American Family Insurance Complaints

by Guest » Thu Jul 03, 2008 10:40 am
Guest

Guys..its truly interesting to see so many people have expressed their grievances at this fraud forum.

It needs a lot of guts to stand against frauds & I'm amazed to see a couple of you have really done that. I still remember the day (Dec, 2003) that my fiance went on to see the American Family Insurance representative & got a car insurance policy for us.

It was quite a shock for me when our car got stolen after that. American Family seemed quite proactive to meet the claim initials as we were to shift from that place the next day.

A couple of days later we were being consulted by their rep about the residue of our claim which according to them could not be met due my fiance's felony conviction since 2 decades. What they had to say was that American Family would not have covered him at all in case they had this information beforehand. They had given us an ultimatum that if he withdraws the claim he would be free or else they would seek legal help & see that he gets a sentence.

In mid-2004, my fiance got convicted of insurance scam. It was evident that the applications submitted by American Family Insurance to the attorney general were fraudulent. Once he recalled the signing procedure, he never remembered the agent asking him about his felony conviction. The agent must have submitted the paper works for which he had obtained my fiance's signature. The applications with us were left blank for those questions. My fiance was up with 1-6 for 2 folds of insurance fraud..I haven't read much about the american family insurance complaints but any advice would be of great help to people under such circumstances!

Thanx.. Amy_LV

Total Comments: 90

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:33 am Post Subject:

Cooljerk, good morning and welcome to the community..

I'm sorry you are having trouble with a claim, could you explain your circumstances better, so maybe we can get a better understanding and maybe even offer some suggestion for a remedy...Also there are good and fine people that work for the American Family insurance settlement process, apparently you feel you haven't run into any yet, but I assure you ALL the people that work there do not feel this way....

Please enlighten us to the circumstances surrounding your claim so we have a clearer understanding of your issue with them..

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:42 am Post Subject: american family insurance

They had acted in a way that they were not afraid to earn a bad name by losing clients..I have discontinued both of my auto policies as well as my home insurance for a $100 worth of claim since I saw the worth of my vehicle was $100 more than the NADA list. Even after pursuing different appraisals the last thing demanded was NADA. They were least concerned about the NADA value since they were up on the worth of the after-market parts. Even when I'd produced invoices for all of them, American Family Insurance behaved as if it was out of their kindness & not responsibility that they were working for it. They won't let me achieve my pre-cash condition ever..at least thats what I gotta believe till date. Cooljerk49

Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 10:54 am Post Subject:

Yupp, I'd quite agree when you say that they are selfish..
My first cousin Barbara had collided with someone who had been insured with Am Fam. Her state didn't mandate insurance laws. I'd heard of her insurance initially but I believe she dropped it eventually due to her financial condition. The mishap occurred at the end of illinois. The lady coming from the front got disillusioned of a green turn arrow, drew in front of her making it inevitable for the cars to clash.

The oppressor got a ticket for whatever she did & apologized at the court of law. Following that event Am Fam had denied my cousin any coverage towards the car repairs which got totalled. While confronting the adjuster she came to know that her carrier is of the belief that she had probably crossed a red light & was the party at-fault. I 'd come to know from her that Am Fam had even requested her to feed for the damages worth spent by them towards covering their client.
thanks for sharing your american family insurance complaints.. Pierre-LBersky

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 03:46 am Post Subject: American Family Insurance Scam - Homeowners Insurance Policy

We just received notification that our homeowners policy is going to be cancelled. Not the American Family itself but by a call from our agent! We have had 3 claims. 2 claims for trees hitting our home from severe wind storms. We actually purchased a wind/hail policy for this very coverage. The 3rd claim was due to our pipes freezing when the roof was off of our house this past December/January in negative 15 degree weather. This claim was due to the 2nd claim of the tree. According to our policy, acts of god/nature are considered non-chargable and therefore will have not adverse impact on our policy. However, they are now stating that due to the amount of claims they are dropping us. Tell me how can you say it's not counted against you in one sentence and then recant it in the next? I have contacted the Oregon Insurance Board and various comsumer/insurance watch groups. When we will say enough is enough? We pay for a service, but as soon as you use that service they drop you for using it! Tell me how this falls under that Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing Act? Who will hold these companies accountable for their unethical actions? :evil:

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 04:25 am Post Subject:

I've been watching this thread since it's inception, and now I have to say something. Actually a few things...when have I ever said "one" thing?

First off, I am still trying to understand what the heck some of the posters in this thread are trying to say. The use of the English language in this thread is doing nothing but confusing me, and I'm having an impossible time figuring out what the heck the OP is asking, or not, or kind of asking, or tripping over herself. OP- we're still trying to find out what's up here to see if we can help you...please answer the other questions posted by Lori and tcope...they're pieces of info we need to assist. We have a ton of expertise here but we can't do anything unless you fill us in.

OK...help me out posters. What do these statements, taken from various posts in this thread, actually mean?

I'm quite sure that for such cases, the agents must have fake names.



What??? Are you suggesting that the agents are using aliasis to obtain their insurance license? I kinda don't think that's gonna happen...as a matter of fact...it's NOT gonna happen.

I hv this feeling that your husband probably filled up those papers which Am Fam had with them.



What??? I have no idea what this means...could you explain please? Are you saying that the husband did fill out the "papers he had" with "them" being the insurance agent? In other words, he filled out the paperwork in the presence of the agent?

