State Farm will give you one or two Mulligans, can’t remember which, before the accident counts against you. The accident stays with you for a three year period, then drops off your record.
None of this is correct.
I've got State Farm for multiple cars and home owners. A few years ago they had to pay out about $2500 for something I had almost nothing to do with. Longer tangent explanation and never mind the detail for now. I've been getting discounts for multi-policy, multi-vehicle and accident free for years, not paying any sort of fee for accident forgiveness - at least not anything that gets line itemized on the premium notice.
What I was told by the local agent at the time: any vehicle continuously insured by them for (8) years automatically gets accident forgiveness. There is a limit to the number of claims over some period of time that this applies to. At least (2) claims, I think maybe (3) and I don't remember the size of the window. Didn't get in to how long after exceeding that number it takes to get the forgiveness back. I did verify that the forgiveness thing is tied to the vehicle and not the policy or driver. After they made the problem go away my premium didn't change at all and it's the last I heard of it.
My girl has Progressive on her driver and last year she had a parking lot bump with a friend of hers. The quandary was to just pay it out of pocket and avoid the insurance company hassle or file the claim and roll the dice on the premium bump because it was like a $1200 quote on whatever she backed in to. Oddly enough, hardly a scuff on her car but nevermind that too. As with most insurance web sites, the progressive one was completely useless for searching for the fine print. What I did come across was some Pennsylvania state insurance regulations. Bottom line being that in PA the insurance companies are not legally permitted to raise your rates until they pay out X number of dollars over Y number of months for claims. Whatever the dollar limit it was higher than the claim at hand so again, they made the problem go away and no premium changes since.
Your mileage may vary and objects in mirror may be doing something totally stupid.
Now, see, THAT is the kind of specific information that provides an informed answer.
And there are instances where someone has a claim, and their rates are not impacted, with or without any type of accident forgiveness.
With regard to a vehicle being insured with them for 8 continuous years, and not being tied to the driver or policy...that seems very odd. What if you insure it with them for 8 years, and then I buy it from you and immediately insure it with them? Would it qualify? I know you don't know the answer (neither do I)...just posing the question in general, because the explanation you were given sounds strange. Not impossible...just strange.
As far as how long it "stays on your record," that would be something that would be set by each state's statute. An insurer could choose to stop considering prior losses earlier than the time frame specified by the state, but would not be able to go beyond that time frame.
The PA insurance regulations are another great example of how there are 51 sets of rules for auto insurance in the US..each state, plus D.C.
Make no mistake, everyone...if there is any "built-in" accident forgiveness in your policy, there are premium $$ "built-in" to what you are paying for your policy.
Re-reading 5thave's post, and my reply to it, I think this may be what he was saying, and I may have misunderstood him initially.
