Category: State Farm

A Different State Farm Battle

State Farm has another battle on its hands and this one has morphed into a constitutional battle. This battle is with a whole group of State Attorney Generals and State Banking Officials of the twelve states that regulate mortgage brokers.

The case started with State Farm trying to finagle its way around some requirements in the State of Ohio, that were put in place to reign in some of the worst excesses of the current lending mess.

You see, State Farm has a bank. A thrift to be exact. And it likes to offer loans, and other banking products to its insurance customers. But the people that they do this through are not employees of State Farm. They are the various independent agents (as State Farm likes to call them) that run State Farm offices.

Ohio’s Bank Supervisor said “If they are independent, then they are brokers. And if they are brokers, they must license as mortgage brokers and follow our laws.” We would like to know who the are and that they have a clue what they are doing. State Farm did what any business that wants to avoid regulation in this day and age does: they went to their friendly do-nothing federal regulator and got a letter from the Chief Counsel of the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) saying that State Farm independent agents were exempt from state regulation.

Now it should be understood that FEDERAL courts do not normally pull back the reigns on FEDERAL agencies. But the Federal District Judge Edmund A. Sargus had a very hard time understanding the methodology of State Farm and the OTS. In his opinion and order he noted that a letter from the chief agency’s attorney hardly complies with the Administrative Procedures Act as set out by congress. He goes on to note that at no time prior had the OTS had any interest in the area of regulating mortgage brokers and that for the State of Ohio to hear about it for the first time when State Farm hands it a letter from the OTS is a little bit unusual.

So the Judge ruled against State Farm in their request for a declaratory judgment. State Farm has taken the case to the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. We are currently at the point where various parties are submitting their amicus briefs. The OTC has already filed one for State Farm, and it is expected that various State Attorney General Offices, and some group from the Conference of State Banking Supervisors will submit one for the State of Ohio.

While we wait for the dust to settle, I am curious as to one point: I understand why The Federal Reserve Bank (The Fed), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and OTC have done nothing to reign in the current mortgage mess. But why do only twelve States regulate mortgage brokers?

In case the link above doesn’t work here is the url: http://www.goodwinprocter.com/Files/CFSA/07/rm_07_10_9_Ohio.pdf

Breaking News: Hood Opens New Criminal Investigation of State Farm

Well wouldn’t you know it if good ole Jim Hood ain’t steppin’ in to do Dunn Lampton’s job and bring them crooks at State Farm to justice for dumpin’ their wind obligations on the us taxpayers via the flood program. This Cowboy did a post on the topic and Sop did one with pictures to show how them crooks did it and stole from Uncle Sam hisself.

Jim Hood has been listenin’ folks and has heard our cries for justice. If George Bush and his political band of big business boot lickers at the US Justice Department in DC won’t brings these crooks to justice thank God we got Jim Hood!

Hood, Moore moving into action against State Farm

By ANITA LEE[email protected]

Mississippi’s current and former attorneys general are back on the offensive against State Farm insurance companies.

Attorney General Jim Hood is asking a federal judge to dissolve a court order that prevents him from continuing a criminal investigation involving State Farm. Hood says the investigation is not related to a 2006 criminal probe by his office into State Farm’s handling of policyholders’ Hurricane Katrina claims.

The suspended investigation is secret, but court records indicate State Farm sued to stop it after Hood tried to subpoena company records.

Meanwhile, former Attorney General Mike Moore said in a sworn statement that he and Hood did not use the threat of criminal prosecution in late 2006 to coerce State Farm into settlement of policyholders’ Hurricane Katrina claims, as State Farm alleges.

Instead, Moore’s statement said, State Farm insisted Hood agree to drop his prosecution of the company before it would sign on to a proposed global settlement of policyholders’ claims reached in early January 2007.

Hood did agree to end his 2006 investigation of State Farm, but he says that promise hinged federal court approval for a global settlement of policyholder claims.

The proposed settlement failed to win court approval. State Farm contends it has honored its agreement by re-evaluating claims through the Mississippi Department of Insurance. However, Hood says the company failed to live up to standards set out in the original settlement proposal.

The legal dispute has been clouded by the indictment of policyholders’ attorneys from the Scruggs Law Firm, which withdrew from the legal partnership then renamed the Katrina Litigation Group. While the indictment was not directly related to policyholders’ lawsuits against State Farm, the company has accused Scruggs of ethical and legal violations in the lawsuits and questioned his relationship to Hood and his criminal proceedings.

Scruggs reached a settlement of 640 policyholder claims with State Farm in November 2006, according to a State Farm letter. The global settlement of other Coast claims, reached in January 2007, was rejected by U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr.