We had insurance with the same Farmers agent for over 25 years. Had a couple small auto claims and thats it. We recently were robbed. Over $10k in things stolen including new appliances refrigerator, washer and dryer, saws, most of my husbands tools, personal items like radio and other household decorative items. We were building a house and the robbers knew when to strike, we had added Course of Construction insurance on top of the Homeowners insurance over a year ago and guess what.....Farmers covered ZERO!!! They had "provisions according to the 3rd edition policy" that stated things like tile and dry wall would be covered. Who steals huge sheets of dry wall? Or pallets of tile? Please point out the latest criminal you've seen with a fork lift driving up to your house and slowly driving away with worthless items? Farmers answer to not covering the appliances was "..because it happens too often that they usually get stolen while waiting to be installed." WOW. Like their commercials say "We've seen a thing or two.." Yes and they make sure they cover themselves in every which way they can to NOT have to pay you for it. Another "provision" was the house had to be a place of "Abode" so if we weren't sleeping there full time then our personal property is not covered!!!! So our barn that has valuable items etc wouldn't be covered either since we don't sleep there either.
I know of two additional instances within this last month talking with family and friends that have been left high and dry by Farmers not covering what they should, giving people the run around and making it very very difficult to get anything covered after 30+ even 40+ years of people paying them year after year with little to no claims until recently...Farmers doesn't care period. They didn't even ask for a list of stolen items, and if you've ever been robbed it takes time to realize and not find something you are looking for that was stolen. They never asked, never cared to cover a single thing.
Regarding our agents office: Your agent should be there to help you, guide you, answer questions, offer support maybe?? They told us right off the bat when we called and we were robbed that it would absolutely be covered. Next thing we get a few days later is a phone call from the claims department saying not covered. We then tried to call the office left a few messages over a few weeks, even requested the head guy in the office call us because his staff has always had a very difficult time returning emails and calls over the years, people are rarely even in the office or answer phones. He called us back once to just tell us the same thing as the claims guy, but said he'd look into it and call us back...its been over TWO MONTH's now and still no call back from them as promised, no response to our email request for a simple breakdown of our plans (we have eight policies with them), no call backs, no email responses, no help with the claim, NADA. Worst office I have ever heard of, they sign you up on plans they don't even know what they cover, they don't ask you to update anything, like our course of construction should've been updated (it's been a 1.5 years).
They are not pro-active, you don't even hear from them, they couldn't care less. If you don't want to pay premium prices and be left out in the rain, then stay far far away from Farmers and especially the Redwood City office in CA.
