Someone please help, frustrated with insurance company and bank

[JC522]

Okay so last month the insurance payment for 6 months was due on one of our cars and we couldn't get down to the agent to pay it and decided to pay at the bank. All seemed well till a month later I get a notice saying the insurance on one of our cars was overdue.

I called my insurance agent and he said the bank must have screwed up somewhere. I go to the bank and speak to the teller and her manager and they said it has been paid but not to the policy number, to some number that showed up on my bill (I circled it) I asked them why and she said they tried entering the policy number into the computer but the only number that their computer would accept is the one I circled. I called my insurance agent again while at the bank and he said those numbers were meaningless and the bank messed up, I'm getting pretty frustrated with my agent here, the teller even asks to speak to the agent to better explain and my agent replies with "I don't think it will do much good, you have to pay to the policy number because I don't know what those numbers mean." The teller and her manager print out my records for me to bring down to my insurance agents office and I'm on my merry way after half an hour.

I go down to my agents office now to show him in person, he looks at it and says "Ya those numbers don't mean anything to the company" I reply with, "If they're meaningless why are they on the bill? People don't just put numbers somewhere for no reason, they had to come from somewhere." At this point I'm ready to flip on my agent for not being helpful, then his assistant gets on the phone and starts calling the finance guys in the company to try and track down the payment, no luck. She said she'll call me if she hears anything.

Anyone ever been in this situation before, or know how to handle this or what to do? No one seems to know where my payment went

[Khyron]

If State farm has accepted the funds from the bank then you don't need to talk to the bank IMO. SF needs to track it down. It has to be in their system, not your fault if it got misfiled. If that number was truely garbage then I would have expected SF to have rejected the payment but since they accepted it, it's their ball.

[TomcoPDR]

what a bad neighbour

[three.eighteen.]

yeah insurance brokers are typically incompetent

[Masked Bandit]

Originally posted by three.eighteen.
yeah insurance brokers are typically incompetent

A State Farm AGENT is not a BROKER. They work just for State Farm.

I would have to agree though that your State Farm AGENT doesn't understand their own accounts departments. With most of the companies we BROKER for, the number used to pay online/over the phone is not the policy number. Sometimes it has the policy number built into it, but it usually is a separate "account" number. I think you did the right thing.

I think I may know what happened. When I went onto my own online banking I searched "State Farm" to add as a payee. There were four different options. If the teller sent your payment through to the wrong division, that may be why your AGENT can't find your payment. I've seen that before with ING. A customer will list the wrong division of ING and it takes forever to track the money down.

Good Luck!

Remember, BROKER > AGENT.
(yes, that was a shameless plug)

[VaN_HaMMeRSTeiN]

I found your problem, you are insured with statefarm.


I know it doesn't help, but these guys are bastards.

[BlackArcher101]

I fail to see why this is State Farms fault?

When paying bills via a bank, either online or via teller, it's common practice to enter the account number, ID, or policy number in order to send the payment. If it's not included, then it sits in la-la land. Entering random numbers on a bill doesn't mean it will get there, even if they were on the bill in the first place.

AFAIK, if a bill payment goes missing with BMO, I have to initiate an investigation request, giving the payment ref and other info. The bank will then track it down, but could take up to 15 days. They will eventually find where that payment went somehow. Just remember that it's not State Farm that initially screwed up, so don't lose your cool on them.

[borN]

Which bank is it? I know some banks have something called a bill payment reversal, which many people do in the event that the wrong account number was paid or the wrong amount. With Scotiabank for example, they would send off a faxed request from their central accounting department for a payment reversal to any company excluding visa's, and usually that takes 7-10 business days. :\

[bignerd]

Sounds like the money went to some main office or account of Statefarms without your account number on it and no one knows where or who to credit it too... Your agent needs to call the accounting department there somewhere and have them look for a credit of that amount sitting around somewhere un-accounted for.

[three.eighteen.]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit



A State Farm AGENT is not a BROKER. They work just for State Farm.

