Education + Advocacy = Change (Foundation for Insurance Accountability)
 

Click a topic below for an index of articles:

Home

New Material

Healthcare workers

HMO

Insurance

Labor Dept

National Health insurance

Occupational Issues

Personal Health Insurance

Personal Property

Sponsors

Social Security

Veterans & insurance

Workers Compensation (A thru L)

Workers Compensation (M thru Z)

 

If you would like to submit an article to this website, email us at info@fraud-insurance.net for a review of this paper

any words all words
Results per page:

The Insurance industry is failing the consumer. The concept of fraud is being used by the insurance industry to deceive the public. "Our current national health care system is simple: don't get sick."

Personal Property

     
 

 

Main topics can be found within the left column; the newer information is listed below.  Thank you
     

 

"Americans for Insurance Reform (AIR) today released a comprehensive report documenting the insurance industry’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina.  The report, entitled The Insurance Industry’s Troubling Response To Hurricane Katrina, details actual case studies of numerous Gulf Coast residents, revealing a significant pattern of callousness, unfairness, and generally inept performance by many companies.  In some cases, insurers’ conduct worsened the suffering of policyholders, many of whom were left hungry and homeless by the hurricane. 

One of the contributors to the report, Joanne Doroshow, AIR co-founder and Executive Director of the Center for Justice & Democracy, said, “This report shows that many policyholders who were exhausted, traumatized, and without food, water or a roof over their heads, looked to their insurance carriers to come to their aid as they struggled to survive.  But what many found was not help at all, but rather resistance by insurance companies to pay them anything, leaving victims frustrated and angry, not to mention destitute.”

CONSUMER GROUP RELEASES MAJOR STUDY DOCUMENTING INSURANCE INDUSTRY’S FAILED RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA

 
Document Name & Link to Document Description File Size /Type
A Flood of Incomplete Insurance Coverage Private insurance companies that write homeowners’ policies have more than $400 billion total in reserves – more than enough to cover the estimated costs of Katrina-related claims, which are expected to reach up to $35 billion. The government-subsidized NFIP, however, is another story. CNN Money’s Shaheen Pasha reported on September 6 that the NFIP “has the ability to borrow $1.5 billion from the Treasury Department but the agency has already asked to increase its borrowing authority to cover expected claims” from Katrina.  
Another Insurance Company Caught Defrauding America. So What Else is New? Every year, law firms such as Parker Scheer, go to war against some of the largest insurance companies in America, with the goal of leveling the playing field between the rights of the individual consumer and institutions which, by their size and resources, dwarf even the world's leading banks. Every year, the insurance cartel pours more and more money into the coffers of State and Federal legislators, pressing for new laws that will further insulate them from paying their customers what they deserve. The trial lawyers have taken quite a black eye in recent years, largely because it's sexier to write a newspaper story about a woman who breaks her toe and wins a million bucks, then it will ever be to write about a family who lost a father to a drunk driver and has been waiting more than four years to receive their insurance proceeds.  
CONSUMER GROUP RELEASES MAJOR STUDY DOCUMENTING INSURANCE INDUSTRY’S FAILED RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA Hunter said, “Insurance should be a policyholder’s road to recovery at times of personal crisis. After Katrina many insurance companies have too often been more like stone walls, blocking the way for policyholders to recover.”  
Hurricane Katrina: Insurance According to the Insurance Information Institute, homeowners insurance provides financial protection against disasters. Homeowners insurance generally covers many areas including the house, its contents, and personal liability claims against policyholder and other members of the household. The coverage that each person wants to get depends on their needs and priorities and the insurance premiums depend on the coverage each individual chooses. An insurance premium is the amount paid or to be paid by the policyholder for coverage under the contract, usually in periodic installments (Dictionary, 2006).  Each household's insurance premiums is also weighted on the square footage of the house, building costs, construction materials and features, crime rate in the neighborhoods, probabilities of disasters and distance of the closest fire hydrant or fire station, and the conditions of plumbing, heating, and electrical system (Insurance Information Institute). Generally, the homeowners insurance covers from disasters such as “windstorm, hail, fire, lightening, theft, aircraft, vehicles, smoke, vandalism, malicious mischief, explosion, breakage of glass, explosion and riot or civil commotion.” (California Department of Insurance, 2004). Most home insurance generally does not cover flood, earthquakes, or maintenance related damages.  
     
Hurricane Katrina Insurance Claims Insurance companies have a propensity to treat claimants more justly when the playing field is leveled and the insurer is conscious that the claimant has legal representation. The most valuable process of dealing with your insurance company is to have a lawyer on your side before you first speak to your insurance company.  
Governor of Washington Signs Insurance Fair Conduct Act into Law The bill expands the definitions of unfair insurance practices under RCW 48.30.010 and adds new remedy provisions to chapter 48.30, to allow policyholders to sue insurers for unreasonable denials of coverage or of payments of benefits.  These new bases for a policyholder claim are in addition to the breach of contract and bad faith claims already available.   

