After 18 years of paying for homeowners’ insurance with State Farm and not filing ANY claims, they will not fix my hail damaged roof. RUN AWAY!!
I am so disgusted. I have had my homeowner’s policy with State Farm for 18 years. I have never filed a claim. I have paid at least $30,600 in premiums during this amount of time to have my home insured. In September 2020, after saving for a year, I put a $7,500+ brand new roof on my entire house and garage. I immediately let State Farm know of this upgrade to my home. On April 4, 2023, our whole town and many nearby towns experienced a huge hailstorm. At this point my roof was not even three years old. Our whole house sustained significant damage. I had my roofer come over and assess the damage. When he found out our homeowner’s insurance was through State Farm, he was sad for me because he said they are terrible when a roof needs to be fixed. I guess he has experienced this in the past. Buckle up…
Upon trying to file a claim, I had significant trouble getting someone to come look at my house. When they finally did come, I made sure that my roofer was there. He showed them ALL the damage to my entire house (roof, siding, gutters, chimney, deck, garage door). At one point while on the roof, the State Farm adjustor told my roofer that he could stop circling all the roof damage because he could see there was significant damage. He also agreed to all the other home damage. So, I awaited the report.
The report stated that my home sustained damage to the vinyl siding (all sides), all aluminum downspouts, deck sheathing, deck finish, & deck handrails. For that damage, I would be given $3,600. What?? I had collected a pile of chimney debris that broke off during the storm. They said that wasn’t caused by hail. Hmmm. There was also significant circular damage to our gutters, but the hail apparently targeted only the downspouts??? Plus, the magic hail didn’t damage my roof!!!! What??? Upon calling the adjustor, he told me word for word that, “The HAIL damage on your roof wasn’t caused by hail.” That was some magic hail! How did it damage everything else and NOT anything on the roof??? I insisted that the roof was damaged and needed to be covered. They sent a second adjustor.
Again, I made sure that my roofer was on hand to point out the obvious damage. The adjustor agreed that there was roof damage but that it was because the roof was installed wrong…?? No. Still upset, they decided to send an engineer. This report took a very long time to receive. Sadly, the report is FULL of lies. For one, they said that I was unable to tell them how old the roof was. Seriously? They have it documented. There were MANY more lies…
Super long and frustrating story later… State Farm will not replace my roof. There is OBVIOUS damage. This is what insurance is for. I am absolutely disgusted and dismayed. I am an honest and hardworking person. I work in a public facing role, and I share my State Farm experience with many people. Seems like it would have been easier for them to do the right thing.
During this experience, upon calling an independent adjustor/lawyer, I found out that insurance companies in Michigan can legally cheat their customers with no recourse. None. You can sue and the most you can get after paying a ton for lawyers and fees is for the insurance company to pay for the repairs that they should have covered to begin with. That is not possible for many hardworking people. It’s very wrong and absolutely sickening.
David Smith (Caledonia, MI), I see that you respond to your Google Reviews. Please don’t even bother to respond to this one. Opening your mouth will just mean that more lies come out. You could have done the right thing. You know this is wrong. You know the report is full of lies. I don’t understand people who treat others as you do. How do you live with yourself? Absolutely disgusted. My kids have learned and now repeat often, “Like a bad neighbor, State Farm’s NOT there.”