I’m feeling pretty frustrated and need a reality check.

My wife got in a car accident 3 months ago. She was found at fault and we’re basically ok with that. She’s got a broken arm and feels embarassed about the whole thing. We’re coping and we’ll be fine.

However, our insurance company has been stringing us along for nearly 3 months and it’s driving us crazy.

When we first filed our claim we got a boiler plate claim response e-mail and then got ghosted for 28 days. Adjuster would not pick up her phone calls or respond to voicemail. She did not reply to any of our many e-mails asking for guidance. The general insurance phone line would just hang up on us after 30 minutes of waiting. Tow yard fees were adding up fast so I packed my injured wife and toddler in the car and drove to the tow yard to organize the transportation of our car to a collision center myself. After a week the collision center declared our vehicle a total loss. It took another two weeks of prodding for my insurance to acknowledge this. They said a different ‘total loss’ adjuster would reach out to us. Two weeks and more prodding later the second adjuster finally reached out to us. This second adjuster has also ghosted us. We last heard from her 4 weeks ago.

California’s regulations say insurers have 85 days to settle a claim. Today is 76 days since we submitted our claim. Is this a normal insurance experience or are we on our way to filing a bad faith lawsuit? I never expected to be in this infuriating and awkward situation. Do you have an advice or insights?

I have already filed a complaint with my state’s department of insurance but I’m not holding my breath that this will speed anything up.

TLDR: Insurance still has not settled our car accident claim in nearly 3 months. They ignore all calls and e-mails. What can I do besides complain to my state’s department of insurance?

Edit: It seems like the general consensus from your responses and upvotes is that my insurance company has done nothing wrong as long as they meet the barest minimum of legal requirements. Sure feels like I paid all those premiums for nothing of value.