State Farm Insurance/ Kim Lego Agent Total loss vehicle undervalued by $1,000.00 Jacksonville Florida

My daughter's Infiniti G-35 was totaled in a flood. We were paid about $4,000 more than expected. My sister in law's Toyota was totaled...and had the same feeling. State Farm considers the sales tax, fees, and every other factor. If you were undervalued by $1,000 for that old heap, I doubt you could have given away the car.

 First State Farm doesn't use NADA and your numbers are way off from their offer. Secondly, they supposedly queried 500 vehicles and came up with an average mileage of 112,000 for my 12 year old car. This was the reason for the "high mileage" deduction. My reaserch using two well known online sources each had 12 pages (approx 80 vehicles per page) of 2001 Impalas and averaging the first 2 and last 2 pages the mileage was just under 150,000. Had I gotten into the rest of the listings it no doubt would have climbed significantly. Third, it is fair to use the agent's name because she has made alot of money off of my premiums for years exploiting the State Farm logo to her advantage so she is responsible as well. Finally, they flatly REFUSE to verify their numbers citing confidentiality from their 3rd part provider. The only way they would prove their numbers was under Supenea! I even told them I would fully accept their findings and their check if they would just show me! They refused!

State of Florida Department of Financial Services, Division of Consumer Services  Letter:

April 16, 2013

Re: Service Request Number: 1-765833044

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

Dear Mr.T:

Thank you for contacting the Department of Financial Services, Division of Consumer Services regarding your auto insurance claim.

We contacted State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company regarding their estimate of the value and the deduction for mileage. State Farm is maintaining their position that the average mileage for a 2001 model year vehicle in your same category (full-size domestic) averaged 773 miles per month on average, which equates to 112,858 mileage for your vehicle.

They further state that this information was provided by their third party vendor, Auto Source, who relied on Audatex for this information. They further state that Audatex verified odometer readings from 533 vehicles.

The Auto Source report that State Farm provided to our department does not support their position and State Farm was unable to provide documentation to support their decision. After a careful review of the information presented, we regret to inform you that the Division has exhausted its efforts to bring your concern to a satisfactory conclusion. If you wish to pursue this matter further, you may wish to speak with an attorney to determine if legal recourse is available.

As part of the complaint handling process, we have informed one or more areas of the Department about possible regulatory issues presented in your file. The review of your concern is a confidential process that examines the regulated party’s actions as they relate to various statutes and administrative laws. Legally, they cannot disclose the scope or nature of their review to either you or our Division. They will only contact you if they need information beyond what is contained in your consumer complaint file. If you have additional information concerning this matter, please forward it directly to me and reference the above Service Request Number.

Thank you for the opportunity to be of assistance. For additional information on insurance or financial matters, please visit us on the web at www.myfloridacfo.com/Division/Consumers.

First off, your state farm agent doesn't make these decisions, the claims department does. So its kind of unfair to list him in the title like hes the bad guy. By looking up your 2001 impala with 170,000 miles in the NADA guides this is what it says:

Statefarm is closer to NADA guides than kelly blue book. The way state farm comes up to its values is it looks at the average for what has been paid out for your car in the past. They should have sent you documentation of this valuation. Why do you disagree with what they gave you? Because you feel like it is worth more? or do you have evidence that it is worth more? 170,000 miles is a LOT of miles for an american car. I would give it less than 100,000 more before it dies. Being a high mileage vehicle I'd rate the car as a average trade in IF everything else in the car was pristine. If not then it would be rough.

State Farm's claim of average mileage was 112,857 for the 12 year total (9405 per year or 784 per month).  

It is irrelevant how much they say the value was and I can assure you it was more than $2,800.00. The fact remains they stated the valuation was reduced by $1,000.00 because of 'High Mileage" and all research showed that was not true including the State of Florida acknowledging State Farms "research"did not support their devaluation of my vehicle. Basically and in no uncertain terms they falsified their numbers to pay less for my vehicle.  

 How much did they offer you, what do you think you should get, and where were you getting your values from?

As in doing a search for the Blue Book Value to purchase the vehicle, it was valued anywhere from $2200-$3200 for a vehicle in excellent(very few actually meet this criteria) condition to $1200-$2200 for a vehicle in fair condition depending on the exact options of the car.  If they are going off of the trade-in value, to find what your car is "worth".  Then deduct about 25%-33% off of the above values.

Another important question is who was at fault for the accident?  If you were not at fault, then you need to go after the other driver in court.  But in court the judge will want to see how you get to your values as well.