Forums

If they don't comply within the time allotment, I am in hope the Judge throws the bat at them and incarcerates all three. They are all three contemptible. It has become obvious in past weeks that Scruggs was in it for the money, not to help his clients, as has been suspicioned all along. I need not express my feeling about the sisters, it would be deleted. I also cannot express my feelings for the Ms. Judge and his rulings, for the same reason.

Obviously, they were paid well for the stolen property. One might wonder when the deal was struck. Was it before or after the theft?

Tom,
I guess the real question is whether or not State Farm and other companies treated the insureds improperly........there seems to be evidence that SF and other companies did not handle claims properly and that in fact there was lots of wrong doing....this is not the first time that SF has been hammered and caught with their hand in the cookie jar........

Frankly, I do not give a tinker's damn about Scruggs and the two sisters, nor their motives...I think there is a much larger problem out there that needs to be addressed......and no, I do not have any solid answers on how to cure the issues.....

Joe L.

Recent posting on the net said they were each signed to a $150,000.00 per year contract. The terms and conditions were not published.

Joe, as much as I don't want to, I must agree with you. There were a number of companies whose behavior and treatment of claims was and is questionable.  I think the gravity of losses overwhelmed their rational thought in La. and Ms. I am in hopes a tragedy of this magnitude will never occur again, but all of us know that it will. You can't build condos, business's and homes on the waterfront and not have a calamity fo this sort not occur. It's not how, it's when.

Had the sisters taken documents and just turned them over to the authorities, that I could understand. But they turned them over to a lawyer and they joined his staff. Recently someone was convicted of stealing secrets when they tried to sell Coke info to Pepsi, are these ladies not just as quilty of theft? When you profit from your actions are you proctected by whistle blowers laws?

The two decider sisters should be prosecuted for theft of property, to the fullest extent of the law.  Scruggs also should be taken into account for buying those papers from the two decider sisters and camouflaging his purchase, calling it consulting. Consultants of what?

Just a quick opinion about State Farm, I happened to work on SF auto claims after Katrina and Wilma, I'm sure philosophys varied from one team manager to another, as well as from auto to property. But my experience was SF would pay, and pay, and pay. The benefit of the doubt always went to the insured. The auto office in Mobile also housed the property adjusters, and from conversations with them, they had the same experience. As I said, I'm sure that different team managers had different philosophys, but I saw no evidence of wrong doing.

JWG

As many of you know, I worked for State Farm on staff for five years after leaving the ministry.  I only mention my former career to qualify myself as someone who understands a thing or two about ethics.  From a former insider's perspective, I can only say that I was never asked to do anything dishonest.  If fact, I was always encouraged to be honest with the insured, even when the insured was not honest with me.  Every benefit of the doubt was decided in favor of the insured.

That having been said, there are two areas where State Farm has blind spots.  The first is that they convince themselves that certain things are true and cannot be moved from that position even in the face of evidence to the contrary.  In this context it is possible that some State Farm management has hired engineers to give an expert opinion, then told the engineers what their expert opinion should be. 

Second, they do not understand that doing business ethically includes treating their employees and those they hire on a temporary basis in an ethical manner.   This is especially true since reorganization began about 2002 or 2003.  On this count I have made the decision not to sue them on at least a couple occasions when I had grounds to do so.  I prefer to earn my money by the work I do rather than the mistreatment I receive at the hands of another.   My decision years ago to not accept State Farm was sort of like giving myself a 65% raise.  That's how much more I made on average by simply working for other companies and not dealing with the redundant State Farm meetings and daily changing requirements that led to rewriting reports that were correct by the standards in place when the file was turned in, but had changed by the time the State Farm manager reviewed the file.

Steve, I can appreciate your comments, even though I have never personally been employed directly by SF.  My brother is currently, and my father retired from SF in the early 90's.  I have said this before concerning this very issue.  I have worked as an independent for no other carrier but SF, and can honestly say what many of you have said is true.  They pay, and pay, and pay.  I was always instructed to err on the side of the insured when a grey area existed.  I have had many files reviewed by SF managers which were returned to me to go ahead and pay this or that.  I always ask "was I wrong?", and the answer has always been "No, but go ahead and pay it anyway, it's a close call."  Like you guys said, it surely varies from manager to manager, but I just haven't seen it personally. 

