Toyota Financial Services Toyota GAP Refused to pay GAP insurance claim Cedar Rapids Iowa

Was tricked into buying GAP policy while purchasing used car. Was told that this would pay off ANY remaining balance owed to Capital One Finance in event of total loss of car. I was charged $700. 

On May 3, 2021 I was involved in a rear end collision by a truck. Fortunately not injured. Insurance company policy paid claim promptly. They sent me a letter stating they noticed my purchase had included a GAP policy from Toyota Financial. Both USAA and Capital One offered to assist with any documents needed to make GAP claim. 

I filed agreement number GAP06713359 claim by phone. I was given a list of required items to get payment on May 13,2021. I then contacted Capital One and USAA and gave each a list of required documents and asked each to send what each company was supposed to provide.

At time of loss I owed approx $1500 in car payments. USAA paid Capital One the total amount required to close car loan. This money was taken from my settlement check.  The loan was closed.

On May 18 I contacted Toyota to see if documents were sent by USAA and Capital One. Toyota claimed they did not recieve any yet. They would only accept documents by fax or mail, none electronically.

On about June 8 I called Toyota again. From this point on EVERYTHING was done by Toyota to hold up my claim. From waiting on hold for 20 to 30 minutes, to having to complete every question asked (every call) EACH call, instead of them just asking for agreement number. 

First, their automated system said my agreement number was not valid EVERY call. Then I was always told I was missing documents and this was holding up claim. After hearing this, I immediately contacted USAA and Capital One who said they had sent all requested documents. I called Toyota and told them this. I was placed on hold for 10-15 minutes and then "some" of my documents were suddenly found, but I was told some were still missing.

I asked Toyota what was missing and it was pretty much EVERY document that had already been sent. I contacted USAA and Capital One and told them this. Not only did they re-send the docs, they also called and spoke with Toyota. Toyota claimed some kind of discrepancy with the payout amounts. USAA told me that this had already been explained and accepted by Toyota.

I waited about a week and got a letter from Toyota dated June 4 (was recd. June 14).  This letter said I was still missing 6 items! Once again I called and was on hold from Toyota. After answering the exact same questions every call I told them that those docs hadf now been sent twice. After being on hold, I was then told they just found some, but I was still missing two others. I asked specifically WHAT 2 documents and was given names. 

I called USAA and Capital again and they verified that all docs had been sent and they explained the discrepancy. 

I called Toyota again and having to stay on hold for 20 minutes. I then told them about what was verified as sent and once again after being placed on hold I was told that YES they just found the remaining documents. I asked them if they were sure this time and they said if anything was missing I would get notice by mail. 

On June 16 and 17, I also called for status. Same delay tactic. Then I was told the claim was being sent for final processing.

In total I made 9 calls to Toyota over a period of about 7 weeks. On June 22 I called back asking for status. This call took an hour. Initially I was again told I was missing documents. Once again, ALL documents quickly appeared again after I was placed on hold for 15 minutes. I was then told that someoner would look into this and I would be called back. 

I was called back after some time and told that since USAA had paid Capital the remaining balance of my loan (about $1500) that my loan balance was zero so there was no valid GAP claim. This was done to settle claim and the payments from USAA to Capital were NOT additional benefit, but was taken from my settlement check. They would not budge.

Aside from the fact that Toyota did everything possible to tie up my claim and make me waste HOURS of my time, I'm pretty sure this was all done to run out the clock on me or make me give up. As I read similar horror stories from other people, this appears to be an industry wide scandal. Dealers (who get a cut) push this insurance on most everybody implying that this would make sure I didn't have to pay out of pocket in case of total loss. That was a big lie.