I would give her zero stars but Google requires me to mark at least one to post this review. Sarah Brooks is by far, the worst insurance agent we've ever worked with. She oversees our home, life, auto, and business insurance and she is unreliable, zero communication, and has had her office closed for months with zero knowledge or communication to her clients as to when she will be open or available. We leave multiple messages a week with her only to be told by her assistants that "shes out of the office" or "she should be right back we'll have her call you." And then nothing, no calls, emails, nothing.. My husband and I needed to make policy changes and due to her taking over two weeks to get back to us we missed out on the deadline for a large job... She has zero consideration for her clients needs and I only recommend her services if you want to be highly frustrated and disappointed with your service.
luckyedie on Google
Lilly Sunkiss on Google
No follow-through, no communication (unless you count spam), "annual" reviews are anything but, and no notice when large changes occur. Simply put - no actual service.
Meadow Christensen on Google
Sarah is just hands down amazing!
Ash M. on Yelp
Disclaimer: This review isn't for Sarah Brooks as a person but Country Financial as a whole. Since I originally purchased my Home Owner's Insurance from her predecessor at this office, I am using this address.I originally purchased insurance with Country Financial after a recommendation from my original Lender. At the time, I did get quotes from other companies; USAA was the most expensive, pCountry Financial was the third highest. I decided to go with them because I liked the idea of having accessible local offices. I have been with Country Financial for 3 years, almost to the day. Well I needed them one day. About two weeks ago, I noticed a moisture problem in our master shower on the ceiling. At the time I attributed it to poor ventilation design and humid weather. I paid out of pocket, hired Dry Out Systems (they are awesome) and hired a contractor to install a second bathroom vent. Well drying out the space took about 3X longer than we, myself and Dry Out Systems thought it would. Low and behold, our shower pan had cracked and the waterproof membrane failed (due to improper installation) causing water to make its way to the subfloor. At this point I still hadn't made a claim.I hired a tile guy, who came out and looked at everything. He stated the original builders didn't properly build up the mud pan, used 1/4 inch backer board instead of 1/2 inch, and didn't properly bond the membrane, mortar bed, and tile together. So at this point I called and made a claim.The insurance adjuster contacted me pretty quick after the initial call which was good. I started explaining my story to him and almost immediately he started spouting verbatim, contractual language on excluded damages, items exempted from coverage etc. I was very annoyed that it seemed like they were ready to deny my claim before they had even let me finish my story.While on the phone, I was repairing the ceiling Sheetrock. He heard me scrapping putty and asked if i was doing drywall repair. I said yes. He told me to stop because he needed to take pictures of the ceiling. I said I wasn't trying to get damages covered on the ceiling, just the damaged tile and subfloor. He said he still wanted to see the ceiling before I repaired it. The conversation was 14 minutes long and at this point, the putty was starting to set, so I had to throw it out. He asked if he could come out Monday, I said yes but I had to work and that my wife would let him in. He said he really needed me there to ask questions. After some finagling with my coworkers, I managed to get Monday off. The insurance adjuster came, took some pictures, was there for maybe 15 minutes. Didn't ask me a single question. Great so now I wasted my off day.He called on Wednesday and said my claim was denied. He stated it was a maintenance issue. I don't know what kind of "maintenance," I could've done on the tile to prevent the solid concrete pan underneath from cracking or the waterproof membrane from also failing. He said the water damage appeared to be from long term use and not catastrophic failure.You be the judge. Look at these pictures at tell me if it looks "long term." There was water saturation in the wood sure. But if it had been "long term," the water damage would've been far more extensive and widespread. If water had been continually seeping into the wood for days, weeks, whatever, it would be in much worse condition. Besides we stopped using the shower as soon as we discovered the problem. I asked them to send me everything including a list of coverages and things they don't cover. After reviewing the document, I'm not sure if there's anything that they actually do cover. If you decide to go with CF, better have a lawyer on standby. Being active duty, perhaps I was spoiled by USAA's service who had always taken care of me. They are much more expensive, but they don't start off the claims process with the intent of denying you.To be fair, I'm sure most other big insurers would've found reasons to deny the claim. But why pay 30$ more a month for the exact same service? After my claim was denied, I immediately dumped CF. I switched to GEICO and my monthly bill went from 79$ to 43$ for the exact same coverages and deductible. I have given CF roughly 2,800$ of my own meager enlisted pay checks over the course of 3 years. In return they gave me a headache, a tray of thrown out drywall putty, a wasted day off work, and a 15,000$ bill to foot on my own. Again all I was seeking was help with damages caused by failure of the shower pan which may end up being less than my deductible anyways for that part of the job. Oh and by the way, look up the Country Financial headquarters in Bloomington IL; you'll notice a few one star reviews for... yup you guessed it... CLAIM DENIALS. Check out yelp and consumeraffairs.com.Sorry for the long read, if you want to skip just note this part: DO NOT USE CF FOR YOUR INSURANCE NEEDS!
