This might be a long one. No tl;dr. Details are important, y'all.
Saturday, 10/12/19- K and I are two minutes from walking out the door for the funeral of a dear wonderful woman from our church. Poised to put my eyeliner on, my cellphone rings. It doesn't ring that often, so I look and notice it is my love. I answer.
"I am okay. I was just in an accident. The car is totaled."
I found out where M was, took 3 seconds, threw the eyeliner on, threw out a few texts to the parishioners who were expecting us and off and away we went.
Sweet love, the drive to California would have been shorter. I reach the hill where my love says he was hit and I don't see him. K spotted the Yaris first. She gasped. He neglected to tell me that it was off the road and had gone into the woods.
I parked in a woman's front yard, threatened K not to get out because I didn't need her all up in whatever was going on and I didn't want her hit by a car. I crossed the road, inspected my sweets for breakage and leakage. Both were negative. Once I found out I wouldn't injure him with a hug, I squeezed him tight for a long time. Then he dropped the bomb-- the guy who hit him was on his phone.
There were no skid marks. That is why initially I couldn't find the car.
It is now I will admit that I am not proud of the fact that indeed there were some hefty words that fell from my lips. Not at the guy. Not at Mark. At the situation. I was peeved. Dude seriously had total disregard for my husband by cresting a hill and probably driving the equivalent of a football field down a hill and only knew my husband was there when he struck his car with his vehicle. What was he doing? He was changing a podcast. He told M that as well as the troopers.
He launched M over the roadway. The Yaris touched down on the passenger side (turfed the lawn) went through a split rail fence, through the woods, over some saplings and one of the larger ones stopped his continuation forward.
The man hit him so hard that his glasses flew off his face.
Insurance information is passed on. Since his car is was an obvious total that had to be flat bedded out of the woods, I phoned our insurance -- Allstate -- to let them know of the situation. They were all over it. Phoning us daily to see if he was okay. Do they need to handle the claim? . . . Very attentive.
It gets to Tuesday, 10/15/19 and we have yet to hear from State Farm. Again, we have heard from our insurance several times. Since we purchased a new-to-him 2013 Subaru Forester (later referred to as F2 since I have one we purchased in February) I needed to formalize insurance for our new buy. I explained to our agent office that we have not heard from State Farm and the accident was several days prior.
"I don't think he phoned the claim in. Certainly they would have called at this point." She looked the claim phone number up for me, I passed it on to M so that he could phone. I thanked her profusely. We seriously love Allstate and our Allstate agency.
M phoned and they said they hadn't phoned us because they didn't have our contact information. We had the information from the guy who hit my husband. We had his name, insurance and policy number. We could have very easily done an internet search and picked it up. M ended up talking to 5 different people that day who all asked the VERY SAME QUESTIONS. My husband's stock question to State Farm has become, "DO YOU PEOPLE EVEN WRITE ANYTHING DOWN?" I ended up being involved in the last call. When I noticed M's head starting to smoke and he was looking like he was about to have a Sheldon Cooper lunch table explosion, I stepped in.
"How is it that you didn't have his contact information? Don't you have a crash report?"
The guy said no, but different people say something different every time we phone.
I explained that no one phoned to check to see how he was. I explained that no one offered a rental. I explained that there was no attempt to advance the claim on. He kept insisting that the car be brought closer. (It was 45 minutes away and in a tow yard.) After the third time with M telling him he gave the tow yard permission for it to be released to State Farm and that he got all belongings out of it, the guy wanted it closer so that it could be fixed. M blew a gasket. "IT CAN'T BE FIXED! IT IS TOTALED! DO YOU PEOPLE NOT WRITE ANYTHING DOWN?!"
I continued, "It was your guy who was on the phone, hit my husband probably driving 60 MPH, launched him over a roadway, through a fence, into the woods where he finally was stopped by some small trees. It's not okay. The car is totaled. It can't be fixed. We need to get this claim handled."
He told us and I quote, "You guys need to calm down."
Oh. no. he. didn't.
He told us that they needed to get the car moved because they were having to pay storage on it. Kind of not our fault because they never contacted us. So glad he was more concerned about storage fees than my husband's welfare. I believe that I told him that.
I told him that I was so very glad that I didn't have State Farm because the way this claim has been handled has been appalling. If he needed the title, let us know, we will get everything signed and dropped off or mailed.
The personal injury guy has not contacted M back. M's initial call was on 10/15. He has another appointment for adjustment this week. He has suffered from whiplash and it sure would be great to get payment to Cleveland Clinic rolling along.
We finally got a total loss amount back. M was so mad that he told the guy we were going through our insurance and hung up on them. Then I asked my sweets what Allstate said because they could offer us $2000 and not the $4400 State Farm did and then we would be royally screwed.
Silence.
