btw.. with all your railing against homeowner’s companies…
Only 23,212 registered Homeowners complaints. Not broken down catagorically into claims/pricing/cancellations.
State Farm Florida, prior to pulling out of the state of FL had 1.6 MILLION policies. To put that into perspective that number of complaints comes to 1.45% of the total number of policies written in ONE state by ONE carrier.
On a conservitive basis lets increase the number of policies by an additional 49 states 49×1.6M + 1,600,000 = 80,000,000 policies not necesserilly all written by one carrier, nor each state having that many.
By this point the number of complaints is only .029% of the total potential number of policies…
Here are some numbers. State Farm finished number two in customer satisfaction to Amica. Lets see – the biggest personal lines P&C insurer in America comes in second to a small, customer oriented company like Amica. Not bad. We do claims followup at 3 days, 10 days and at 30 days we send a questionnaire to claiments and guess what?
We get a positive response from not only SF clients but claiments from other companies too.
Geico brags in their ads about a 97% claim satisfaction rating. They don’t tell the public that’s about the worst satisfaction rating in our industry. Do me a favor – cut and paste and belly ache about Geico for a while, will you?
HOw can someone reading an insurance publication know so little about insurance?
OKay great, there were a total of 195,669 confirmed consumer complaints on insurance companies were reported in 2008 calendar year. But how many of them were actually VALID complaints? Maybe half, maybe less I would believe.
Gee Bill, there’s a real factual post. The numbers posted by people that don’t agree with you are bull, right? Your so called facts are the light of day? As someone else asked, how can someone posting on an insurance web site be so uninformed about insurance?
You all most be dorones do you not see the miss we are in because of greed.numbers game.
Complaints-unsatisfactory unsatisfactory unsatisfact denials of claims
Edward B. Rust, Jr., will be happy to tell you that he is the Chief Executive Officer of State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. He has deep family ties to State Farm, as his father and grand father have both served in that capacity. He will also tell you that he is an educated man who has been to law school and is a past practicing attorney. In addition, he was the chairman of the Coalition for Excellence in Education and a member of George W. Bush’s transition advisory team on education. So with all of that education why will he not deal with his company’s inbred greed. Does he not know that we are in the 21st century where anyone can look on the internet and see the billions of dollars that are being spent to protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in punitive damages for making use of “a completely bogus” outside bill review company that helped lower the cost of medical bills. In October of 1999, an Illinois jury rendered a $456 million judgment against State Farm and an additional $730 million in punitive damages for the insurer’s breach of contract with auto policy holders by relying on generic replacement parts. Rust was adamant in his insistence that fraud had not been committed. A class action law suit in the name of State Farm policy holders was filed in 2003 for breach of contract and statutory consumer fraud in which $1.1 billion was awarded to plaintiffs. When a company is misleading the public, should that not be considered fraud? A consumer would go to prison for that type of behavior. State Farm will let you know that, in several states, fraud and abuse is pushing up the cost of auto insurance. A court in late 2001 reached an unfriendly consumer decision that could have the effect of reaching deep into the pockets of the consumer. Sharply higher jury awards in vehicular liability cases are putting additional upward pressure on auto insurance rates. The average jury award in auto liability cases rose from $187,000 to $269,000 in 2000, an increase of 44%. I question if any of the lawsuits would be necessary if the company would just fairly pay their claims. The company represents on their web-site that consumer protection is one of their most important goals, but do they really think that courts would be awarding multiple millions of dollars in bad faith claims if that were their emphasis? State Farm’s ratings are based on their financial strength. State Farm states that their high ratings are also based on strong claims paying ability. With this ability, why is it necessary for their policy holders to allege that the claims department was directed, in evaluating their cases, to take them to trial instead of settling within the limits of the policy? This practice exposed policyholders to judgments above the limits of their policies, when the company was attempting to make an effort to win smaller decisions. Two former in-house attorneys for State Farm contend that they were often called upon by the insurer to represent its’ policy holders and were forced to commit “unlawful and unethical activities, including requiring the two to stay silent about the rights of the policyholders”. State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. State Farm should know that continued scrutiny of their claims paying practices will continue especially with the advent of new claims that are surfacing from lawsuits revolving around Hurricane Katrina. A message to Mr. Rust, and any employee of the company that is acting in bad faith for its policy holders. Its time to stop no more.
