State Farm® Widens Repair Deductible Waiver Territory; Clarifies Details

Glass shop owners in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah, Washington and the District of Columbia have who are State Farm Offer & Acceptance (O&A) program participants recently received a letter explaining in more detail the waiver of repair deductibles.

The memo, which came from Bob Bischoff, glass claims service manager for State Farm, states that glass-only claims "occurring on or after January 1, 2006" in the states referenced above, will be subject to the terms and provisions in State Farm's Car Policy endorsement 6127.

According to the memo, "this means effective January 1, 2006 in your state, State Farm will pay for eligible policyholder windshield repairs only after the policyholder's deductible has been met and the glass service provider has collected the deductible from our policyholder."

Noted on the document was the fact that this policy change was originally scheduled to take effect on December 1 in six states (Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma and Washington state) but that "a temporary delay in the required system connectivity has caused the effective date to be moved to January 1, 2006."

The sentence "if we offer to pay for repair of damaged windshield glass instead of replacement of the windshield and you agree to have such repair made, we will pay the full cost of repairing the windshield glass regardless of the deductible," has been removed from the State Farm Car Policy, effectively reinstating deductibles for repair, though the memo does go on to say that the company "continues to value windshield repair as an option, as stated in the O&A Agreement."

The end of the memo recaps the information, restating that with the new policy changes, "deductibles may no longer be waived when a windshield is repaired for a State Farm insured," and that "there is no policy change affecting the waiving of deductibles when a windshield is replaced."