Chehalis man to State Farm: That’s not very neighborly!

A local man is calling out State Farm after he says his claim check was stolen, washed, and cashed, and the company refused to replace it.

“ What’s their motto? Like a good neighbor State Farm is there?” asks Matt Lyszchyn.

The Lewis County resident lives in the hills near Chehalis. His next-door neighbor is a half mile away. But he says that wouldn’t be far enough if that neighbor was State Farm Insurance.

“The way that they handled this, that’s not a neighbor that I would want to be living anywhere near. I mean, it’s an absolute disgrace.”

Lyszchyn says his truck was rear-ended earlier this year. State Farm agreed to pay the $6,300.00 claim. The company even sent him a notice saying the check was in the mail, written to Lyszchyn and his autobody shop.

“It was not sent with any tracking. It was not sent overnight. No signature (was) required. Just regular mail, which means that they literally can’t even prove that they mailed the check.”

Lyszchyn says he never received the check. But apparently, someone did. A copy of the check shows the original names were washed and replaced with Tameshia Carter. Nonetheless, Lyszchyn says State Farm refused to replace the stolen check.

“They put a spin on it to make it sound like it was my money. But I was never in possession of the money. They mailed a check. I never received the check. The collision center never received the check. How is that my money? It didn’t come out of my bank account. I never had the money to begin with.”

Lyszchyn says he went to the Office of the Insurance Commissioner to complain. But in a letter, the agency told him no regulation defines what an insurer should do if a claim check is stolen. The letter goes on to say that State Farm was standing by its decision. So, Lyszchyn had to write a check out of his own bank account to the auto body shop.

“It’s a disgrace how State Farm handled it. And equally disgraceful to me is the fact that, you know, I seek help from Washington state insurance commissioner, and they tell me there’s no regulation to protect me against that.”

Michael Marchand is the Deputy Commissioner for the OIC. He says even though there’s no regulation covering stolen claim checks, his office expects insurers to investigate stolen check cases and if there’s no wrongdoing by the insured party, the insurer should pay up.

“In a similar type case in the future, where we run into a situation where money was essentially stolen from this consumer and we got it, we want to make sure that the consumer can be made whole.”

When we contacted State Farm, a spokesperson told us “Due to our customer privacy policy, we cannot talk about any individual claim. Perhaps the claimant in the case might wish to provide an update.”

So, we called Lyszchyn again, and he told us “State Farm did make it right with me. Unfortunately, it’s because of all the pressure I think they were feeling. I definitely would not have gotten my money back (if) Jesse didn’t get involved. So I hope they changed their ways. I mean, I hope this bringing this to light, will help more than just me in the future going forward.”