Wow, an F-350 diesel! I've wanted a diesel for some time now, and just couldn't justify a new truck when I only had 186,000 miles on the old truck. It was a hassle working on it all the time, but I didn't have a car payment.

With summer around the corner, the thought of traveling north to the cottage and property without air-conditioning inspired Carol to buy me a new truck.

While I don't recommend trying to pick out a truck for a guy, it had everything I'd wanted. Everything, including the 6.0 liter Powerstroke diesel engine. As much of a shock it was to have a new vehicle, it didn't take me long to "move in" with all of my tools and stuff. As with the old truck, I was fully self contained to operate and repair any of the equipment we have.

For 2 years and over 30,000 miles of use, I had a new "old friend". Sure it was a lot more work to keep it clean and scratch free, but it was well worth the trouble.

August 29th 2007, someone stole my truck! Not only did they steal the truck, but all of the contents I had in it. It was stolen on a Wednesday, and we had planned to head north on Thursday to the cottage for the holiday weekend. Needless to say, that put a kink in those plans!

About a week later it was recovered, we went to the bowels of Detroit to see was was left of her. It was a mess, with the interior trashed and the complete driveline missing. It was all I could do to keep my composure. All of my tools where gone, everything of value was taken out. I dug through the mess in the bed of the truck to find bit of special hardware for the tractor I was working on.

I was insured by Allstate for both the truck and the contents. It took a week or so to get a settlement on the truck. I picked up my new new truck on September 19th, the day before my birthday! I must say, the Allstate team that handled my auto claim was compassionate, professional and very fair. The cast of clowns that tried to handle my property claim couldn't have been worse.

We spend the holiday weekend preparing a list of contents of the truck. We gathered receipts, made copies, found prices, and created a killer spreadsheet to track the 380 line items of things stolen. We sent the list in on the following Tuesday.

I called once a week to see about status, it was always "a few more days". Then one day about 3 weeks into the claim, I called to find my case had been sent to the fraud department for investigation! All well and good for a large claim, but nobody bothered to call me! After filling out the form to allow Allstate to poke through my financial records, and one to swear that I was telling the truth, we had another wait. This time after a few weeks, it was handed over to a private investigator! It seems Allstate was looking for a way out of paying the claim.

I met with the PI for about 2 hours. We went over the events of that day in August, and went back to work to take pictures of the crime scene? Within a few days it was determined there was no fraud involved, and we where cleared to go back to "normal" adjusters for our claim.

It turns out that Allstate doesn't cover very much. If you read your policy carefully (and I recommend you do that!) you find that the exclusions and limits in schedule 'C' are what cover the contents of an auto loss. Allstate's lawyers did a very good job at limiting their liability. I found out that my seat covers, floor mats and trailer hitches are not even covered! My limits on tools was at $500 and I that I have to fight for every penny for the things that where covered! When we finally settled in late December, we only recovered less than half of what we lost.

Because of my experiences I don't recommend Allstate, and I will be shopping for a new insurance company as soon as I re-purchase the lost items and recover the depreciation amount.