Walt Handelsman, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning editorial cartoonist in the employ of the Baton Rouge/New Orleans/Acadiana Advocate, had a brilliant cartoon Tuesday entitled simply: Dream On…
It was a four-panel illustration with the first three showing an obviously elated husband explaining a sequence of events to his wife. In the first, with hands aloft in obvious glee, he says, “I met with our insurance company!”
In the second panel, he says, somewhat incredulously, “They were super-fast and responsive!”
Then, in the third panel, embracing his wife, he practically shouts, “They agreed to cover all or our damages and cut us a check on the spot!!!”
The fourth panel shows them lying in bed as he explains, “…Then I woke up.”
Unfortunately, that’s just about the gist of it.
The Advocate had an earlier (Nov. 6) story about “slow responses, repeated delays and blatantly low settlements” on the part of insurance companies in dealing with claims of homeowners in the Lake Charles-Sulphur area devastated by successive hurricanes more than a year ago.
LouisianaVoice told you about insurance companies’ reluctance to act in good faith years before Hurricane Laura slammed into Southwest Louisiana on Aug. 27.
LouisianaVoice told you all about the “Delay, Deny, Defend” STRATEGIES of Allstate, State Farm in dealing with Hurricanes Katrina and Rita back on April 11, 2017, more than two years before Laura struck. Be sure to read the entire post, especially the part about how the insurance companies have two sets of prices for home repairs – depending on whether or not the damage is determined to be from wind or water.
It’s a tried-and-true tactic designed to wear down the resolve of the staunchest homeowner – simply because the Good Neighbor and the Good Hands People have the financial resources and the team of attorneys to first delay as long as possible before they deny the homeowner’s claim (or at best, offer an insultingly insufficient settlement) and then dig in the long haul as they defend should the homeowner be foolish enough to file suit.
Even in the rare cases when they’re taken to court and lose, it’s still a sound strategy, given the number of claimants who do not have the wherewithal to aggressively fight the big insurance companies. The vast number who capitulate and settle for pennies on the dollar make the courtroom losses insignificant that equate to pesky costs of doing business – much like companies that pollute to save the cost of compliance with EPA regulations or con men who rip off investors for tens of millions and receive only token fines.
McKinsey and Co., the only private sector employer Bobby Jindal ever had, introduced the Delay, Deny, Defend strategy to Allstate and State Farm just in time for Katrina. The results should have been a red flag for Gulf Coast residents long before the introduction of Laura. Author Jay Feinman wrote an entire BOOK about the tactic and there are several other Internet POSTS about what should, by all that is just, a criminal CONSPIRACY prosecutable under federal RICO statutes.
Those who take advantage of individuals at their most vulnerable times, when they are the weakest and subject to corporate treachery are the lowest of the low.
Rep. Tanner Magee, (R-Houma) pontificated like any good politician, regurgitating the rhetoric expected of him when he said, “If I was in the insurance industry, I would be concerned about what legislation looks like next year.”
Why? Why would the insurance industry be concerned as long as it continues to pour money into the campaign funds of the right legislators, namely members of the House and Senate committees on insurance?
The 16 members of the House Insurance Committee (including ex-officio member Tanner Magee) received $81,000 in contributions from insurance companies from Jan. 1, 2015. That does not include individual agents who may have contributed.
Senate Insurance Committee members received $45,000 from insurance companies over the same period – again, not including individual agents. Do the math and that a tad more than $5,000 per member in both chambers. Add Senate President Page Cortez’s $6,5750 in contributions from insurance companies, and you have a total of $132,845 for the entire committee memberships.
You’d be surprised what $5,000 can still buy.
Did I mention that several members of those two committees are employed by the insurance industry?
Rep. Magee, I hope you are correct in your prognostication but as a realist who has observed the ethics (or lack thereof) of legislators for too many years, I remain pessimistic that we will ever see any positive actions.
To support my less-than-optimistic outlook, I need only refer to the “reforms” implemented following Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008.
Homeowner deductibles, normally around the flat rate of $1,000, were adjusted to a percentage of the home appraisal, initially 2 percent, but adjusted upward in 2014 to an average of 5 percent.
That meant a STATE FARM policyholder with a home appraised at $200,000 with a 5 percent deductible would be faced with a $10,000 deductible. In Orleans and Jefferson parishes, that rate is 9 percent. In East Baton Rouge Parish, it’s 7.5 percent and in Lafayette, the deductible is 9.4 percent. So much for Good Neighbor Jake.
I’m not sure Louisianans can afford any more help from the legislature.
Louisiana Voice 
And don’t forget our insurance commissioner, Jim Donelon, who is already softening us up for premium increases. Flood insurance is about to price itself out of business (maybe that’s the intent). So are regular insurance companies (again, intent? plans to make more money other ways, and/or dramatically increase deductibles?). Billy Nungesser was on Engster last month and he said he was going self-insured on his house in Plaquemines parish. I think he said that his annual insurance premium would be more than $24,000 if he insured it.
One thing’s for sure, the big boys in the industry will never go out of business (unless they want to) and they don’t mind buying the support of elected officials with your premium dollars. And, they can always rationalize rate increases, just as the oil companies can always rationalize price increases on what might happen in the future.
Today’s insurance companies will be shown by history to make the ‘robber barons’ of early United States look like Sunday School children by comparison.
You could have written about the insurance arses day and night for years to come. They are the cruelest of insurances and delay, delay, delay is their credo. On top of that the use the hold back and don’t pay the damage cost fully as appraised until you turn in a repair receipt. I use USAA, a company supposedly caring about veterans. They are flat out liars, deceitful and have not a care in the world except to get your $$$.
Perhaps I was a little unfair to Allstate and State Farm; they are all cut from the same cloth.
https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/business/article_e3e3e454-40e9-11ec-abc4-ef1ae3e11cc9.html
USAA is a solid real and correct insurer. So are the rest. Insurance is a form of taxation and is a numbers game. Big numbers in any line, thus many lobbyists for each line. It is a totally regulated system of protecting the insured and if the insured does not have any assets, be sure to get your UM coverage. The real issue is marketing, love the lawyer adds and the insurance companies’ adds .It is not complicated, greed/ego controls. thanks ron thompson
And the thick plottens: https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/politics/article_90544edc-4279-11ec-a65f-db8809e89561.html