He phoned back, apologized profusely and they are keeping the claim open. We are now waiting to speak to the Allstate rep so that we can have them review it for a total loss claim amount.
We received a copy of the crash report. The distraction coding seems to have been changed to "distraction outside of the vehicle" rather than the admitted "phone use." Yes, well, either he paid the OSHPatrol off or they ended up giving him a break for insurance purposes. We have phoned them to have that amended and, as with everything else, we have heard nothing.
Sunday, 10/20/19- After an enjoyable day to Cleveland where K drove up and around, she handed driving back over to her dad. I had forgotten my purse at home, didn't have either my license or my Epi Pen (yellow jacket allergy and they have been bad) so M drove. We got off the expressway and were waiting to yield just like the two giant yield signs asked us to and WHAM! Oh yes, F2 got rear ended. No, I am not kidding. The replacement car we just financed less than a week before was now damaged.
(She hit us at probably 10 MPH, so it is here that I tell you that we are all okay.)
Once again, I was not at the height of humor or love for humanity. I jumped out of the car and started knocking on the woman's window with my pointer finger screaming at her about now this is twice in one week, a car we haven't owned for a week and what does she say? "You weren't supposed to stop. I looked back, you stopped and you shouldn't have stopped." At this point, my love was at my side. "There was traffic coming. I had to stop." She went on, "This is your fault."
Step back for two seconds. She rear ended us on an exit ramp as we were yielding to oncoming traffic at a yield. It was not continuous turn with caution. It said yield!
I phoned the police. They were all concerned about which direction I was pointed. Y'all, I don't know what direction I am pointed on any given day much less a day where my husband has encountered being hit twice in 8 days. After asking me for the 4th time, I believe she gave up. The police came. We were on a ramp. That was highway patrol territory. Highway Patrol came out. We explained to the trooper what went on. We explained that the woman insisted we were at fault.
He laughed.
He spoke with her. She insisted it was our fault. He explained that we could stop anywhere we wanted on the roadway and it didn't give her the right to hit us. He confirmed his decision by giving her a ticket. He gave us her insurance information. Who is it? You guessed it! State FREAKING Farm.
I tell my love that I can phone this one in since I was in the car with him. I do, I get Kevin from Washington State (he is an ex-cop, super guy and you need to give him a serious raise) who I explain the situation of now a second claim. He finds that the State Farm driver hadn't called the claim in yet, so he processes it with me as far as he can. He will phone her and if successful, they will back to me in about a half hour or so. In 45 minutes, Pam from Dallas TX (who is delightful and also deserves a big fat raise) gave me the claim number, rental car information and was a delight to speak with.
The State Farm delightfulness stopped there.
F2 went to the State Farm approved estimate shop that appears to be run by some nasticious troll who has an attitude worse than anything my husband has seen. (It is here that I remind the gentle readers that my husband is a very kind soul.) He phoned me during the estimate. "I don't feel good about this shop. I don't get a good feeling. This guy isn't nice. This is a production shop. He has no attention to detail and this is terrible."
"You don't have to go there. They told us that we can go to the shop of our choice. The shop that repaired for us before is wonderful and you spoke of going there."
M talked with the awful shop guy who was trying to hard sell to him and in the end, contacted State Farm with an appointment to get the car repaired that M never scheduled. Can I tell you how much fun that has been because State Farm was so insistent that we were going to Backyard Bully Bob's Collision Center that my husband just started chanting on repeat the name and address of the shop we will be having repair F2. He said that the woman lost her patience with him.
Oh, and fun to add that this State Farm representative is confusing the two claims and thinks she is fixing the Yaris. "IT IS TOTALED. DO YOU PEOPLE NOT WRITE ANYTHING DOWN?" was M's response.
BBBCCenter guy never sent the estimate as he said he would. M said he phoned the shop to tell him had never scheduled an appointment and has chosen to go to a different place. We believe the guy is withholding the estimate out of spite because, well, that is how this fine trip with State Farm has been.
So, State Farm-- you are the worst insurance company we have ever encountered. Never have we ever had to phone any insurance company to give our contact information. Just February, my vehicle was totaled at the shop by our mechanic and their insurance was on with me within hours. Everything was sorted within a week. Hooray for Erie Insurance!
Ohio State Waterproofing hit me and K, spun us through an intersection and totaled our vehicle about 12 years ago. Their insurance was all over it. Thank you, Cincinnati Insurance!
My vehicle was damaged at a friend's house by a husband, a strong weed eater and over zealous trimming before a party. Hooray for Westfield Insurance as they had it handled and easily taken care of!
We have already said, but just to confirm, thank you Allstate for your kindness and caring in regard to questions we have had and advice you have been able to give.
State Farm, Step up and redeem yourself! Get these two unfortunate claims sorted in a swift manner, please! You have been absolutely terrible to deal with!
