Caution - Stay away from Stonegate Insurance
I tried to save some money going with Stonegate Insurance and it just bit me in the @ss...
I had an accident in the end of January and they still have not given me a settlement on my damages... They inspected the car two weeks after the accident and after making many calls and trying to be patient, I have now lost my patience with them...
My rental car coverage was only for 30 days and now I am going on two months and they are not agreeing to cover the extra rental car coverage even though they have been the hold up...
With eating the cost of the extra month of rental car insurance alone, I could have went with a better insurance carrier... Not to mention that they only pay $28 per hour for body shop labor when the going rate is $52 per hour...
I have to return the rental car next week and they still have not issued me a settlement check.. I finally got their offer and had my brother look it over... My brother is an insurance adjuster for one of the more popular insurance carriers and found about 6 - 7 items that they left off of the estimate...
They are only writing it up for "recycled parts" ie: I have to go to junkyards and buy used parts instead of using new and they left a few issues off of the estimate:
1. Bumper bar is body color no paint time
2. no overhaul of front bumper
3. no refinish hood underside of R&I of insulator
4. no edging of fender
5. pull should be at frame rate
6. missing time to aim headlamps and fog lamps
7. since no blends how about color tint time
Now they want to schedule another look at the car next week with me... This will be the third time that they have looked at it... How many times does it take to get an accurate repair... Besides most of what we brought up is standard blending when using recycled parts and they need to be painted/blended to match the rest of the car since they are a different color than mine...
THey originally looked at the car two weeks after the accident... After not hearing back from them after two more weeks, I called and asked what the status was... I got a call on that Friday from an 'estimator' from that company and he said that they did not write down the mileage when they looked at the car originally... I told him that it had around 120 or 125 k miles on it and he said that 120 k was good enough for him...
That next Monday I got a phone mail from him asking me for the mileage on my car... WTF??? We just took care of that last Friday...
So then at six weeks after the accident they had to go to the body shop and have someone take a picture of the dash with the mileage on it... It still took another week and a half and many phone calls to get the first round estimate...
Since I want to use my own body man and not one of their 'fly by night lowball' shops, I will have to take a one time only payout and no other adjustments will be allowed... So I need to be sure that they cover all the work necessary as anything that is missed will come out of my pocket along with the difference on labor rate that they do not cover...
I have requested to talk to a manager many times and they only relay the message to the adjuster and the manager does not call back... I finally left a voice mail for the manager to call me herself to discuss this and finally got a call back today... She will not agree to cover the extra rental car and leaves a vague statement that I have to submit the receipt for the rental car... That's fine, but I can't get the receipt for the rental car until I turn it in at the end of next week as the rental company has a limit on how long that you can keep a rental car...
So I have to cover the whole rental car cost until I submit the receipt and they get around to paying me with no promise to cover the extra month of coverage....
My brother has told me that his company issues settlement checks within 4 days of inspecting the car at the most, there is no need for it to take many weeks...
There should not be a need to inspect the car again as we are only pointing out that they need to cover the cost of labor and paint to match the different color body panels to the ones on the car... ie: If the hood that we use is gold in color and my car is silver, the bottom of the hood needs to match the top of the hood and rest of the car, same with using a recycled fender, the inside door jam area needs to be painted so it matches the rest of the car...
They are also quoting the frame pull for the frame that holds the front bumper at their low ball shop labor rate instead of frame pull labor rate which is more...
I am also considering contacting the state insurance board and BBB concerning this matter...
Don't make the same mistake that I did and don't get lured in by the lower premium, as if you need to make a claim that will be eaten up with their low ball labor rate and lack of performance in settling the claim in a timely manner... It will cost you more with their delays and lack of paying current labor rates where the better shops will not work at....
