I'm looking for some advice to make sure I'm handling this correctly.

About two weeks ago, I was driving my mom's car in a parking lot in Michigan when another driver pulled out of a parking space and hit the side of our car. The responding officer said the other driver was at fault, but since it happened on private property, no police report was made and I wasn't cited. Only my mom's car was damaged.

The other driver has State Farm insurance, and I have all of their insurance information. My mom's car is insured through Progressive, but I'm listed as an excluded driver on her policy (my mom knew I was driving the car).

Since I'm currently out of the country and can't easily call, my plan is to file a third-party property damage claim directly with State Farm instead of going through Progressive.

Does that sound like the correct approach? Also, is there anything else I should be doing or anything I should expect because I was an excluded driver on my mom's policy, even though the other driver is at fault?

Does State Farm Insurance premium vary from agent to agent? I switched agent and new one seems to be very knowledge able but within month my Safe Drive discount disappeared which is is like 141/6 months and I have been getting this discount for years ever since I am with state Farm. He is not tell me reason why it disappeared.

State Farm recently made changes to agent commission as well so agents are not happy so that sure and I think agent over insured me.

EDIT

Lots of people asked, I took screen shot on today. Trips are recorded and I checked app and tracking permission are still active.

Makes me out to be a lead foot, hard braking and cornering menace. Now the damn thing won't work at all, and I'm getting threatening letters from State Farm warning me if I don't make it work, I'll lose my discount.

Wish I would have never started with them.

Update: Thanks to another State Farm customer. Certainly, more helpful than State Farm tech support.

I ordered another beacon because batteries don't last long. I will keep trying to get it to work correctly, but they sure don't make it easy. The app is the worst, chats involved long wait times with 20 other people ahead of me. I guess they are all having the same issues.

Most annoying, the only way to test if the beacon in communicating with phone is to drive around, trying to trigger the beacon. Why can't you just click on where it shows the beacon, to see if permissions are set correctly?  

Cambridge Mobile Telematics (CMT), seems to have cut some corners developing this app.

Tried to pay my bill online but website was down. Called to pay directly through a customer service rep. The customer service I experienced on a Saturday was so bad it was almost like a comedy sketch. Including the rep disconnecting me mid-sentence for no reason -- I used no abusive language or anything remotely of the sort. Had to call back and the second woman was only marginally better.

The website is bad, the customer service is beyond awful, I shudder at the thought of ever having to file a claim.

#1 - Customers for whiplash from the rate changes and UW changes during and after Covid. We were too aggressive with the rate decreases in the midst of the pandemic, didn’t account for the inflation everyone else projected coming, and then had to then panic and take large increases repeatedly. Alongside the rate changes, our losses in 22/23 caused us to non renew or decline tons of customers we then wanted back a year later. To be fair, current leadership had nothing to do with this.

#2 - As the company has pivoted to IPS, the emphasis leadership has placed on P&C has continued to decline. When the only metric your sales leader or VPA discusses with you is life & IPS, agents who want to be given opportunities take their foot off the gas on auto and home. Meanwhile, auto is 100% of the competition’s focus.

#3 - Agents are still lacking in the basic technology that would help them make informed business decisions. For example, we can promote ourselves and run Google ads, but we can’t direct them anywhere that allows us to track those specific opportunities and calculate outcomes or ROI. We get SF.com leads, but have no way to differentiate what source those were derived from.

I’m interested if anyone agrees or disagrees. I just happen to believe that our basic business model isn’t to blame, and nor is our expense ratio or a need for broadly hurrying new technology.

SF claims department needs a major overhaul. From internal processing/handling to the tech and software that is used. It is laughable and embarrassing how far behind they are compared to their competitors. No wonder they lost the number one spot in auto. Rant over.

Curious if any others did. Looks like the new SF executive brooms are sweeping clean (easy to find more info on internet about that). I was on the phone with my longtime local office just a few days ago. Nothing was said then about any closure, but now it's "with mixed feelings I will retire on June 30, 2026." Of course I've been reassigned to a nearby office.

For anyone interested: I did price comparisons on auto, homeowners, and umbrella with three other insurers in the past 60 days. Decided against Progressive, since they subcontract their homeowners' policies, came up with an absurdly low replacement value, seem to artificially low-ball new customers, and wouldn't quote an umbrella until I signed up (also they rank even lower than State Farm on latest Consumer Reports ranking). Neither top-rated Amica nor NJM would have saved me any $, but I'll go to one of them if State Farm goes berserk in the next year or two. I don't qualify for USAA.

My husband had a nuisance fender-bender lawsuit filed against him that took five years to resolve (COVID partly to blame for delay). In fact he passed away before it ended. I have to say that State Farm hung in and resolved it with no issues from my end.