Edward B. Rust, Jr., will be happy to tell you that he is the Chief Executive Officer of State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. He has deep family ties to State Farm, as his father and grand father have both served in that capacity. He will also tell you that he is an educated man who has been to law school and is a past practicing attorney. In addition, he was the chairman of the Coalition for Excellence in Education and a member of George W. Bush’s transition advisory team on education. So with all of that education why will he not deal with his company’s inbred greed. Does he not know that we are in the 21st century where anyone can look on the internet and see the billions of dollars that are being spent to protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in punitive damages for making use of “a completely bogus” outside bill review company that helped lower the cost of medical bills. In October of 1999, an Illinois jury rendered a $456 million judgment against State Farm and an additional $730 million in punitive damages for the insurer’s breach of contract with auto policy holders by relying on generic replacement parts. Rust was adamant in his insistence that fraud had not been committed. A class action law suit in the name of State Farm policy holders was filed in 2003 for breach of contract and statutory consumer fraud in which $1.1 billion was awarded to plaintiffs. When a company is misleading the public, should that not be considered fraud? A consumer would go to prison for that type of behavior. State Farm will let you know that, in several states, fraud and abuse is pushing up the cost of auto insurance. A court in late 2001 reached an unfriendly consumer decision that could have the effect of reaching deep into the pockets of the consumer. Sharply higher jury awards in vehicular liability cases are putting additional upward pressure on auto insurance rates. The average jury award in auto liability cases rose from $187,000 to $269,000 in 2000, an increase of 44%. I question if any of the lawsuits would be necessary if the company would just fairly pay their claims. The company represents on their web-site that consumer protection is one of their most important goals, but do they really think that courts would be awarding multiple millions of dollars in bad faith claims if that were their emphasis? State Farm’s ratings are based on their financial strength. State Farm states that their high ratings are also based on strong claims paying ability. With this ability, why is it necessary for their policy holders to allege that the claims department was directed, in evaluating their cases, to take them to trial instead of settling within the limits of the policy? This practice exposed policyholders to judgments above the limits of their policies, when the company was attempting to make an effort to win smaller decisions. Two former in-house attorneys for State Farm contend that they were often called upon by the insurer to represent its’ policy holders and were forced to commit “unlawful and unethical activities, including requiring the two to stay silent about the rights of the policyholders”. State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in
State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. protect their empire from the consumer.
denies claim
Comment:
A total of 195,669 confirmed consumer complaints on insurance companies were reported in 2008 calendar year. 1 OF THOSE 195,669 IS ETHEL ADMAS Farmers Insurance denies claim then caves in only after pressure from Insurance Commissioner and Public.
Danny Westneat a columnist of the Seattle Times wrote a series of articles about Ethel Adams. Ethel was in a multi car auto accident in Seattle. “Farmers Insurance has decided not to pay her a penny because they say someone caused Adams’ crash on purpose.” They said this was not considered an “accident”.
Ethel Adams was cut from her car, doctors debated if Ethel Adams would live or walk. She spent nine days in a coma, she had collapsed lungs, seventeen broken bones, spent one month in a hospital and five months in a nursing home. She is also confined to a wheelchair as you can see in the picture above.
Ethel Adam’s employer had $2,000,000 of insurance coverage with Farmers Insurance Group. Farmers had used what is referred to as “exploiting technical loopholes” to make attempts to avoid paying Ethel Adams. Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler told Farmers Insurance they have until October 20, 2005 to justify their position for not honoring the claim of Ethel Adams. On October 20th Farmers decided the right thing to do was to pay Ethel Adams.
