Posted On: February 15, 2006, 11:00 am CST

Posted By: esul walker

Re: Farmers Insurance Group et alia (Zurich?). I can testify to problems with claim adjustors;they dealt,in bad faith, misrepresenting,delaying,threatening and reducing my sister to tears when they demanded (not requested) that she accede to their evaluations of the value of her car and the possible cost of repairs. I was helping her to get the car repaired (it had suffered purely external damage due to a fender-bender for which she held no responsiblity.) If you replaced the front light the car would be entirely street-legal. The rear fender and the front fender were pushed in, but no other operational damage at all. The adjustors claim that since the estimate of repair costs is more than half the estimated value (by their valuation both times) the car qualifies as wreck which they will auction off. The other party was uninsured, making the company liable to pay for all of repairs, etc. The key to the pressure is the company's use of the category 'wreck' (entirely a financial figment of corporate policy) to effectively prevent the insuree from getting her car back and the repairs done. Their threat to classify a 'wreck' will make re-registration necessary (more expense to my sister!) As it stands she will not get her car back whether she agrees or not; she will lose all value in the car and you can imagine what her insurance rates will look like. The agents are using every device, pressure and not too transparent financial threat to force her to accept their evaluation. I should say the FIG claim adjustor referred the evalution to a company; he failed to clarify the evaluator was an employee of FIG, not the other company.
All in all, I have never met such a crew of pirates; this is, possibly, legal extortion. The bad faith exhibited by FIG agents in this case is certain and is despicable. This is the short version. My condolences to anyone insured by FIG/Zurich.