I somehow get this feeling that the carrier was composed in itself...& was trying to offer you more time to get out of the fault.



What??? Are you suggesting that AmFam was thinking about what was going on and offered the insured more time to change his mind about filing a claim?

Then how do they plan to get you back to your pre-cash condition?



Did you mean "pre-loss" condition, as in indemnification?

Her state didn't mandate insurance laws.



All states mandate insurance laws, every one. Did you mean to say that the state didn't "enforce" the law? If that's the case, usually that means that no law was broken and there isn't anything to enforce. I ain't buyin' it.

The mishap occurred at the end of illinois. The lady coming from the front got disillusioned of a green turn arrow, drew in front of her making it inevitable for the cars to clash.



Do you mean in the southern end of Illinois? Do you mean she didn't see the green arrow, or the green arrow disappointed her in some way?

The oppressor got a ticket for whatever she did & apologized at the court of law. Following that event Am Fam had denied my cousin any coverage towards the car repairs which got totalled. While confronting the adjuster she came to know that her carrier is of the belief that she had probably crossed a red light & was the party at-fault. I 'd come to know from her that Am Fam had even requested her to feed for the damages worth spent by them towards covering their client. thanks for sharing your american family insurance complaints



Whether or not the "oppressor" got a ticket has absolutely no bearing on the matter other than to possibly establish an element of negligence. Am Fam would NOT deny a claim "following that event." If you mean that the insurer wouldn't pay for the other's car's damages, that would only occur if Am Fam and the other carrier had agreed on liability. It's really unusual that company will deny liability or physical damage coverage without truly establishing negligence. Remember, my response is based on a pure guess of what you stated. Finally, if a company pays on behalf of their client and it's the other guy's fault, they have the absolute legal right to seek recovery from the at-fault party. This is normally paid by the insurer, assuming coverage was in effect.

Whew....I'm exhausted. I also have a feeling that my answers had nothing to do with the poster's intent.

InsTeacher 8)

Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2009 04:36 am Post Subject:

Pam, I empathise with you but you can hardly say that it's an unethical action from the part of the insurer. Unfortunately, the insurer can decide to discontinue the service they are providing if you become a high risk to cover.

Were all these claims filed within a short period of time? How long have you been insured with American Family?

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 07:17 am Post Subject: American Family

I work for this company. They are the worst I've ever seen for claims. coverage, ect... They do many things to get out of paying their insureds. They also fire agents right before ten years of service so they do not have to pay them on policies. They tell the agents that they are independant contractors and then they do not pay for their health insurance, but treat us as if we are employees. I am not happy with this company!

Posted: Mon Nov 16, 2009 12:09 pm Post Subject:

They tell the agents that they are independant contractors and then they do not pay for their health insurance,

An independent contractor would not have their health coverage paid for, so I don't get your point.

Posted: Tue Nov 17, 2009 06:09 am Post Subject:

I can't believe that I'm actually commenting on this thread again. I particularly take offense at this comment, and I have nothing to do with AmFam:

I work for this company. They are the worst I've ever seen for claims. coverage, ect... They do many things to get out of paying their insureds. They also fire agents right before ten years of service so they do not have to pay them on policies.



The "worst you've ever seen." How many insurers have you actually worked for? Could you enlighten me with your vast experience with the thousands of insurers that operate in this country? Let me give you some statistics on problems associated with insurers, and then I'll give you the website where I found these stats so you can look at them yourself.

Would you agree that complaints that are filed and found to be valid would be a good indicator of the "worst" companies? In a lot of areas this would be a correct assumption, but like any statistic- can be misconstrued. Consider these complaint indices:

Assumption: The base line is "1.00" for these statistics. The complaint index provides a way to compare insurance companies. Because the average is always measured as 1.00, a complaint index of 1.00 means the insurer's share of confirmed complaints is equal to its share of business in Oregon. A complaint index of 2.00 means that the company's share of confirmed complaints is twice as large as its share of business. In other words, twice as bad as the 1.00.

Here are some popular insurers:

Allstate: 1.38
Farmers: 1.05
GEICO: 1.19
State Farm Mutual: .56
Progressive: 3.38

American Family: 1.02


Yeah...AmFam is just terrible. They're basically "average." Here's the link to the website if you don't believe me:

http://insurance.oregon.gov/publications/consumer/annual_complaintreports/2007/complaint_stats-2007.pdf

Normally coverage is only declined because of one simply reason: there's no coverage. Insurers are not commonly guilty of denying a claim just because they don't want to pay. A court would rip them a new one and the state insurance department won't allow it. Gimme a break.

Finally, about firing an agent before their 10th anniversary. Severing a contract prior to vesting is uncommon and must normally be accompanied by some legal breach. If carriers got away with chopping off an agent's legal rights to the value of their contracts immediately prior to getting vested, they'd end up get clobbered in court eventually.

Now, if you have proof of what you're claiming- show it. I mean proof, not just some stories that you've heard from office morons that are gossiping and spreading rumor and innuendo. Show me proof and I will shut up and get the heck out of this thread.

InsTeacher 8)

Posted: Fri Nov 20, 2009 01:29 pm Post Subject: American Family

As an "independent" agent contractor individuals own their book of business and they do not have to attend required meetings which include district meetings, award ceremonies, product classes, ect...

American Family makes all of these required by the agent and calls them independant contractors to get out of paying benefits.

Many insurance companies do this to their agents. It should be illegal for the agents to have to pay double their social security and not get paid for their time.

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