Customer ReviewsforState Farm Insurance John Shaffer

I own a hemp company that is also a bar selling beer and wine. I was insured through John Shaffer State Farm for both my restaurant policy and an auto policy. I am opening a new location in Tallahassee and prior to opening I had been working with Cade since May to get insured for our new location. Just before opening for our soft opening the first Friday of June, I called the insurance company back because I had not received any information from Cade about my insurance. He told me that I was covered under the “new” insurance plan while we were in underwriting. This ended up not being true. After our soft opening I tried reaching back out to Cade multiple times but had no luck so I called the 1-800 number. They said it looked like our policy was only in the quote phase and not underwriting at all. They said they would send a notice to the John’s agency to contact me first thing. Well I was not contacted first thing so again I called the local agency and was told Cade would call me back. He called me 1 minute before closing, I missed his call and when I called back it was the after hours line. I call 1-800 and they say it was weird but the local agency locked my account to where they had to be the ones to access it. Cade ends up calling me and tells me that they’re not going to cover our new location and my old one was getting a non-renewal. Turns out after looking for new insurance that they hurt my ability to find new insurance because they didn’t properly cover my business and never set us up for liquor liability like we needed. We are now going on a month with our bar closed at our new location and may possibly be forced to close our doors permanently, or face severe damage to our financial stability. We were forced to close our first location earlier than we expected because we couldn’t afford to pay our bills with our new location unable to function. This company has negatively impacted my ability to do business and has put the future of my company at risk.

Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience caused during your attempt to obtain a policy for your second location. We understand that insuring marijuana-related businesses is an important need in today's market. However, as soon as we knew the intentions for your new location, we explained that we do not have the capability to provide coverage for these types of businesses. We then suggested several providers who may be able to help you and confirmed that they had been in touch with you. We genuinely value the contributions of small businesses, and we regret any negative impression you may have received. Thank you for considering us, and we hope that your business can thrive.

After my first six months, they attempted to increase my premium by more than 20%. I then personally visited their Creighton Road office and spoke with the manager there (a nice lady named Cathy, can't remember her last name; she has left the company since), and had my premium reduced to about $87.00 per month, but, instead of starting a new six month contract, they only set the lower payments for a couple of months. After that, they emailed me notices that my premium was going to go back up to over $120.00 per month. I then bought a policy from another company, sent a cancellation notice, and asked for reimbursement for the remainder of the month) They then asked for a copy of my new declarations page and claimed that they needed this in order to reimburse me for the rest of the month (which I had paid in advance). They also claimed that the cancellation notice that I sent them was not forwarded to their office, LOL! I will never do business with John Shaffer or any of his agents again! Here is their reply to me, verbatim: "Our last note is from May stating that you would be shopping around, but we never received your new declarations page. If you signed a cancelation notice with your new carrier, those don't usually come through to our office. Please send me the declarations page for your new policy and we can make sure your policy is canceled and any refund is sent to you."

We, too, are frustrated with the rising costs of everything and especially insurance in Florida. We have tried to help him manage these costs (which helped initially). Asking for his new declarations page was to get the maximum refund by backdating the cancelation to his new policy's issue date but even this continued to frustrate him. We are glad he was able to find insurance at a cheaper rate, but we sincerely hope he did not lower his coverages too much to do so

The way they do business is the worst I have ever had to deal with when you call for a quote they give a reasonable quote to get you to join and then after 1st payment you don’t get a phone call you a letter saying they misquoted and your premiums are raised much higher it seems to be the biggest con of insurance companies and should be stoped don’t do business with State Farm

We dropped the ball on this customer and have been trying to reach him. I want to apologize for the experience he has had with us. It is NOT the norm and want to make this right. We had two calls from him that we missed (one was missed due to a simple error we made but the other was someone not doing their job and is very unusual for that team member). We (leadership) have been trying to reach him since getting this feedback. We take it very seriously. To be sure: neither my agency nor State Farm ever quotes someone with the expectation that the premiums will be different once issued. Sometimes new information during the underwriting affects the rates and we call to explain or clarify the discrepancy. We are sincerely sorry for the frustration this has caused him and are addressing it to make sure to avoid this in the future. Thank you!