I experienced a major fire loss at my home on 12/5/2011. As of 3/21/2012, Country Financial still has not settled my claim. Though Country Financial and I are in dispute concerning the estimate of work for the dwelling (structure), due to that, Country Financial has refused to settle the claim for personal property (contents). I was informed by industry experts that dwelling and personal property are separate, one has nothing to do with the other and therefore my personal property claim should have been settled months ago. Additionally, Country Financial has yet to pay the vendors who boarded up my property, cleaned and restored my clothes and furniture, and inventoried and store my salvageable items, and inventoried my non-salvageable items. Finally, Country Financial has stopped paying the gas and electric bills at the property even though they instructed me to keep on the utility services and they would be responsible for paying the bills.
Consumer Complaints & Reviews
On June 18, 2011 we have had a house fire. Country Financial has treated this as an incendiary fire. We have complied in a timely manner to all there requests, submitted to an examination under oath and are now waiting for their decision. It has been 7 months of pure emotional hell. We feel they are stalling for time and making us feel that we are at fault.
They have been asking questions that were irrelevant to the claim. There has never been a claim on our policy ever since 1993 when it was purchased. We are financially sound. Our credibility is excellent and we are responsible to pay all our commitments on time. There is no security and peace of mind with Country Financial. We feel like they are in bad faith because they are grasping for straws as to deny our claim. They have everything they need to file this claim and resolve it, or we will end up in litigation.
It all began when I was in the job market and was contacted by Country Financial HR, as my profile matched the job description for the Financial Advisor/Agent opening in the Oklahoma City office. I invested time into application and background check information and started the interviewing process. Well, this was the most obnoxious experience ever. The initial interview with office manager, then interview with district manager, then follows up interviews, combined interview, the final interview. Overall, I probably had 6-7 interviews and wasted well over a month for them jerking me around. Finally, they extended the offer to me and requested some additional info and payment of $205.25 for processing application with FINRA.
While reading all the documents provided, I already noticed discrepancy, as it was saying about the fees being deducted from each paycheck in installment. I thought how weird that they are asking me for an upfront payment. So I just wrote them a check, thought it's not that big of a deal. I started waiting and in about 2 weeks, they called and asked to come by yet again, as additional info was needed. It resulted in them asking to fill out another form and another payment of $95 to them. At that point, I thought I better start working soon and making some money, as I was just writing checks left and right.
After a week or so they called again and invited over for another yet interview on the phone with some even "bigger boss" from corporate. I was furious at that point, but went to chat with him anyways. Needless to say that the guy was a complete jerk and didn't sound respectful and made me feel like the company is just making a huge favor to me, by giving such a "great" opportunity. I didn't feel good after that interview at all! So guess what? After another week they called me and left the message about company changing their hiring plan and they were not going to hire me anymore. Imagine my reaction to that, after being jerked around for two months.
Actually, I was surprisingly happy to hear such news, as I couldn't even imagine working for such a messed up company. My only concern at that point was getting my money back, since nothing happened. I let them know that I'd like to get my $300 back ASAP and they promised to call me back when they find out all the details. They ignored me and only emailed me back, after I was bombarding them with calls and e-mails every day. You know what they told me though? That these application fees afire nonrefundable and there is nothing to do about this situation. Great business - nothing was done, no applications were filed, I didn't get the job, and I lost tons of precious time and some money, which I could well use for my family! I can imagine poor people that do business with them on every day basis! If they ever call you for any reason or if you see their name, please beware, you might get ripped off!
It all began when I was in the job market and was contacted by Country Financial HR, as my profile matched the job description for the Financial Advisor/Agent opening in the Oklahoma City office. I invested time into application and background check information and started the interviewing process. Well, this was the most obnoxious experience ever--initial interview with office manager, interview with district manager, follow-up interviews, combined interview, and the final interview. Overall, I probably had six to seven interviews and wasted well over a month for them jerking me around. Finally, they extended the offer to me and requested some additional information and payment of $205.25 for the processing application with FINRA.
While reading all the documents provided, I already noticed discrepancy, as it was saying about the fees being deducted from each paycheck in installment. I thought, how weird that they are asking me for an upfront payment. So, I just wrote them a check, and thought that it was not that big of a deal. Then, I started waiting. In about two weeks, they called and asked to come by yet again, as additional information was needed. It resulted in them asking to fill out another form and another payment of $95 to them.
At that point, I thought that I better start working soon and make some money, as I was just writing checks left and right. After a week or so, they called again and invited over for another interview on the phone with some even "bigger boss" from corporate. I was furious at that point, but went to chat with him anyway. Needless to say, that the guy was a complete jerk and didn't sound respectful. He made me feel like the company is just making a huge favor to me, by giving such a "great" opportunity. I didn't feel good after that interview at all!
So, guess what? After another week, they called me and left the message about the company changing their hiring plan and that they were not going to hire me anymore. Imagine my reaction to that, after being jerked around for two months. Actually, I was surprisingly happy to hear such news, as I couldn't even imagine working for such a messed up company. My only concern at that point was getting my money back, since nothing happened. I let them know that I would like to get my $300 back as soon as possible and they promised to call me back when they find out all the details.