Farmers Insurance only caved in after being threatened with a lawsuit by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, complaints by the public, as well as national television exposure by both “Good Morning America” and Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” which were planning stories. Read the articles below for more detail.
Some quotes from Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler: “They’re just wrong, and it’s obvious they’re wrong. The bottom line is they are going to pay this claim.”….”If the company continues to refuse to pay, the state will initiate an administrative hearing accusing Farmers of violating the insurance code. That’s the first step in suing them.”…”We could always suspend their certificate to do business in this state as well”
-Here is the letter in which Farmers denies the claim (6/22/2005). It states, “Truck concludes that he acted intentionally in ramming Campo’s vehicle, causing it to overturn and pushing it into the southbound lanes of Aurora Avenue, and thereby causing the multiple vehicle collision that resulted in injury to Ms. Adams. Testa’s conduct does not satisfy the application definition of “accident”. Truck is denying coverage for UIM claims based on Testa’s conduct for this reason.” (Pg 4, Para 6)
-Letter from the WA Department of Insurance to Farmers Insurance (10/17/2005). It states, “The information available to us at his point demonstrates that the denial of her claim by your company is not only unconscionable, but is contrary to public policy.”
By all means, one instance that you state as absolute truth is proof of wrongdoing for all the company. They are all criminals. If every industry had a complaint ratio as low as the one caffiend quoted for insurance companies in an earlier post we would all have a better marketplace. People like you like to twist a few bad incidents into an industry or company wide systematic criminal issue. What an idiot. What law firm or “consumer advocate” do you work for?
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btw.. with all your railing against homeowner’s companies…
Only 23,212 registered Homeowners complaints. Not broken down catagorically into claims/pricing/cancellations.
State Farm Florida, prior to pulling out of the state of FL had 1.6 MILLION policies. To put that into perspective that number of complaints comes to 1.45% of the total number of policies written in ONE state by ONE carrier.
On a conservitive basis lets increase the number of policies by an additional 49 states 49×1.6M + 1,600,000 = 80,000,000 policies not necesserilly all written by one carrier, nor each state having that many.
By this point the number of complaints is only .029% of the total potential number of policies…
No response caffiend. The cut and paster must either be overwhelmed with actual facts or has left their cubicle for the day.
Here are some numbers. State Farm finished number two in customer satisfaction to Amica. Lets see – the biggest personal lines P&C insurer in America comes in second to a small, customer oriented company like Amica. Not bad. We do claims followup at 3 days, 10 days and at 30 days we send a questionnaire to claiments and guess what?
We get a positive response from not only SF clients but claiments from other companies too.
Geico brags in their ads about a 97% claim satisfaction rating. They don’t tell the public that’s about the worst satisfaction rating in our industry. Do me a favor – cut and paste and belly ache about Geico for a while, will you?
HOw can someone reading an insurance publication know so little about insurance?
OKay great, there were a total of 195,669 confirmed consumer complaints on insurance companies were reported in 2008 calendar year. But how many of them were actually VALID complaints? Maybe half, maybe less I would believe.
Gee Bill, there’s a real factual post. The numbers posted by people that don’t agree with you are bull, right? Your so called facts are the light of day? As someone else asked, how can someone posting on an insurance web site be so uninformed about insurance?
You all most be dorones do you not see the miss we are in because of greed.numbers game.
