 months to get a settlement and then he still had to pay a huge chunk out of pocket over what his deducible was. Most others in the area who had better insurance had workers fixing their homes in the matter of days.

You just may get what you pay for.

Rick
 
Good grief - poor insurance agent response must be universal.I bypass agents whenever possible as they never, never return calls anyway.
As far as auto insurance, I've used Hartford through AARP for the past 12 years. No one has come close to their rates if a person has a good driving and credit history. They also offer home insurance, however, they don't appear to be established in any Ag liability or the overall farm requirements that we have. So, for farm, we use Nationwide, although I've had to usually call them direct with changes when the agent drops the ball. I really like the way their policies are presented and find them easy to comprehend. Excellent, in fact.
 
I really like the service I get from Farm Bureau in this state. They are farm oriented, good local agents and fair prices. I just switched several other policies to them based on the service.

But...no claims experience...thankfully.
 
I have Nationwide Insurance, I did not like the service I was getting from my agent. I told Nationwide if they did not change me to a different agent I would leave, they changed me reluctantly.
 
We had an incident with Farm Bureau where they weaseled out on paying a claim. I won't go into details, but we felt they weren't being fair with us. Basically, the agent knew about some changes in the status of the property and failed to make changes in the policy to compensate for it. When the claim came, we were denied.
 
I have state farm and am so very happy with my agent and service. I have been with them 15 years. As I add something to the farm or policy he always says, "I've never insured something like that. Let me do some foot work."He gets right back to me.

If I shopped around I might find someone a few pennies cheaper. Insurance is like lots of other things in farming. You have to wait it out quite a while and then put the pencil to it to see if it makes sense. Some other guy might be cheaper for 2014 but what happens after that and what about getting in touch with them and having a claim. I've got my insurance man's personal cell number in case I need something. Never had an accident and only one claim after a small tornado so it isn't like he needs to talk to me a lot.

I'm probably over insured. I don't care. There are a million ways for someone who stops at the farm to get injured. I don't need that concern.
 
Is there an independent agent nearby who you can use? Local one here has been good to me. Heavy truck policy I've had for about 28 years is not being renewed. Agent has already told me he only has one company who will write such a policy. Probably cost will be up 50%.
 
If you are former military I would say try USAA that is who I am with and when I switch to them I saved 50% on my premiums
 
My daughter had an accident last month. I'm not going to mention the Ins co. but it is one of the large ones that hit us. My agent said he wouldn't insure a match box with them. So I knew I was in for a ride. They told my ins. co. the first day they would take care of the accident. You think oh there a good ins. co, no they don't want your ins. co. appraising your car. It took me three weeks to figure out the estimate with the help of friends in the ins. field. Come to find out that they had a 1037.00 deduction used twice. As soon as I told they claims guy we made settlement, but not as much as it should have been. If I'm in another accident its best go to the hospital and get checked out and if sore get a lawyer. This was the worst ins. dealing I've ever had.
 
I have Farm Bureau.
I had 3 other companies try to match their premiums for home owners insurance, The closest was $100 over Farm B. The Car insurance matched real close, but Farm B was lower by a few bucks.

I had 2 claims with my wives car, she hit a tree and I forgot the other claim.
I have had Zero home owners claims.
 
our Farm bureau agent is a worm.forever refuses to
cover things that other farm bureau agent in
different counties cover.They weasel out of
paying.I'm stuck because no other company covers a
frame house over 10 miles from a fire station.
 
How do you contact them? Every time I've tried to contact them on line, I've heard form every other insurance company in the country except them.
 
If you want the straight skinny on State Farm, read some auto body trade magazines from a few years ago. Among other shenanigans, they were insisting auto body shops only use aftermarket sheet metal, for one. They played every trick in the book to get repairs done as cheaply as possible, whether it was ethical or not.

I was once in a parking lot fender bender where the other driver had State Farm. I had witnesses that the other driver was totally at fault. And he was driving a beater where you wouldn't notice another dent or two.

The State Farm Adjuster I dealt with was some gal who was a consummate b***h. Even with my witnesses, she insisted we couldn't prove who was at fault and we should each pay our own. She knew I'd pay my $100 deductible and let my own insurance fix my car rather than take them to court over a $700 claim.

I also had State Farm screw me out of a life insurance policy. I had a $10,000 policy that was paid up. The agent said he could convert it and it would pay the premiums on a $30,000 policy. So I fell for it. I never received any statements for payment, so I figured all was in order. Only the $10,000 policy did NOT pay the premiums on the $30,000 policy and the policy was declared lapsed for non payment of premiums before I knew what was going on.

So don't talk to me about State Farm Insurance.
 
I have a limited choice. There aren't too many companies that will cover commercial properties. Lucky to have one that covers what I have.
 
Foreveryone who has an agent that does not return calls:
Leave them a message, they have so many hours or days to
return message or you will move. If they do not respond, then
move your policy!
 
1-800-531-8111. On my car insurance I had been paying $150 o so a month with Liberty mutual but with USAA I am now paying $73 a month
 

Request a change of agent to the neighboring county. Happens all the time. Go to the district sales manager, or better yet, call the home office and as to talk to a sales manager in the Home office.

