Day: April 6, 2008

Subsidy for Dummies (who think the insurance industry isn’t subsidized)

When the opposition to HR3121 started talking nasty-nice about the subsidy for wind damage, I knew it was time to write Subsidy for Dummies (who think the insurance industry isn’t subsidized).

You see, those most likely to oppose HR3121 are also likely to already benefit from various government subsidies as much, if not more, than others as tax breaks are the most common form of government subsidy – monetary support the government provides to individuals or enterprises when such support is deemed to be in the public interest.

Consequently, a tax break for whatever purpose – even one for sending your kids to college – is a subsidy and so is the fee paid to insurance companies for the cost of processing claims payable from the National Flood Insurance Program. Continue reading “Subsidy for Dummies (who think the insurance industry isn’t subsidized)”

The Herald Tribune Takes the Allstate Challenge and Slams Claims Practices

I saw a link posted today on the Yahoo ALL board where Nowdy and I also post that I can’t let slide by today.  Before I jump to today’s Herald Tribune story some background is needed. This post will be long out of necessity. I hope our readers can hang with us while the story is developed.

First stop is the Allstate corporate website and a press release issued just hours after Commissioner McCarty suspended Allstate from doing business in Florida.

Allstate announced today that it publicly released approximately 150,000 pages of documents pertaining to a review of its claim practices conducted in the 1990s. Allstate was assisted in the review by business consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Continue reading “The Herald Tribune Takes the Allstate Challenge and Slams Claims Practices”

A Trip Down Memory Lane and What Has Changed Since

I ran across the CNN Presents episode The Town that Fought Back on You Tube and watched it again. It is interesting to see what has changed, what the issues were and still are from the time it was shot in 2006 to the present.

The Oklahoma City litigation is over and State Farm’s bad behavior there has been completely revealed. We have gone from thousands of Scruggs Katrina Group suits to less than the 180 today that now must seek new lawyers with Friday’s disqualification of the Scruggs successor Katrina Litigation Group. We find that State Farm claims adjusters ordering additional engineering reports when they didn’t like the answer on the first one was not SOP per Wayne Drinkwater yet it happened a good bit. Still there is no explanation why it happened.

FEMA trailers have since given way to cottages and many more people are back in their homes though we still lack affordable housing for the working poor. Life has returned to the new post Katrina normal but things will never be the same as they were before the storm. The political fight for insurance solutions in HR 3121 had not yet begun in the Summer of 2006. How time flies….

Those wanting background on the insurance litigation will find the show interesting. Those wanting to see Dickie Scruggs talk about how long it takes for a criminal to get a day in court will find it ironic. Like the other CNN presents special hosted by Kathleen Koch Saving my town: The fight for Bay St. Louis watching The Town that Fought Back brings back memories of the past and evokes hope for the future in seeing how far we’ve come. Continue reading “A Trip Down Memory Lane and What Has Changed Since”