Complaints-unsatisfactory unsatisfactory unsatisfact denials of claims
Edward B. Rust, Jr., will be happy to tell you that he is the Chief Executive Officer of State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. He has deep family ties to State Farm, as his father and grand father have both served in that capacity. He will also tell you that he is an educated man who has been to law school and is a past practicing attorney. In addition, he was the chairman of the Coalition for Excellence in Education and a member of George W. Bush’s transition advisory team on education. So with all of that education why will he not deal with his company’s inbred greed. Does he not know that we are in the 21st century where anyone can look on the internet and see the billions of dollars that are being spent to protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in punitive damages for making use of “a completely bogus” outside bill review company that helped lower the cost of medical bills. In October of 1999, an Illinois jury rendered a $456 million judgment against State Farm and an additional $730 million in punitive damages for the insurer’s breach of contract with auto policy holders by relying on generic replacement parts. Rust was adamant in his insistence that fraud had not been committed. A class action law suit in the name of State Farm policy holders was filed in 2003 for breach of contract and statutory consumer fraud in which $1.1 billion was awarded to plaintiffs. When a company is misleading the public, should that not be considered fraud? A consumer would go to prison for that type of behavior. State Farm will let you know that, in several states, fraud and abuse is pushing up the cost of auto insurance. A court in late 2001 reached an unfriendly consumer decision that could have the effect of reaching deep into the pockets of the consumer. Sharply higher jury awards in vehicular liability cases are putting additional upward pressure on auto insurance rates. The average jury award in auto liability cases rose from $187,000 to $269,000 in 2000, an increase of 44%. I question if any of the lawsuits would be necessary if the company would just fairly pay their claims. The company represents on their web-site that consumer protection is one of their most important goals, but do they really think that courts would be awarding multiple millions of dollars in bad faith claims if that were their emphasis? State Farm’s ratings are based on their financial strength. State Farm states that their high ratings are also based on strong claims paying ability. With this ability, why is it necessary for their policy holders to allege that the claims department was directed, in evaluating their cases, to take them to trial instead of settling within the limits of the policy? This practice exposed policyholders to judgments above the limits of their policies, when the company was attempting to make an effort to win smaller decisions. Two former in-house attorneys for State Farm contend that they were often called upon by the insurer to represent its’ policy holders and were forced to commit “unlawful and unethical activities, including requiring the two to stay silent about the rights of the policyholders”. State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. State Farm should know that continued scrutiny of their claims paying practices will continue especially with the advent of new claims that are surfacing from lawsuits revolving around Hurricane Katrina. A message to Mr. Rust, and any employee of the company that is acting in bad faith for its policy holders. Its time to stop no more.
Edward B. Rust, Jr., will be happy to tell you that he is the Chief Executive Officer of State Farm Mutual Insurance Company. He has deep family ties to State Farm, as his father and grand father have both served in that capacity. He will also tell you that he is an educated man who has been to law school and is a past practicing attorney. In addition, he was the chairman of the Coalition for Excellence in Education and a member of George W. Bush’s transition advisory team on education. So with all of that education why will he not deal with his company’s inbred greed. Does he not know that we are in the 21st century where anyone can look on the internet and see the billions of dollars that are being spent to protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in punitive damages for making use of “a completely bogus” outside bill review company that helped lower the cost of medical bills. In October of 1999, an Illinois jury rendered a $456 million judgment against State Farm and an additional $730 million in punitive damages for the insurer’s breach of contract with auto policy holders by relying on generic replacement parts. Rust was adamant in his insistence that fraud had not been committed. A class action law suit in the name of State Farm policy holders was filed in 2003 for breach of contract and statutory consumer fraud in which $1.1 billion was awarded to plaintiffs. When a company is misleading the public, should that not be considered fraud? A consumer would go to prison for that type of behavior. State Farm will let you know that, in several states, fraud and abuse is pushing up the cost of auto insurance. A court in late 2001 reached an unfriendly consumer decision that could have the effect of reaching deep into the pockets of the consumer. Sharply higher jury awards in vehicular liability cases are putting additional upward pressure on auto insurance rates. The average jury award in auto liability cases rose from $187,000 to $269,000 in 2000, an increase of 44%. I question if any of the lawsuits would be necessary if the company would just fairly pay their claims. The company represents on their web-site that consumer protection is one of their most important goals, but do they really think that courts would be awarding multiple millions of dollars in bad faith claims if that were their emphasis? State Farm’s ratings are based on their financial strength. State Farm states that their high ratings are also based on strong claims paying ability. With this ability, why is it necessary for their policy holders to allege that the claims department was directed, in evaluating their cases, to take them to trial instead of settling within the limits of the policy? This practice exposed policyholders to judgments above the limits of their policies, when the company was attempting to make an effort to win smaller decisions. Two former in-house attorneys for State Farm contend that they were often called upon by the insurer to represent its’ policy holders and were forced to commit “unlawful and unethical activities, including requiring the two to stay silent about the rights of the policyholders”. State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. protect their empire from the consumer? In Utah, the company was fine $25 million in punitive damages, in part for the “systematic destruction of documents and systematic manipulation of individual claim files to conceal claim mishandling”. An Idaho appeals court fined the company $9.5 million in
State Farm seems to have reckless indifference for the truth for the purpose of corporate and personal economic gain. protect their empire from the consumer.
