E-mail to FarmersInsuranceGroupSucks

Hi,

This is a letter that I sent to Jim Nelson an attorney in Albany, Oregon concerning my dealings with Farmers Insurance.  I would love to get in on a class action law suit against Farmers Insurance.  Keep me posted.

 Sincerely;

Cindy Jansen
Cindyannjansen@yahoo.com

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Mr. Jim Nelson,

My name is Cindy Jansen and I spoke to you on Monday September 13, 2004 concerning Farmers Insurance case #10051752393, and CCC Auto Scope.

July 10, 2004 my son was involved in an accident with my 1999 Toyota Corolla LE. The accident involved one other vehicle, also insured through Farmers Insurance. My car was not drivable and was towed from the scene to Best Towing in Springfield, OR. The car was than towed to AA Insurance Auto Auction sometime during the week of July 12, to July 16, 2004 . Farmers Insurance assigned Brenda Green to evaluate my vehicle. 

I received a call on July 23, 2004 from Mr. Phillip Tritten who was the Total Loss Specialist assigned to my case. According to Brenda Green my car was a total loss. Mr. Tritten said that based on the information that he had received from CCC Auto scope he was ready to offer me $6808.00 for my vehicle, plus $77.50 for DMV/License Fees, less my deductible of $500.00 for a total amount of $6385.50. I was never told what it would cost to repair my vehicle.After I picked my self up off the floor because I owed more on my vehicle than I was being offered, I asked if there was any way I could get copies of the appraisal done by CCC. Mr. Tritten said that he would send me out copies along with the papers to sign for the pay-off, even though I had not accepted his offer.

While waiting for the papers from Mr. Tritten, I was told by a friend not to accept the offer, and was given a name of an independent appraisal company in the Portland, OR area. I contacted Terry Fisher owner of Automobile Appraisal Group on July 27, 2004 He explained to me what his company would do, and went over the cost.>The fee for his service was $195.00. After explaining to Mr. Fisher what I had been offered by Farmers Terry said that that was typically of this insurance company since they use CCC. I decided to hire Mr. Fisher.

Terry Fisher emailed me within a few days with his comparables on my vehicle.The pre-fair market value of my car according to his information was $10,495.00. Quite a bit different than what I had been offered by Farmers.Mr. Fisher than contacted Mr. Tritten and explained to him that he had been hired by me. Mr. Fisher than sent the information on his appraisal to Mr. Tritten at Farmers.

I later called Mr. Tritten at Farmers to make sure that he had gotten all of the information from Mr. Fisher, and he informed me that since I had hired an independent appraiser, that Farmers would do the same. After the two of them spoke, if no agreement was made that the next step would be to get a referee of some sort for the decision. Farmer's insurance group hired Bill Biggs, from Big Block.

A few weeks later I received a call from Monica at Automobile Appraisal Group and she said that Bill Briggs had offered $8700.00 for my vehicle. I could either except that or proceed to the next step which was going to cost me more money to get a referee. I could not afford to spend any more money on this, being that during this whole process I was still making a car payment to Selco Credit Union, as well as my insurance coverage didn’t stop. I decided to go ahead and except the offer even though I knew my car was worth more, I just couldn’t afford to fight this anymore. Not only monetarily, but emotionally as well.

I guess my first question would be, “Why would my car be worth $1892.00 more after HAVING to hire my own appraiser. My car didn’t change any in that time, if anything

It should be worth less due to depreciation. My other concern is that after looking at the report that I received from CCC Value Scope of the 56-57 comparisons there were only 3-4 from the Eugene/Springfield area, which none were car dealers. All were from the Register Guard newspaper. Of the 56/57 only 10 were from dealers, all out of the Portland area. I did call a few of the dealer ships to verify the information and was given the run around. The only actual information that I did receive was from Tony at Gresham Toyota. I called on the 1999 Toyota Corolla CE , stock #044527A. According to Tony the information that I had was nothing like the car. It was a 5 speed not an automatic, had 102,000 miles on it, and no cruise control. He told me it was a very basic model, and it sold for $6595.00.

This whole process has been a nightmare. Farmers Insurance certainly has not worked for me. What I finally got I had to fight for tooth and nail. I do feel very fortunate that nobody was seriously injured in this accident. I can’t imagine having to go through what I have gone through dealing with the stress of a serious injury or worse yet death. At your most vulnerable time is when Farmers takes the biggest advantage of you. This should not be legal. I like most people have paid into insurance companies like Farmers for many years, and expect help when you finally need to use there services, but it seems like that’s not what they want to do. I wonder if the people who work for these companies get kick-backs or commissions from screwing people.

Sincerely,

Cindy Jansen