Viewing by month: May 2007
Scruggs’ Coalition Running TV, Newspaper Ads Against Insurance Commissioner
Insurance Commissioner George Dale’s toughest opponent this year may not be another candidate but a band of attorneys that has launched newspaper and television ads criticizing him.
The Scruggs Katrina Group, a coalition of four law firms, is latching onto Dale’s greatest vulnerability: Gulf Coast residents who lost homes in Hurricane Katrina and feel duped by insurers who denied claims.
The attorneys, led by Oxford lawyer Dickie Scruggs, paint Dale as too chummy with insurers and attack the effectiveness of a mediation program that began after the August 2005 storm.
On March 25, a newspaper ad depicted Dale as a pig covered with pink lipstick by State Farm Insurance executives and the caption “Lipstick On A Pig.”
Read complete post
Audit Shows Citizens Spend Thousands for Consultants and Entertaining
BATON ROUGE — The state-run insurance company paid almost $300,000 for consultant services and expenses from 2004 to 2006, including $3,522 for fishing and hunting trips for state insurance regulators, officials in the Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot’s office said Tuesday.
More than half of the payments by Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state’s third-largest insurer of homes and businesses, could not be properly documented, the audit said.
The report is one of a series of audits that Theriot’s office is compiling on the performance of Citizens.
Read complete post
Allstate Unit Pricing Challenged After Katrina
Something about the insurance settlement on the Slidell townhouse seemed fishy to Chris Karpells, a prospective buyer who would be collecting the insurance money as part of the deal.
As he pored over the fine print, what caught Karpells’ eye was this: Allstate seemed to have two different ways of pricing the damage repair costs, depending on whether the damage at 286 Marina Drive was chalked up to flooding or wind.
Read complete post