Kaitlin Ponce - State Farm Insurance Agent — Attraction in Atlanta

We’ve been fighting with State Farm for five months after a massive 1 minute micro burst occurred within the 8 hour storm on December 29th around 4:30am. We are in the 1/2 mile section of our neighborhood which experienced the most damage. Less than 3 miles away they recorded a tornado. The burst lifted our shingles, bent our gutters, gutter guards were lifted, and 6ft metal garden stakes were bent in half during the storm. More importantly, we have a hole in the roof from a 10ft projectile tree branch, with zero trees over our main structure. Our roof was completely covered in large tree branches, the pool and roof were covered in large pine tree limbs (nearest pine trees are hundreds of feet away), water pouring into multiple rooms, and more. State Farm refuses to replace the roof. Over 10 years of being a loyal customer, paying heavy premiums, crazy premium increases, and having referred all of my homeowner clients to State Farm over my 18 year career. This is not a good testimony for our nationwide group of over 170,000 agents and vendors who converse on threads daily.

In the first few weeks after the December storm, State Farm sent a 3rd party adjuster, as well as a State Farm adjuster to inspect. The State Farm adjuster never stepped foot on the roof nor took drone video, but made multiple trips to our home in the first 6 weeks. In addition, we had independent roofers send State Farm multiple hands-on videos, photos, and drone videos. I’m copied on the emails and my claim number is in the subject line. ZERO response for weeks.

8-10 weeks later we were assigned a second adjuster with an unprofessional attitude who never visited our home. He claimed he could not open the links from the roofer via their platform. This was the same email thread the previous adjuster claimed they opened the links and reviewed. Lazy and dishonest. The second adjuster made a desktop assessment to stand by the original assessment and only make repairs, still not offering roof repairs over our master bath and over the garage where we had 20ft limbs hitting the garage apartment roof during the burst.

Weeks later the original adjuster was as reassigned and visited with an additional State Farm adjuster. They mysteriously found the broken shingle over the two story garage and offered $14 for extra repairs. $14. They held their opinion the roof did not need replaced and I quote, “your roof is in good shape because I can walk on it without slipping. If you needed a new roof I wouldn’t have traction.” I honestly could not believe this joke of an excuse I was hearing so I politely asked them to repeat what they said. They did. Then I mirrored them and said, “Just so I understand, you state my roof is in good shape and doesn’t need replaced because you can safely walk on it without slipping.” They agreed and confirmed again. Note: the original adjuster present during this conversation, during one of their earlier visits said and I quote, “Wow, you can clearly see the shingles are lifted from here.”

Again, the roofer videos show the mark ups where the roof is circled all over and you can clearly see the shingles are lifted. State Farm still refuses to approve replacement, only offering to repair the main hole damage and inside sheetrock ceiling damage. They do not want to address the actual roof in areas water poured into other rooms of the house. They claim those parts of the roof are “poor craftsmanship”. We filed the initial claim due to the hole in the roof AND the water pouring into certain rooms, which was not an issue before the December 29th storm.

It should not be this difficult...

I worked with Victoria Hall today from the Kaitlin Ponce State Farm agency to move insurance on my wife's and my Honda CR-V from Tennessee to Georgia since we have recently sold our home outside Chattanooga and moved our residency to Atlanta, Georgia. She could not have been a better model of competency, professionalism, warmth, and accommodation.

She compensated for the fact that my wife's information was needed in addition to mine, but my wife was unavailable, by agreeing to call my wife after a requested delay to allow her to finish driving to her destination, then Victoria got the info from her. Victoria then worked up the price quotes, and this included a recommended change of deductible from what I was carrying in Tennessee (that made immediate sense). She did not hurry me...but was instead quite patient with this somewhat slow, old man born just after the invention of dirt! I learned a bit from her (yes, you are correct to interpret that as understatement) about the process of not only moving the insurance, but also driver license, title, and tag to Georgia.

I have never met Kaitlin Ponce nor any of her office's employees, but I have never had a bad (phone) experience in dealing with them (quite the contrary, have had great experiences in the past, particularly with Kenzie and Caitlin)...with my renter's insurance over the last four years...and now with my car insurance today.

The experience with Victoria today cements my thought that this office will be providing insurance for my wife and me...

If you're on the fence about Kaitlin Ponce State Farm, I'm here to remove any doubt. You may see my name in some of these reviews, and that's because I used to work for Kaitlin Ponce. And now that I don't work there you can trust me when I say Kaitlin Ponce has one of the best Agencies around. From the vibrant and cheerful Ashanti who answers your calls and directs you to the appropriate representative, to the charismatic Victoria Hall who will always help you get the best policies for your needs, to the very friendly and energetic John Raab who time and again provides great customer service, to the diligent and dedicated Kay Carter who (take it from me) is the master architect who works behind the scenes to make sure all of your needs are met and executed correctly. It truly is a wonderful team. I have come across many many clients who could switch to another provider and save a few bucks but they'd rather stay with Kaitlin Ponce because they know they're getting the absolute best customer service and, as soon as rates change (which they always do), they'll make sure you have the best rates you can get.

I wouldn't recommend anyone else. Need Insurance? Call Kailin...