Day: December 14, 2009

Blow back, blow out and a lot of hot air around state-funded insurance plans

Since state-funded insurance plans are a big money maker for the insurance industry and a deep money pit for the states, it will be interesting to see how this trouble in paradise plays out.

Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state’s insurer of last resort, should be abolished, the Commission on Streamlining Government said Tuesday. Our friend Jim Brown was there.

Brown called Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance “the biggest financial disaster in history. “If the old system had been in place, you and I wouldn’t be paying off a $1.5 billion bond issue” that bailed out Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance”.

What a blow back!  Meanwhile in neighboring Texas, the general manager of the the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association had a blow out: Continue reading “Blow back, blow out and a lot of hot air around state-funded insurance plans”

Judge Senter completes his appraisal – Order says Nationwide on wrong side with objection to Lewis O’Leary

Lewis O’Leary is known to SLABBED readers as the  Plaintiff’s appraiser in Kuehn v State Farm.  Consequently, we took note of Nationwide’s objection to O’Leary as the appraiser in a commercial property case and have been following  Sunquest Properties v Nationwide for some time.

Unlike State Farm’s “experts” in Bossier, Mr. O’Leary is qualified to offer testimony under related Mississippi law. Nonetheless, Nationwide wanted to get in the on the act and the “bright lights” of Nationwide legal filed a Motion to Strike Lewis O’Leary as Plaintiffs’ “Competent and Impartial” Appraiser.

… ample evidence of Mr. O’Leary’s partiality renders him unqualified to serve as a “competent and impartial appraiser,” as required by the appraisal clause in Plaintiffs’ policy. Simply put, a person who has been paid to work for several years on the development of a claim and continues to be paid to support that claim, is not sufficiently “impartial” to pass judgment of any kind upon that claim. Yet this is precisely what Plaintiffs suggest in nominating Mr. O’Leary as their purportedly “impartial” appraiser.

Judge Senter ruled on the Motion last week and Nationwide came out on the wrong side: Continue reading “Judge Senter completes his appraisal – Order says Nationwide on wrong side with objection to Lewis O’Leary”