Gene
 
I used to insure my vehicles with a nationwide. Got screwed over by them when I wrecked my truck. Made it clear that trying to get me to pay for more coverage on the next one would cost them my business, but I doubt they believed me.

Got insurance through "Agents Insurance Co" out of Maryland for a short time. I had to call the agent and tell them to be sure to let the company know that if I got one more notice for payment postmarked the day after the "date due" on the notice, I was going to start making some phone calls.

When I gave them my address change, they jacked my monthly payment up to half what I paid for my truck, without any warning, because they don't do business in Nebraska.
 
Bingo! I recently had a deer total my van and Nationwide (run and hide) was completely obnoxious about their handling of my claim, trying to screw me every way they could on the payout. They even pulled the dipstick on my transmission and said " Your fluid is a little discolored, we're going to dock you $30 for that."
 
If you are using Hartford thru AARP you are probably getting the royal shaft. I had two cars insured with them a few years ago. Was costing me about a thousand dollars a year and they couldn't keep records straight. Went to State Farm for eight hundred less.
 
My sons and I shop our insurance together. We get quotes every year around the middle of July. We where with Farm Bureau for years and the agent was a jerk. He kept creeping the coverage amounts higher and higher. Our premiums just about doubled over a 4-5 year period with zero claims. So about 7-8 years ago I started shopping around.

We went to All State, the premium was half of what we had been paying at Farm Bureau. That agent was great. He retired and the young guy that bought his business was a joke.

We switched to Stare Farm two years ago. This agent is on the ball. I called him on a Saturday afternoon when I bought a newer model car for the wife. I knew I had 48 hours under my policy to get the new car insured. I just left him a message to call me on Monday to bind the policy. He called me back right at 5 PM. He did all of the work right then over the phone. The wife picked up her insurance cards on the way home. The agent had them all ready and left them out for her to pickup. All of this on a Saturday afternoon. He really works at it.
 
Basically what it boils down to is your insurance is only as good as your agent. If your agent won't go to bat for you, they will try to skin you.
 
It may be time to shop around. Look for the best package deal. One former agent told me he could have given me a better deal if I had asked. I told him I expected his best deal the first time.
 
Me too, they've been good to me and I have far from a stellar claims history. I've lost a few barns and a rental house over the last 30 years. They
ve always paid fast and fair. The shining star was a bad at fault accident I had, definitely well into the 6 figures. They took care of me, kept me out of court, and my premium increase was modest.
 
Been with USAA for 27 years, not the cheapest and they'll shave the claim just like nostate or
stalefarm. Still a little torqued with them about the CRAP (certified replacement auto part) headlight
they fixed my F 150 with (and disallowed the warranty claim when it clouded over). Wife's Uncle was
retired Air Force and was insured by USAA. He had an accident where a scrap hood blew off a truck
owned by a body shop. He called the police and they filled out a report, the driver of the other truck
owned the body shop and offered to fix the Uncle's truck for free, hearing this the trooper didn't
write a ticket. He shows up at the body shop to get the truck fixed and the owner say's I'll fix it
for $2,700 dollars (it's obviously not my fault 'cause there was no ticket) So the Uncle drives home
and files a claim with USAA, the next day he has a check from USAA for $3,500 to fix the truck and
rent one while his is in the shop. Two days later he gets a call from the body shop, seems USAA sent
them a bill for $4,100 dollars and allowed that if the body shop paid it they wouldn't sue, but had
lawyers ready to go if they didn't pay. Had one of my trucks at work hit by a retired Navy Lt
Commander in a RV, he was with USAA, they were real accommodating in settling the claim (even though
our truck maybe wasn't legally parked) I could go anywhere I wanted for the repairs and OEM parts
weren't a problem (used the one shop that always gave me an estimate but always came in high). I've
kinda come to the conclusion all insurance companies are crooks and snakes so you gotta be careful
when dealing with them. On the up side I had no claims this year and USAA sent me a check for $241,
last time I looked I had almost $10,000 in my subscriber's savings account (unpaid dividends they hold
as a reserve, payable to me or my heirs 6 months after I cease all business with them). When we lived
in Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew they were still willing to renew our house insurance,
some of my friends weren't so lucky. But on the other hand they wouldn't insure my mobile home
(purchased new) or the 1849 farm house we had in Wisconsin (didn't like knob & tube wiring or the
transit roof shingles).
 
Florida Farm Bureau is an insurance company that isn't affiliated with the real thing,just pays for the use of the name. Don't know the whole deal but went bankrupt in the late '70's and started again after hanging investors out to dry.
 
For you guys who have had problems with your agent when trying to file a claim that's why there is a tool free number on most policies or insurance cards. If the agent tells you something isn't covered that you think is call the claims office and bypass your agent. In Mn the rules to be an agent doesn't require a lot training. To work for an agency requires no training. So there is a good possibility that they don't know what they are talking about. Besides if you call and ask about coverage and they right away tell you that you are not covered did they even bother to look at your policy? Just how many policies have they sold? And they know off the top of their head if you are covered or not? Call the 1-800 number. Whoever you talk to will pull your policy up and look at it before they tell you if you have coverage for something or not.

Rick
 

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