I have had State Farm coverage since 1961 and have had three events that I made claim for. I never had a problem resolving a claim with them, except one time when an independent came out (newbie), but after calling my agent and SF sending out one of their staff adjuster's, it was resolved immediately.

Flood is NOT covered under an HO policy, I don't care what the courts say. That is why we have WYO's and NFIP. People just want to save premium money and take a chance and when they lose, they want some fancy tongued lawyer to bail them out, or the Federal Gov't through FEMA. The recent rulings in Ms. are unfair to all companies. Storm surge is not a covered cause of loss under the HO policy. Sure, winds cause storm surge, but again, storm surge in excluded.

I wonder what is going to happen if and when we have a major Tsunami event. Are the lawyers going to try and prove that the Tsunami is an earthquake and if the insured has earthquake coverage, try to get it covered that way.

There are some very disparaging events going on in Ms. and La. The judges are either purely stupid of existing policy and law, or their is a hidden agenda for them. I have lost my confidence in the judicial system, for very good reason, Mississippi and Lousiana.

AMEN Tom!

There appears to be a general perception that since State Farm is the biggest, they are perfect.  Whether they treated you well when you worked for them or had a claim with them, is irrelevant and should not convince you that they are not susceptible to wrongdoing.  On the contrary, there's another common perception that since they are the biggest, they were unscrupulous in getting there or that their size made them complacent.

Regardless, you have a company that may have had a few bad apples and made some bad decisions.  It appears that Scruggs has made at least a $300K wager ($150K x's 2) that SF did screw up.  Leave it to the courts to decide it.

Jud, whatever experiences any of us have had working for OR as a policyholder of SF, it does NOT change the policy.  I live in MS, and am able to follow this story very closely.  These judges are absolutely off their rockers.  They have issued judgements stating that the burden of proof is on SF to show that the water came before there was wind damage.  In a particular case, the judge ruled in favor of the policyholder, who stated that a tornado destroyed his home.  The policyholder wasn't there to see said tornado, and there was nothing but a slab when all was said and done, but the judge said it was up to SF to prove otherwise.  That's ridiculous, and makes no sense according to the language of the policy.  The burden of proof is on the insured, not the insurer.  SF is wise to cease writing HO policies in MS.  I'm glad they are still honoring the policies of those who already had them, like me.  I know the reason for Sen. Lott, his brother in law Scruggs, and Gene Taylor to do what they're doing.  Votes, and money.  As for the judges, I haven't figured that one out yet, but I hope somebody is able to bust their bubble.  I honestly think it's a case of sympathy for the people who lost everything and didn't have proper coverage.  Noble, yes.  But it's wrong.  State Farm is singled out because they are the biggest, but ALL insurance companies will suffer from this.  This is blackballing of the entire industry.

The bottom line is that SF chose to bamboozle its policyholders. Had SF chosen to behave, as an honorable, conscientious insurance company should no one would have been to expose them. Now I am not suggesting companies should pay uncovered claims. However, I think most of us would agree that telling experts to revise their findings, reports, etc is morally and legally wrong. As an industry, I believe that we should be talking about what SF did and what it failed to do, as an alternative to focusing on the sisters or the lawyers. .

Steve, your post about your experiences reminded me of what one author wrote. He stated if you want to know how your staff treats your customer’s just look at how you treat them.

 

Mentioning blind spots hits home with each of us without question unless we have a blind spot.

 

The talk about Scruggs mentioned by some confuses me. I do not know the man but to state he took on a case that he did not have any credible evidence to support in a court room would paint him to be an idiot. It is my guess that Scruggs has evidence that some making remarks on CADO have not read but as one posted in time we will know more facts of the case and perhaps then learn if Scruggs is an idiot crook.