I would have to agree though that your State Farm AGENT doesn't understand their own accounts departments. With most of the companies we BROKER for, the number used to pay online/over the phone is not the policy number. Sometimes it has the policy number built into it, but it usually is a separate "account" number. I think you did the right thing.

I think I may know what happened. When I went onto my own online banking I searched "State Farm" to add as a payee. There were four different options. If the teller sent your payment through to the wrong division, that may be why your AGENT can't find your payment. I've seen that before with ING. A customer will list the wrong division of ING and it takes forever to track the money down.

Good Luck!

Remember, BROKER > AGENT.
(yes, that was a shameless plug)

we do not make that distinction where i work , you all fit into the dummy pile...btw its intact now

[JC522]

Don't get me wrong I'm not mad with state farm, I'm pissed at my agent. When I went in he didn't get on his computer, get on the phone, or do anything actually. He circled the number on my bill and said he had no idea where those numbers are from and that they're meaningless. His assistant was the one that got on the phone trying to track it down.

Ya we had to use the scotiabank bill reversal on our other car which we paid same method (through the teller) a week before I got nptice my last payment wasn't accepted. When I talked to state farm iver the phone they didn't receive payment for the suv yet either so the bank manager did a bill reversal for that one but not sure why not for this car.

[Amysicle]

Just curious, but was there an option of paying by cheque (policy number in the memo line) and just mailing it to your agent? I realize it may take 2-3 business days. (Call me old fashioned, but that's what I would have done if online banking didn't work.)

[em2ab]

Easy. Put your insurance company and the bank on a 3 way call and get it figured out.

[2Valve0]

If it's happened before wouldn't you think to learn the right procedure to make it not happen again?
Anyways that agent seems like a retard and would file a complaint for not knowing about his own company.

[JC522]

well i didn't know it had happened by the time I paid for my second car. Basically series of events went like this: Paid for first car's insurance at the bank (jul 20), Paid for second car's insurance a month later (Aug 20), get home checked mail and saw a letter saying first car's insurance payment had not been recieved yet. It was after 4 so they were closed, called and left a msg and got a call back next day. Wasn't even the agent that called me and explained, it was his assistant. If I knew how much of a headache this would have turned out to be, I would have made time to go to the agent personally like I usually do to pay the bill directly to them.

Thank goodness for bill reversal or else I'd be dealing with this again with the second car.

[JC522]

Originally posted by em2ab
Easy. Put your insurance company and the bank on a 3 way call and get it figured out.

I tried that while I was at the bank trying to sort it out from their end. The teller and the manager asked me to call my insurance agent to try to figure out what those numbers meant and then they offered to speak with him and that's when he said "I don't think that'll help much blah blah blah"


Also on my bank statements that they printed out it says on jul 20 "BR Bill payment state farm auto insurance". I'm not sure if that means that state farm accepted the payment or not but I gave a copy of it to my agent's assistant to better help her do my agent's job

[Masked Bandit]

Originally posted by three.eighteen.


we do not make that distinction where i work , you all fit into the dummy pile...btw its intact now

I know it's Intact, but the general public still identifies with ING, that's why I used it.

Are you in the industry?

[three.eighteen.]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit


I know it's Intact, but the general public still identifies with ING, that's why I used it.

Are you in the industry?

yeah i'm a facility underwriting peon...so i guess that's why i identify state farm agents as brokers...

[JC522]

Get a call this morning saying they found the money. An hour later I get a call back saying the money they found was actually for the second car, it had been applied to my policy but since my agent told me it was lost and I did the bill reversal they had to take it out of my policy. Theyre still missing my money for the integra, and said maybe the second time I paid at the bank that I got a teller that knew what they were doing and that's why they recieved the funds for the second car. I actually had the same teller both times though.

[sputnik]

Originally posted by Masked Bandit
Remember, BROKER > AGENT.
(yes, that was a shameless plug)

Except for the fact that most brokers choose the insurance companies that give them the best commission instead of the ones that give you the best rate.

I worked with a broker when I first moved to Calgary and it only took a couple simple searches online to realize that I was paying $1200/year more than I had to.

Brokers FTL.