Mike Winter – State Farm Insurance Agent

I was a bit skeptical at first as I was a Liberty Mutual member for YEARS. A family member recommended I shop around for rates and although I was hesitant she referred me to Mike Winter’s top agent, Diana Diaz, and I went in for a quote. 8 years later, I have nothing but praise for how they’ve taken care of me. Any little change, any questions I may have, I just call up and speak to Ms. Diaz and VOILA — everything is taken care of. Not to sound cliché or cheesy but I am anyway — like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

They dropped my service suddenly with no time to secure a new one on my homeowners.
Purchased insurance for a property I moved out of last year. Called in to change my mailing address and they informed me that they dont cover if didnt reside there and they would drop my policy right then and there. I requested 15 days at least just to find a new policy and they flat out refused. I requested to speak with Mike Winter, and never got a call back.
They then had the audacity to send me a letter claiming that I had requested the policy cancellation…
So angry… I should have checked Consumers Affairs before signing on because apparently this has happened before…

Great service. Helped lower my car insurance rates and I have my homeowners insurance through Mike as well. His staff is helpful and he’s always available if I need to talk to him directly. I would highly recommend Mike Winter.

this office is very disorganized and borderline criminal, as the story from Rori shows. there are typos on the policies, wrong address, wrong phone numbers. these people are incapable of simple data entry.
i had a homeowners’ policy here and changed the address when i moved. the geniuses at Mike Winters State Farm sent me a bill to increase coverage to the wrong address. not my old address, not my new address, but a hybrid of the two addresses for a location which doesn’t exist.
as a result, Mike Winters State Farm then canceled the policy without telling us and refused to refund the pro-​rated amount, even though we had paid for the year in advance. basically, these guys are crooks. Mike Winter seems ok, but the people working there (ryan) are completely incompetent and unapologetic. they are also pulling back on homeowners insurance in the LIC market due to flooding, so they’re not exactly making an effort. stay away!

I gave 1 – 2 Stars because after shopping around NYC the prices were decent enough to jump on at first. Rates never stay the same so I am sure to only keep my loyalty with a company as long as the price remains within competitive range. Where this agency went wrong, I feel, comes from an incompetent customer service that starts from local and continues to the national customer service level and vise versa.
I was recently married and was also shopping for better car insurance to add my husband/​partner. I called the national State Farm office for a quote but was redirected to my local agent. I left a message to learn about rates for adding my husband, who like myself, has had zero accidents and zero incidents. Other agencies were accessible for unbeatable quotes first so I decided to drop State Farm and go with the best/​most responsive agency. In short, others returned my call! SF did not.
Anyway, I called to cancel my policy, as anyone would do after changing companies, and was asked to provide proof of the new policy. No Problem! This is supposed to be easy right? My experience turned into a nightmare…
An agent in some far away office, I suppose, documented the wrong cancel date. I called in August and was current in payments through August. They documented it was cancelled for APRIL and sent a refund check for the previous 4 months!!! Well, the check never really arrived on time, and I didn’t even know it was coming. After all, I paid for those months with the expectation of being covered. Because I had no idea of this error, and only a notice of cancelation that reflected the August date, I went about my normal life with my new insurance thinking I was simply moving on… I was very very wrong.
Without any warning, the DMV was notified that I was driving an uninsured vehicle April-August…In NY it is illegal to have a lapse in your coverage. Only… this error was the result of State Farm backdating the cancelation and automatically sending the refund into la la land.
As I’m reading notices from the DMV to surrender my plates and license. I thought to myself, «This does not make any sense, STATE FARM HAD MY BACK during this time… and I was current in payments to the very day I requested to cancel!» After contacting my local State Farm Agent to trouble shoot, on multiple conversations… my insurance agent reported to me…“it says you canceled in April.” I said «Nope…can’t be, I’ve never neglected payment on anything and have proof I called in August.» After explaining my situation over and over the agent pauses and says…“oh wait, you did call in August. We base cancelation on the start date of the different/​new company which shows April… oh wait… ooops you were added in August… okay so we messed up… I will call DMV to rectify this.” I was so thankful the agent was finally on my side until the agent informed me State Farm just cut me a huge check to refund payments made dating back to April. I did not have the check yet, nor after paying to be insured… WHY WOULD I WANT THE MONTHS PAID BACK?!? I was paying to be covered during those dates… and again… this is all the result of their error. not mine.
I was informed everything would be cleared once the check was returned…“why not just stop payment on the check?!” Taking it upon myself, I had to REQUEST them to stop payment on the check (which came later and was voided anyway)…As of today September 23, 2013. I have yet to here back from the agent to see if the DMV was actually notified of THEIR error. On top of this… I received two billing statements for car insurance as If I had never called in August to cancel to begin with! I have yet to see my policy canceled «smoothly.» Edit Update: — -I am chiming in to say in 2014 that while I am no longer with them and finally had my record with the DMV pardoned/erased…I am now frequently bothered by SF to perform surveys and join with them again… are they stupid!!! GO away State Farm. I never want to do business with you again!
Overall, My trust in this agency has been damaged. My advice: Don’t let an inviting price tag from this company persuade you. State Farm missed out on my family’s business and probably was/​has been delayed in serving current customers because of talking to me to settle all of this nonsense and lack of direct customer support. My advice to consumers… skip STATE FARM, especially this office… keep shopping if not a last resort. I wasted too much of my time correcting their damage.