In the last couple of weeks we broadcast our views on mediation on billboards along the Gulf Coast and in Bloomington, Illinois, where State Farm is headquartered. Like our television commercials (viewable on the SKG website), the billboards are drawing attention to the fact that the big insurance companies are continuing to stonewall policyholders and humiliate them in the mediation process.
The commercials, which urge people to reject the mediation process and hire a lawyer, played recently on local stations around the state and are currently on The Weather Channel. Over the last year State Farm has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in feel good advertising on billboards and sporting events, trying to con the people on the Mississippi Gulf Coast and throughout the country into believing that it is a Good Neighbor and is interested in aiding recovery on the Gulf Coast. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the SKG billboards and commercials are our way of telling the people on the Gulf Coast and in Bloomington what is really going on, and State Farm doesn’t like it. But the truth hurts, and the truth is that State Farm’s refusal to pay thousands of Gulf Coast policyholders what they are entitled to for Katrina damage under their policies is causing misery, pain, and financial hardship and is holding back recovery. State Farm’s sham mediation program filled with false hope just prolongs the pain and misery.
I’ve read a couple of newspaper items by political columnists which wrongly suggest that we are running political ads. Many of these political columnists are on the record as supporters of Insurance Commissioner George Dale. These ads are not, and were not intended to be, political. This is a public information campaign to encourage families on the Gulf Coast to get legal representation and think twice before following the path to mediation. The statute of limitations is 3 years and we are approaching the second anniversary of Katrina. The industry is doing everything they can to drag as much of this process out as long as they can so families don’t file. SKG negotiated with both insurance companies that are part of the Commissioner’s mediation process, and we know first hand how tough they are to deal with. In the words of one policyholder, It was humiliation, not mediation. Going into mediation without a lawyer, as State Farm and their Insurance Commissioner are urging, would lead to bad results for the policyholder, and State Farm and the Insurance Commissioner know it.
Our best advice is to consult a lawyer, as Kerri Rigsby said in the ad. Fees don’t have to come out of the family’s check. When we negotiated settlements, they came directly from the company. State Farm contends that fees are part of SKG’s motivation to represent families. If this were true and since we are now out of the mediation process, why haven’t they increased the 50 million dollar pool of money they set aside to settle the claims? The math doesn’t add up.
State Farm has publicly said that their deal with Commissioner Dale is the same plan that SKG had agreed to earlier in the year. We want to make it clear to the families on the Gulf Coast that this is not so. We do not support or agree with the Dale mediation process. Ads were the best way to get our message across. We still represent over two hundred policyholders in cases against State Farm. The ads in Bloomington are a reminder to State Farm that we are still advocating for the families on the Gulf Coast and will not stop until everyone has been treated fairly by the industry.
State Farm Tactics
It has been suggested that State Farm has been ghost writing letters to the editors in Mississippi newspapers, in the very backyard of families who lost their homes in Katrina. For example, see this piece of thinly veiled corporate-speak. See also this letter in the Sun Herald (scroll down to the second letter). Interestingly, an exact replica of this letter appeared in the Clarion Ledger and the Hattiesburg American. Watch out for the same propaganda appearing in a newspaper near you.
When our billboards attracted media coverage in State Farm’s hometown, the company responded with textbook spin. They made false and misleading statements about our attempts to secure a settlement in Judge Senter’s court in the Woullard v. State Farm class action suit. In Bloomington, State Farm’s spokesperson Fraser Engerman tried to avoid discussing the content of the billboards and instead resorted to name calling and false allegations.
The real story, however, is that State Farm failed to act in good faith when we were trying to forge a settlement. They refused to make the changes that Judge Senter ordered, and they reneged on their promise not to punish the Rigsby sisters. That is why SKG withdrew from the settlement, and that is the truth behind why the original settlement failed. On Bloomington radio, State Farm was represented by a former CNN reporter who had covered Katrina (we found this curious) and who made all kinds of obnoxious comments and insinuations. But it really didn’t matter what was said, because the reporter who conducted the interviews acknowledged that her husband worked for State Farm and “put food on their family’s table”. What could we expect? Listen to the interview here.
Maybe this sounds political, but we shake our heads in disbelief as Insurance Commissioner Dale focuses on his campaign for re-election, a campaign bankrolled by the insurance industry. He is using an insurance lobbyist as his campaign counsel (free of charge) and fails to see how his cozy ties with insurance companies are unethical for a government official tasked with regulating the insurance industry. See this cartoon from the Clarion Ledger.
Fortunately, the US Department of Homeland Security and the US Attorney in Southern Mississippi are both conducting federal investigations to examine how insurance companies handled claims following Katrina. More here.
The government has subpoenaed documents from other insurers too. State Farm isn’t saying if they received them. Only public companies have to disclose this sort of thing with the SEC, and State Farm isn’t public.
State Farm can attack us all they want, but we will continue to fight for the people of Mississippi. Good neighbors aside, we will not stop the fight.
- Zach
Don’t be stupid and lazy like me. I went years without shopping around my insurance rates, and one day it dawned on me.. All I had to do was take 5 minutes and get some free quotes and boy, did I ever save some major $$ 