A New York woman says Geico told her the Jeep she’d spent years hunting for was a total loss. So after weeks of trying to reach her adjuster she bought a BMW. Days later, Geico emailed to say it was paying to fix the Jeep after all. She says someone senior at the company told her the mix-up was “an AI error.”
Kristinaa (@kriistiinaa4) recently posted a TikTok about her experience. It has been viewed more than 55,400 times. “How can a company so big make this big of a mistake,” her caption reads. Text on screen adds: “If you have Geico, watch this so you don’t make the mistake I made.”
‘Your Vehicle Has Been Deemed A Total Loss’
“I just had a phone call from the head of the head at Geico,” she begins. Not even two months after buying the Jeep, she says, she was in a crash and was found to be at zero fault. Within a day of dropping it off at a shop, Geico purportedly notified her that it had the repair estimate. She opened it, and it read: “Your vehicle has been deemed a total loss.”
“The estimate was $8,000. My car is way more,” she says. “That’s not even close to the 75%, like, to total a car.” She and her father called Geico from the body shop. “No one has even come to see the car yet,” she says.
Geico associates and supervisors kept telling her the car was totaled, she says, “because calibrations and you don’t know what’s gonna be damaged once you start fixing it.” Her adjuster never called back. She even asked a supervisor how she could buy the Jeep back and have it fixed out of pocket.
‘An AI Error’
After weeks of notifications that the car was totaled, she bought a new BMW. “I am currently in it right now,” she says. Then, two or three days before she posted, Geico emailed to say the Jeep was being fixed and that it had already paid the body shop part of the estimate. “Even the guy at the body shop was just flabbergasted,” she says. “He said he’s never seen this.”
She emailed every Geico contact she could find, she says, and got a call from a woman who was “one of the head people.” She “basically just told me that it was an AI error,” Kristinaa says, putting the cost of that error at $50,000.
The 75% figure she cites comes from New York’s insurance regulations. When an insurer “determines that the cost to repair a damaged vehicle exceeds 75 percent of the vehicle’s actual cash value,” the rule says, it has to collect the car’s title for salvage branding. The same regulation gives an insurer that wants to inspect a damaged car before repair “six business days following receipt of notice of claim” to do it.
State law also lists “failing to acknowledge with reasonable promptness pertinent communications as to claims” among unfair claim settlement practices, though only when it happens often enough “to indicate a general business practice.”
Geico has used artificial intelligence on claims for years. In 2021 it began using an AI product to “within seconds” verify repair estimates already written by people, Repairer Driven News reported. Which system handled Kristinaa’s claim isn’t clear from the video.
Some commenters blamed staffing. “They fired everyone and think AI can do the job,” wrote rich.waterbury. Ajit Jain, who runs insurance at Geico’s parent company, Berkshire Hathaway, said in May 2025 that Geico had cut its headcount from about 50,000 to roughly 20,000, Bloomberg reported.
‘Never Buy A New Car Until The Claim Is Completed’
“Detrimental reliance!!! If they gave you a settlement offer and you bought a new car because of that, that’s on them!!” wrote lololovesthepups7 in a comment. Notforyou4461 disagreed: “They didn’t provide a formal offer! Only the total adjuster can do that.”
Others criticized the timing. “Never buy a new car until the claim is completed and closed,” wrote stnly.ylnts. Adorkablemess83, who said they are an adjuster at another insurer, explained that a first notice isn’t the final word: “There is possible total loss, that triggers that email/letter, and then there is confirmation.” Anonimityanomaly, who said they used to be a Geico adjuster, doubted Geico’s explanation: “They blamed AI, but this was 100% human error.”
“Report them to your state’s department of insurance and file a complaint against the adjuster’s license,” wrote mandapandajerk. In New York, the Department of Financial Services takes complaints about insurance companies through an online portal.
“Fixing it, thank God,” Kristinaa replied when a viewer asked what Geico was doing with the Jeep. Asked whether she could return the BMW, she wrote: “I do love my BMW. It all worked out in the end, but it could’ve been way worse.”
Subplot News reached out to Kristinaa via TikTok direct message and to Geico via email for comment. We’ll be sure to update this if they respond.
@kriistiinaa4 how can a company so big make this BIG of a mistake #geico #geicocarinsurance #badcustomerservice #horrorstory #storytime ♬ original sound – Kristinaa