They ignored me and only emailed me back after I bombarded them with calls and emails everyday. You know what they told me, though? That these application fees are nonrefundable and there is nothing to do about this situation. Great business--nothing was done, no applications were filed, I didn't get the job, and I lost tons of precious time and some money that I could well use for my family! I can imagine poor people that do business with them on a daily basis! If they ever call you for any reason or if you see their name, please beware that you might get ripped off!
My shotgun and several tools were stolen out of the back of my SUV. I had receipt for gun and gun options, but not for tools. The tools are Snap On brand and very costly, but great tools. The total amount of claims was $5,500.00. After five months of SIU investigations and a statement under oath at an attorney's office, the settlement offer was $1500.00 after 75% betterment was taken. I have been an insurance adjuster for several years, for a different company. I have never seen anybody treated so badly. I gave them proof of loss, police reports, and sworn under oath statements. They still treated me like a criminal, and they are trying to ** me out of money due to me. My family has several policies with Country company. I am in the process of changing all of this to State Farm asap.
I met with an agent and filled out an application for insurance. The agent advised us at that time that he would be completing the policy at his office and would need to first collect more information from our banks, where we have loans (auto/home) and would then get back to us for a quote on the policy. After he left, we canceled our policies thinking he was handling things on his end. After a few days of not hearing anything back, we began to call and email him asking what was going on. No reply. We began getting calls form our banks that we had no insurance and that they were going to start charging us. We called and emailed several times and find out that he left the company immediately after meeting with us and never let us know he was leaving or even give us another point of contact.
I just left us in the dark with our paperwork incomplete. At that point, angry and frustrated, we decided to hell with them and went back to our previous insurer. Now country insurance is threatening to send us to collection for $400 saying we owe them for coverage we never received. They say they show coverage on their end even though they admit they never contacted our banks or even collected the bank information from us nor did they ever give us an actual final quote after collecting our information. They just went ahead without our knowledge or consent or approval and "supposedly" opened a policy and began to charge us even though we never got nor did our banks. Run, don't walk, run away from this company!
This letter is to serve as a formal complaint against Country Insurance and Financial Services. We lost our home to an electrical fire on Thanksgiving morning, November 23, 2006. The fire retardant in the cellulose insulation broke down around the electrical outlet. The wires became too hot and the insulation ignited. The inside of the walls were on fire before we even knew what was happening. We have yet to receive full payment for the reconstruction of our home.
Our adjuster offered us a price to rebuild our home which was less than half of the actual replacement cost. He insinuated that my husband, the original builder of the home, was not helpful in generating this price. Bear in mind they refused to allow us to buy blueprints and they were advised by my husband that the footprint the adjuster was working off of was inaccurate. It was at this point my husband proceeded to walk sub contractors through our burnt down, shell of a home and provided our adjsuterwith an accurate bid.
Our adjusters and we sat in Country Insurance's office one afternoon and agreed to a dollar amount. There were some small disagreements still but overall, everyone was satisfied. My husband was given permission to rebuild our home and on those line items we could not agree on, we were advised by the adjusters to turn in the bills and he would see what he could do. Obviously, through this process, we learned that our home was underinsured. This meant that the percentage allowed to replace the contents of the home was also too low.
Our agent walked our residence, was shown all of the contents and he advised us that he would provide insurance to cover the full replacement cost of the contents as well as the house itself. We trusted his expert opinion and bought the insurance. We had no idea we were not covered as he had advised. Since this was not acceptable, we hired an attorney to help negotiate the contents percentage. We were advised by our agent to simply sue his underinsured for the difference. This is what we have done.
By doing so, however, we have opened ourselves up to the long arm of the insurance company and they have failed to respond to our continued requests through case conference meetings. In some instances, the lawyer fails to even appear. We have no legal recourse for their failure to appear or negotiate in good faith-- no way to demand sanctions.
We have since advised Country Insurance that we will go to a jury trial. We are the innocent victims here; we have lost our family pet, our home, and all of our belongings including memories and photos that can never be replaced. We have no idea why they have chosen to dishonor the verbal agreement we had with our adjusters in regards to the replacement cost of the home other than the fact that we are questioning the contents percentage. We have complied with requests for documentation--we both even took EUO's at the time of the loss, even though there was no doubt as to how the fire started.
The last contact with Country's attorney was a bribe and a threat--they offered $20,000.00 to close this matter or they would produce a witness who said we asked a contractor to inflate his bill to fraud the insurance company. We are honest people. We can bring witness after witness to testify to that. We requested the statement of the witness and questioned why they had not produced them earlier and why offer anything if they feel we are not being completely transparent.
Our attorney is doing what he can but at the tune of $200 per hour we have invested $13,000 to try and get our home rebuilt. We are paying a mortgage and rent and two insurance bills for both places. We cannot figure out what else to do to get back in our home. It will be three years...