denies claim
Comment:
A total of 195,669 confirmed consumer complaints on insurance companies were reported in 2008 calendar year. 1 OF THOSE 195,669 IS ETHEL ADMAS Farmers Insurance denies claim then caves in only after pressure from Insurance Commissioner and Public.
Danny Westneat a columnist of the Seattle Times wrote a series of articles about Ethel Adams. Ethel was in a multi car auto accident in Seattle. “Farmers Insurance has decided not to pay her a penny because they say someone caused Adams’ crash on purpose.” They said this was not considered an “accident”.
Ethel Adams was cut from her car, doctors debated if Ethel Adams would live or walk. She spent nine days in a coma, she had collapsed lungs, seventeen broken bones, spent one month in a hospital and five months in a nursing home. She is also confined to a wheelchair as you can see in the picture above.
Ethel Adam’s employer had $2,000,000 of insurance coverage with Farmers Insurance Group. Farmers had used what is referred to as “exploiting technical loopholes” to make attempts to avoid paying Ethel Adams. Washington State Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler told Farmers Insurance they have until October 20, 2005 to justify their position for not honoring the claim of Ethel Adams. On October 20th Farmers decided the right thing to do was to pay Ethel Adams.
Farmers Insurance only caved in after being threatened with a lawsuit by Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, complaints by the public, as well as national television exposure by both “Good Morning America” and Fox’s “The O’Reilly Factor,” which were planning stories. Read the articles below for more detail.
Some quotes from Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler: “They’re just wrong, and it’s obvious they’re wrong. The bottom line is they are going to pay this claim.”….”If the company continues to refuse to pay, the state will initiate an administrative hearing accusing Farmers of violating the insurance code. That’s the first step in suing them.”…”We could always suspend their certificate to do business in this state as well”
-Here is the letter in which Farmers denies the claim (6/22/2005). It states, “Truck concludes that he acted intentionally in ramming Campo’s vehicle, causing it to overturn and pushing it into the southbound lanes of Aurora Avenue, and thereby causing the multiple vehicle collision that resulted in injury to Ms. Adams. Testa’s conduct does not satisfy the application definition of “accident”. Truck is denying coverage for UIM claims based on Testa’s conduct for this reason.” (Pg 4, Para 6)
-Letter from the WA Department of Insurance to Farmers Insurance (10/17/2005). It states, “The information available to us at his point demonstrates that the denial of her claim by your company is not only unconscionable, but is contrary to public policy.”
By all means, one instance that you state as absolute truth is proof of wrongdoing for all the company. They are all criminals. If every industry had a complaint ratio as low as the one caffiend quoted for insurance companies in an earlier post we would all have a better marketplace. People like you like to twist a few bad incidents into an industry or company wide systematic criminal issue. What an idiot. What law firm or “consumer advocate” do you work for?