Friend of mine had State Farm, as did a number of people in his community when he got hit by a BAD hail storm. Destroyed his roof, took out windows and siding on the one side of the house and beat their one car to hell and back.
His neighbors got taken care of pretty quickly, no muss, no fuss. Herb, on the other hand, got mercilessly screwed around with. The difference was apparently that he had a different agent from the others in his community. SF kept lowballing him on repairs -- the estimate's for $22,000? Here's a settlement check for $5,000. Take it or sod off.
He finally had to escalate the living hell out of it, get an attorney involved, whole 9 yards, a process that took nearly 5 months. He immediately dropped State Farm and picked up another company, and apparently at a significant savings over what he had been paying pre storm.
When I went looking for insurance for my first car, I was 24. Most of the companies wouldn't even talk to me because I was "high risk," being 24 and a dude. One told me they would write me, but only at Pennsylvania critical risk driver rates, about $3,500 a year
(and I was making $11,500 at the time...).
I checked with the State Farm agency that had been writing most of my family, including my grandparents and parents, since the 1940s. They were a bit better at $2,600.
Then I called Erie. Their definition of high risk driver ends when you turn 24, not 25, so my total bill for car insurance through them was about $400 a year. Been with Erie ever since. When I moved to DC I added renter's insurance, and then homeowner's insurance. From 1989 to now, no at fault accidents, and only one fairly minor claim against the homeowner's insurance.
