State Farm Trying to Improve its Image After Hurricane Katrina

August 16, 2006

  • August 16, 2006 at 11:55 am
    jin juh we says:
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    every day and twice on Sundays, the Farm boys still outshine the dirty hands people at Allstate.

  • August 16, 2006 at 1:26 am
    SODA says:
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    State Farms image is not only tarnished with insured but also with adjusters. This company has cost both sides of the hurricane money. This company is good for one thing, a certificate. From their on they will do nothing but cost you money just like the insured.

  • August 16, 2006 at 2:56 am
    Brian says:
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    I\’m sure State Farm feels proud of what it\’s done in MS. So they feel like all of the good things being done are ignored. Well, paying out $1B to almost 85,000 claimants…that\’s a whopping $11,000 per claim. If your house sustained major damage, $11,000 isn\’t going to take you very far down the road to having your home restored.

  • August 16, 2006 at 3:45 am
    jerald kerce says:
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    Does anyone really expect the ins.co\’s. to be held liable for the damage caused by water that was PUSHED BY WIND. As a logical thinking person it seems to me that if one has hurricane coverage, one would be covered.I personally wrote a claim that was denied when I had an eye witness say he watched the home get blown away before ANY water arrived. You tell me, Is that right.Let me for one say, HELL NO!

  • August 17, 2006 at 1:12 am
    Bob says:
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    Amazing that after a consumer enters into a binding contract with an insurance company and they are forced, Yes forced to pay up, the insurance company brags that they actually paid for something. I thought that is the reason one bought insurance. In my opinion, insurance companies are the biggest criminal element in the United States. They could teach the Mafia how to steal

  • August 18, 2006 at 8:05 am
    LL says:
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    Some people alway expect the payout of a Rolls Royce, but they only want to insure a chevy.

  • August 19, 2006 at 10:14 am
    Roger says:
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    Cheap replacement parts, dying agent force, dinosaur products, bad faith, rising rates. State Farm still sucks.

  • August 26, 2006 at 1:58 am
    David Greenstein says:
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    I have worked thousands of high dollar insurance claims as a subcontractor for many of the most well known insurance companies insluding state farm. I think I have some knowledge about the insurance business. When my work is evaluated, there is ONE overiding concern, I hear again and again. If I take your invoice for professional services and multiply it by 3.5 – 4.0 or more, can you show that you have reduced our payment to the claimant by this much? Its as simple as that! If I want to keep a client, I better find a way to deny, delay or minimize the claim! If I submit too many insurance investigations which objectively show that they have to pay, I am \”fired\”. No more work. For those interested, do a Google search on Amberjack, to learn where the money for claims really goes! Amberjack is a billion dollar investment business wholly owned by State Farm companies.

  • August 27, 2006 at 10:27 am
    Kathy says:
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    I work in the insurance industry as an underwriter so I don\’t get involved in claim handling. I do get involved with issuing policies. If insurance policies paid for water outside the home, imagine what the premiums would be. Already, most who were uninsured, could not afford the premiums as they were. Is that the answer…make an insurance company pay for everything, drive up their premiums and then less people be insured?? Then they would have fewer claims to pay?!!

  • August 27, 2006 at 12:14 pm
    Laura says:
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    Exclusive: Whistleblowers Say State Farm Cheated Katrina Victims
        By Brian Ross and Joseph Rhee
        ABC News

        Friday 25 August 2006

        State Farm Insurance supervisors systematically demanded that Hurricane Katrina damage reports be buried or replaced or changed so that the company would not have to pay policyholders\’ claims in Mississippi, two State Farm insiders tell ABC News.

        Kerri and Cori Rigsby, independent adjusters who had worked for State Farm exclusively for eight years, say they have turned over thousands of internal company documents and their own detailed statement to the FBI and Mississippi state investigators.

        In an exclusive interview with ABC news, to be broadcast on 20/20 – Watch 20/20 tonight at 10 – and World News, the Rigsby sisters say they saw \”widespread\” fraud at the State Farm offices in Biloxi and Gulfport, Mississippi.

        \”Katrina was devastating, but so was State Farm,\” says Cori Rigsby.

        At one point, they say State Farm brought in a special shredding truck they believe was used to destroy key documents. State Farm says shredding is standard to protect policyholders\’ privacy.

        The sisters say they saw supervisors go to great lengths to pressure outside engineers to prepare reports concluding that damage was caused by water, not covered under State Farm policies, rather than by wind.

        They say reports that concluded that damage was caused by wind, for which State Farm would have to pay, were hidden in a special file and new reports were ordered.

        Cori Rigsby says she recalls a senior coordinator ordering that an engineering company be told to alter the findings in its report so that State Farm would not have to pay. \”Tell them if they don\’t change their report, we\’re not paying their invoice,\” she remembers the supervisor saying.

        A lawyer for State Farm, Wayne Drinkwater, told ABC News he was unfamiliar with the Rigsby sisters but denied State Farm cheated policyholders or pressured outside engineers to reach particular conclusions in their damage reports.

        \”We, of course, have not been cheating,\” Drinkwater said.

        The allegations, if proven, would support the suspicions of thousands of homeowners along the Mississippi Gulf Coast who have been unable to collect enough insurance money to rebuild their homes.

        Many have filed lawsuits against State Farm and other insurance companies alleging the companies of wrongly denying or low-balling their claims. The Rigsby sisters\’ allegations are now a key part of suits filed against State Farm by well-known Mississippi lawyer Dickie Scruggs, famous for taking on the tobacco companies.

    any alternatives out there?

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