Unfortunately, today I had the opportunity to use the State Farm Pocket Agent for the iPhone for a real accident. At the risk of sounding like a commercial, the app does exactly what you would think: an insurance agent at your disposal at the most crucial of times – right after an accident.

I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s say it was a simple fender-bender, with my car getting hit in the right rear bumper and me not hitting anyone. While waiting for the police to arrive, I recalled the commercials about this iTunes app and I downloaded it for free within minutes.

I started the application and entered my State Farm username and password. This was successful and I was presented with a menu of items, including filing a claim. I selected this menu item and was walked through entering all the details. The location of the incident was recorded with GPS, and I added all the driver information from the other driver, took some pictures, added some explanation including a sketch of what happened, and submitted it to State Farm. All in all – 10-15 minutes of work and State Farm had everything I needed.

My appointment for repairs is all set up, including rental, and I checked the system later in the afternoon and saw that my claim is now listed under “Open Claims” within the Pocket Agent app. Very well done!

I hope I don’t have to use it often, but this State Farm Pocket Agent app is really slick and made what could have been a pain-in-the-ass experience into something I enjoyed (at least a little).