State Farm Alabama Purchasing Fees Settlement: Window Closed

At a glance

Status

Closed

Defendant

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company

Settlement fund

Not publicly disclosed

Claim deadline

July 15, 2026

No-proof cash option

Yes — $20.50 flat cash ("in satisfaction of applicable Purchasing Fees"), no proof required

Estimated payout

$20.50 flat cash ("in satisfaction of applicable Purchasing Fees"), no proof required

Administrator

Kroll Settlement Administration LLC

Official site

alabamafeesettlement.com

Court

Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama

Case number

03-CV-2024-901729.00

Last verified July 16, 2026

Key dates

Milestone	Date	What it means
Claim deadline	July 15, 2026(passed)	Last day to file for a payment
Opt-out (exclusion) deadline	May 15, 2026(passed)	Last day to leave the settlement and keep the right to sue
Objection deadline	May 15, 2026(passed)	Last day to object to the terms
Final approval hearing	June 15, 2026(passed)	When the judge decides whether to approve the settlement
Expected payout	Not yet scheduled	Payments are not sent until after final approval and any appeals

Where to file

State Farm Alabama Total-Loss Purchasing Fees Settlement (Dortch v. State Farm) is administered by Kroll Settlement Administration LLC. The only place to file is the official settlement website:

Verify on the official site

alabamafeesettlement.com

Filing is free. No legitimate settlement charges a fee to file a claim.

You cannot file on RecordingLaw.com. We are an independent publisher, not the settlement administrator, and we are not affiliated with any court, agency, or defendant.

The claim window for the State Farm Alabama Total-Loss Purchasing Fees Settlement, known in court as Dortch v. State Farm, closed on July 15, 2026. As of July 2026, the case has already cleared its final approval hearing, and the settlement is in the post-approval, payout-tracking phase. If you filed a claim before the deadline, this page explains what happens next. If you missed it, or never heard about the case at all, it explains why, and what your actual options are now.

What the Purchasing Fees settlement was about

This case, filed in the Circuit Court of Montgomery County, Alabama under case number 03-CV-2024-901729.00, is a class action against State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company. It centers on what the settlement calls Purchasing Fees, amounts tied to first-party total-loss auto claims in Alabama that the lawsuit alleged State Farm did not pay policyholders in full.

A first-party claim means you filed against your own State Farm policy, not against someone else's insurance. That distinction matters here because the class is built entirely around people making claims on their own coverage after their vehicle was declared a total loss, meaning State Farm determined the cost to repair it exceeded what the vehicle was worth and paid out its value instead of fixing it.

State Farm did not admit wrongdoing by agreeing to the settlement. As with most claims-practice class actions, the deal resolves the dispute without a trial on the merits.

Where the case stands right now

As of July 2026, the settlement is closed to new claims. The claim deadline was July 15, 2026. Before that, the deadline to exclude yourself from the class (opting out) or to object to the settlement terms was May 15, 2026, and both of those windows have also closed.

The court held its final approval hearing on June 15, 2026. That hearing is where a judge reviews whether the settlement is fair to the class before authorizing payment. Based on what is available, no expected payout date has been published yet. That is normal for this stage: administrators typically process claims, resolve any late disputes, and coordinate with the court before cutting checks, and that process does not run on a fixed public timeline.

If you filed a claim, there is nothing further you need to do right now beyond watching for payment. If you did not file and are just learning about this case, the claim window is shut and there is no mechanism to submit a late claim through the settlement itself.

Who was in the class

The class is Alabama State Farm insureds who had a first-party total-loss auto insurance claim and were not paid certain Purchasing Fees applicable to that claim. If you had a State Farm auto policy in Alabama, your vehicle was totaled, and State Farm handled the payout, you may fit this description.

Membership in a settlement class like this one is normally determined by the defendant's own claims records, not by whether you personally remember a fee being shorted. If State Farm's records showed you had an eligible total-loss claim, the administrator would typically have identified you as part of the class, which is why many class members received a mailed or emailed notice ahead of the deadline.

How much people actually get

The payout structure here was simple: State Farm pays $20.50 in cash to every Settlement Class Member who timely submitted a valid claim, in satisfaction of applicable Purchasing Fees. No documentation or proof of loss was required to receive it.

This is a flat, per-person amount, not a share of a common fund. The official settlement terms state that eligible class members who filed a valid claim on time receive $20.50, full stop; there is no pro-rata formula that shrinks the payment as more people file. This was never a case built around a large individual recovery; the amount reflects a specific, narrow fee dispute, not damages for the total loss of a vehicle itself.

What proof was required

None. This settlement did not ask claimants to submit receipts, repair estimates, or other documentation. Eligibility and payment were tied to State Farm's own claims records showing an applicable first-party total-loss claim with an unpaid Purchasing Fee, which is also why the claim process was described as no-proof.

If you filed a claim

There is no additional step for you right now. Watch for a payment from the settlement administrator, Kroll Settlement Administration LLC, and keep an eye on the official settlement site for any updates on distribution. If your contact information changed after you filed, an outdated address or bank detail is the most common reason a payment gets delayed, so it is worth checking the official site for any instructions on updating your details.

If you missed the deadline or never got notice

The claim window closed July 15, 2026, and there is no late-filing option through this settlement. If you believe you had an eligible State Farm total-loss claim in Alabama and never received notice, your options outside this settlement are limited: you generally cannot join this class after the deadline, though you could consult an attorney about whether any individual claim against State Farm remains available to you outside the class action, separate from anything tied to this settlement.

More broadly, if you have an open or future total-loss claim with any insurer in Alabama, it is worth understanding how these claims are supposed to work. Alabama law defines a total loss and sets out how an insurer determines your vehicle's value and pays the claim, and the Alabama Department of Insurance publishes consumer guidance on how that valuation process should run. If you think an insurer left money on the table on a current claim, that is a question for the insurer directly, or for the Alabama Department of Insurance's consumer complaint process, not something this closed settlement can address.

A note on taxes

Whether a settlement payment like this is taxable depends on what it is meant to replace, not on the fact that it came from a class action. The IRS generally looks at the nature of the underlying claim the payment resolves. For a small fee-reimbursement payment like this one, consult a tax professional about your specific situation rather than assuming either way.