Ground Zero and New Orleans suffer government's dead hand

 

 This mismatch between private and public has nothing to do with shortage of public money; after Katrina, President Bush promised £58 billion in federal aid for the victims. New Orleans and its crooked ways are partly to blame. Only this weekend, a pair of Bobcat excavators worth £50,000 were stolen from the Lower Ninth Ward, one of the hardest-hit areas of the city, where they were being used to build a memorial to the victims of Katrina…But the chief culprit is a federal government clogged with bureaucracy and indecision, incapable of spending money even when it's got tons of the stuff…The American government can just about arrange an orgy in a brothel - fraudulent applications for Katrina aid were spent on champagne and prostitutes - but it is hopeless when it comes to large-scale federal construction projects  
It's The Law That Insurance Companies 'Willingly' Pay Claims Properly And Promptly (Good Faith) And That It Is Illegal To 'Willingly' Discount, Delay Or Deny Payment Of Claims (Bad Faith)

Bad faith insurance is any matter regarding an insurance claim by an Insured that is wrongfully denied by the Insurer. An insurance policy is considered a contract between you (the Insured) and your insurance carrier (the Insurer).   This contract requires that your Insurer acts in "good faith" toward you. When an Insurer unreasonably withholds the benefits of the policy from its Insured, it is considered to be in "bad faith."

 
Katrina exposes insurance disparities Though poor and minority neighborhoods suffered the brunt of Katrina’s fury, residents living in white neighborhoods have been three times as likely as homeowners in black neighborhoods to seek state help in resolving insurance disputes, according to an Associated Press computer analysis.  
Katrina Spawns Storm Over Insurance The legal issues relating to Katrina remain varied and unique.  The losses suffered as a result of Katrina will create complex insurance and reinsurance issues regarding causation and coverage.  Determining whether the property damage was caused by wind-driven rain, storm surge, rising floodwaters or wind will remain tricky.  
Pennies From Heaven WHY KATRINA WON'T FLOOD INSURANCE COMPANIES Those are significant sums, to be sure. But it still leaves a gaping hole. The insurance coverage, the federal relief, and the private efforts will likely add up to less than $50 billion—or about half the total damage. Yes, there's plenty of reason to be optimistic that the national economy will bounce back from the blow it took last week. But as New Orleans begins the long process of drying out, we should also wonder where most of the funds to reconstruct the Gulf Coast are going to come from.  

Policy Challenges in Modern Health Care

(Large report-Increase Download time)

 

 Also juxtaposed in this volume are two seemingly intractable problems that afflict health. First, mechanisms for producing population health—driven by our nation’s values, culture, history, and social organization—have yielded low average health in the United States compared with other economically advanced nations. This country also faces wide disparities in health by socioeconomic status, gender, and race/ethnicity. Second, the individually oriented focus of U.S. health care has resulted in a system that is the most expensive in the world and yet is in organizational and functional disarray. Are these two problems related with respect to causes, manifestations, and the public policy solutions proposed by these authors? Pdf 1417 kb
Preserving the Right of Informed Consent As a rule, persons living with a disability such as HIV/AIDS wish to remain as independent as possible, living in the community and enjoying friends and family. Although nursing homes and assisted living can provide necessary care, they do not offer the same level of privacy (i.e. shared rooms, open doors, no choice in caregiver) or personal autonomy (no curfew, assistance on your own schedule) as an independent living situation. A live-in-aide may be able to provide all of the daily supports necessary for someone to remain in his/her home. Pdf 455 kb
Reforming the Insurance Industry The latest focal point of New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s scrutiny is the commercial insurance industry. His investigation, starting with a lawsuit against Marsh and McLennan, the largest insurance broker in the world, has grown to include more than a dozen companies. At an October 14, 2004 press conference, Spitzer explained, “If the practices identified in our suit are as widespread as they appear to be, then the industry’s fundamental business model needs major corrective action and reform.” To date, Spitzer has subpoenaed Aetna, AIG, CIGNA, Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., ING, Liberty Mutual, MetLife, and UnumProvident, among others. The charges against these companies center around bid-rigging and kickbacks.  
STATE FARM AGENTS REVOLT AGAINST INSURANCE GIANT A group of current and former State Farm agents from across the country today called upon the House and Senate Commerce Committees and state insurance commissioners to investigate consumer abuses by America's largest insurance company, State Farm Mutual Insurance Co.  "This company has lost its core philosophy and abandoned its policyholders in the process," State Farm agent Mike Morgan, Dayton, Ohio said. "People need to know what's really going at this company."  

State Farm Settles Katrina Claims in Mississippi

 

 State Farm, the nation’s largest home insurer, reached an agreement today with Mississippi officials to pay hundreds of millions dollars to thousands of homeowners in the state who have been unable to rebuild in the nearly 17 months since Hurricane Katrina swept across the Gulf Coast.  
The Allstate [deny help to Katrina victims] As the second largest property/casualty insurance company with 22 percent of the marketshare in Louisiana, Allstate has used the "wind versus flood" claim to escape responsibility to their homeowners policyholders.  
THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY’S TROUBLING RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA Hurricane Katrina was one of the worst disasters in our nation’s history, killing over 1,300 people (with thousands more still unaccounted for), displacing millions, and leaving hundreds of thousands without jobs or income. With the impact compounded by Hurricane Rita shortly thereafter, hundreds of thousands of homes were destroyed or significantly damaged. In the days and first few weeks following the disaster, many individuals were left destitute, without food, water or a roof over their heads. The entire world watched this horror unfold on their television screens. There was no denying the magnitude and human suffering caused by this catastrophe. In a disaster as devastating as Katrina, the availability of insurance can literally become a matter of life or death, especially regarding the promise of temporary living expenses under "loss of use" clauses in homeowners policies, which many residents in Louisiana and Mississippi had.1 Many homeowners policyholders who were hungry, exhausted, traumatized and homeless, immediately looked to their insurance carriers to come to their aid with living expenses as they struggled to survive. However, what many of these residents found was not help, but rather resistance by their insurance carriers to pay them anything at all. It was soon after Katrina hit that insurance companies began looking for ways to escape responsibility to their homeowners policyholders altogether, publicly declaring that most, if not all, of the damage was due to flooding.