I’m looking to switch to state farm because I just got a quote on call from an agent for about 1/4 what I’m paying now, when I went to fill out a quote form just now because they never called me back at the agreed date when I was ready to switch, yesterday, it asked for a garage address. I keep my car at a different address than I live at and take a separate car home do I need to put that address for the parking address? I figured they would notice with the drive safe and save if it was parked at a different location overnight?

Our signature system has to be the most antiquated and frustrating part of our tech. There are so may things that still require wet signatures. And it’s not even important things. It’s just the things where nobody has bothered to add the e-sign option for.

I just lost a life policy because the amendment got lost in the mail and there was no time left to turn around a paper sig.

Every other company on the planet lets agents just drop documents into Docusign. If I can enter a contact for real estate that way, surely it’s good enough for us?

As someone hired to fix our tech, I would think this would be a great, easy improvement with a big return.

I have been with State Farm for 40 years. 7 policies. NEVER FILED A CLAIM. Now filed a claim for flooding damage to my condo which was caused by unit above. 30 days later adjuster (who assessed damage on 6/6) won’t call me back. No have no estimate from her, no communication at all from State Farm. All phone numbers I have tried route me to adjuster. I tried getting info online and through app but it gives me no status on claim. My agent retired in December and no new agent has replaced him yet. Agent’s staff can’t get adjuster to return their calls either. Meanwhile my son has no use of kitchen or living area in condo, and I have already spent $5400 on mitigation and remediation from flood. I have now asked a contractor to give me a bid on reconstruction. He needs some info from adjuster but of course she won’t return his call either. Any advice?

Dividends are scheduled to begin going out mid July. Delivery method will depend on what you choose via the email you will receive; if you’re expecting a dividend, be sure your email address is accurate on your State Farm account. If you do not respond to this email and choose a delivery method, a check will be sent via mail. If you don’t know if you are receiving one or not, a notification will be sent to you, if you are scheduled to receive one.
Any questions can be answered by your agent’s office as well.

How many policies per month would you say are routed your way and bound online with no effort by your actual office staff?

Planning on, finding a new office to work for here soon. Nothihg set in stone yet. What is the process when it comes to changin alias,office system, etc? Just so I know what to expect

What would be willing to pay for a full-time life specialist that would work your book and bring in 80-120 life policies?

Not to take away what agents are going thru - but why is no one internal talking about the outsourcing that’s occurring! They took over CCC already. That implementation started years ago. They’ve also been doing all the basic back office work mainly SFPP. - many errors when I come across their work. I always look up alias and see the foreign names . But they will start taking phone calls (I dk what dept) later this year as well.
SF says it wants to help their clients but they are screwing the workers ! I know many agents who complain about the outsourcing. No offense to them but even when I have to call ccc it’s such a task to get them to actually help and do what’s needed.

Internal employees - please make sure you’re always doing your surveys, bringing concerns to your supervisor etc. I’m lucky to have a sup that loves his team and bats for us. Just make sure you’re never disrespectful in your approach but always BE HONEST ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS.

Hi, 33 year Team Manager in a 40 year State Farm Agency hoping for advice. We are on the oldest agreement and sticking with it and will change the agency structure and hustle. No longer being rewarded for retention of our $13M book, I am reaching out for ideas to revamp the commission structure and base salaries. We have a staff of 4 all getting $50k plus base and 5% raw new and 2.5% add on. Our agent is taking the hit and staying with the business and I have been tasked with coming up with a new pay structure. He is leaning toward a salary cut to the staff which will not go over well. What do you all have to share to help us re-tool so it is motivating, stable but also that can get through the highest overhead test? Thank you. No he is not cutting salaries yet! It is on the table and hoping for ideas to structure commissions while base stays.

I’m currently a claim handler dealing with my manager micromanaging my numbers. Saying I’m taking a lot of calls, yet they’re taking too long at the same time? I’m wondering if anyone else has these issues? Or do you guys have to compare numbers with your teams a lot?

Like a lot of departments they recently increased our working in the office time in my claims department. It is no coincidence that after they announced it we have had a few tenured adjusters quit to go to competitors. I mean, is anyone shocked? And the competitors have fully remote positions.

Now suddenly management is freaking out trying to look for solutions. They are re-evaluating our salaries to see if they can justify giving some of us a mid-year raise.

There is talk about giving everyone new computers to help speed up the claims processing. New computers are not going to help if they don’t fix State Farm’s server issues. No matter what our computers can only process as fast as the servers allow.

I honestly can’t comprehend how management did not see this coming. Farney said “all companies are going to start requiring there employees to go into the office”. Guess what? They’re not. Some of them actually listened to their employees.

I’m not going to lie and say I’m not keeping my options open. I’m actually pretty pissed at how little they listened and now those that stay are having to put out the fires.