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|  | Katrina Latest Last Post 09 Jul 2008 03:58 AM by Mike Kunze. 163 Replies. | Sort: |
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Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
 | | 14 Feb 2007 02:29 AM |
| Here is an email I received today, but haven't talked to anyone in that area about it yet. The Times-Picayune newspaper reported this morning that a Plaquemines Parish Judge has ordered the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to pay a local couple the full value of their homeowners policy after their house was destroyed by a combination of flooding and wind damage from Hurricane Katrina. Judge William Roe on Thursday ordered the state-sponsored insurer of last resort to pay Susan and Billy Langston Sr. $100,225, the full value of their homeowners structure policy with Citizens. In the Langston case, the plaintiffs' expert said 80 percent of the damage came from wind. Citizens says at least 30 percent of the damage came from wind. The Langstons' attorney said that no matter what the actual amount, both estimates attest that the wind damage was significant. The Langstons did have flood insurance, but the combined value of their flood and wind payments do not cover the loss of their home, which was obliterated from its slab. We are working to obtain a copy of the opinion and will keep you updated. It is expected that the Louisiana Citizens Property Insurance Corp. will appeal the ruling. Other rulings on the Valued Policy Law are also expected to be appealed in both the federal and state court systems. It will also be interesting on how the Allstate case that is in trial in federal court in LA comes out this week | | | |
| Ray Hall
Advanced Member
Posts:852
| | 14 Feb 2007 11:04 PM |
| | I just have a few snips of info on the Allstate case, but the jury may not like the" jack pot "plaintiff. SF told MS today (claims mentor) No more more NEW HO and Commercal Property in MS. until...... | | | |
| Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
| | 15 Feb 2007 12:49 AM |
| a link to the SF announcement today for MS. Shouldn't come as a suprise to anyone.
http://money.aol.com/news/articles/_a/state-farm-says-no-new-policies-in/20070214144309990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001
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| Ray Hall
Advanced Member
Posts:852
| | 15 Feb 2007 02:05 AM |
| | Lets see Florida now Louisiana part of TX. Next Year MS, this will cover the Gulf Coast except the small Alabama Coast. Citizens will be the largest Homeowner writer in the US. And the Fed goverment will write all the re-insurance for wind and flood on the Gulf and Atlantic Coast and the new company will be call American Citizens All Risk , including flood from any source.It will be written from you house of representive, local office. who was appointed agent for his district by the federal insurance commish, Jack Abramhoff. | | | |
| Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
| | 15 Feb 2007 01:23 PM |
| | Some interesting things in the Allstate case in trial right now. Will go to the jury today and may have a decision tonight. | | | |
| Deborah Moroy
Member
Posts:171
| | 15 Feb 2007 08:54 PM |
| Here's the update on the Allstate case-the couple dropped the suit! http://www.wwltv.com/local/stories/wwl021507khallstate.a98787.html | | Visit our Adjusters Information Blog
www.dimechimes.wordpress.com | |
| Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
| | 15 Feb 2007 09:13 PM |
| | I told you there were some interesting things going on in the case. Needless to say there may have some merit to the allegation that Allstate made to the misrepresentation on the part of the policyholder. | | | |
| Deborah Moroy
Member
Posts:171
| | Larry Murray
Member
Posts:2
| | 01 Mar 2007 12:09 AM |
| For those that have not seen this.
"This video was taken by an unknown person inside the Beau Rivage Casino during the hurricane Katrina. Play close attention to the water and waves."
The Beau Rivage is on the Gulf Coast, next to I-110, right on the water. Wind first? Water first?
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5954521938928173924 | | | |
| David Houtz
Member
Posts:42
| | 01 Mar 2007 02:24 PM |
| Wow,
That is a good flick!!!
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| Deborah Moroy
Member
Posts:171
| | 01 Mar 2007 04:42 PM |
| House committee accuses insurers of massive Fraud..wants to bring in the Renfroe adjusters in to testify: http://www.propertyandcasualtyinsurancenews.com/cms/nupc/Breaking+News/2007/02/28-KATRINAPANEL-mb | | Visit our Adjusters Information Blog
www.dimechimes.wordpress.com | |
| Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
| | 15 Mar 2007 11:10 PM |
| Maybe State Farm needs to avoid the courtroom in MS for awhile. Here is the latest results:
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/16910503.htm
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| Tom Toll
Life Member
Advanced Member
Posts:983
| | 15 Mar 2007 11:32 PM |
| If the adjuster who handled this loss was aware of the witness and/or his statements that the roof blew off, that is a dereliction of his duties to the carrier and insured. Regardless of case load, everything has to be taken into consideration when making recommendations. I regret State Farm is getting burned, but this one sounds justified, assuming the eye witness was telling the truth.
Of course, if State Farm was aware of the witness and still denied, then they are derelict. | | | Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. | |
| Ray Hall
Advanced Member
Posts:852
| | 16 Mar 2007 06:33 PM |
| This reminds me of Carla in 1961, West Galveston Island. A resident stayed on the Bay side of the island and saw the seven tornados come ashore and destroyed all the beach house on the front row. We settled quite a few on his tornado affidavits. Some young defense lawyer made a field trip to check the distance, visability etc. It seems the witness had poor eysight, it was night time, he was looking into driving rain, the distance was 1.7 miles. Yep it happens in the fog of war... sorry storm. | | | |
| R .D. Hood
Founding Member
Member
Posts:215
| | 16 Mar 2007 07:08 PM |
|
A Lawyer Like a Hurricane
JOSEPH B. TREASTER
Published March 16, 2007
PASCAGOULA, Miss. — Richard F. Scruggs, one of the country’s most successful trial lawyers, made his first fortune in a case that hit close to home. He sued asbestos makers on behalf of workers at the shipyard in his hometown, Pascagoula, who had developed lung diseases. He made his second fortune with lawsuits against the tobacco industry, coming up with a winning legal strategy in Mississippi that he then applied nationwide.
But his latest legal battle — trying to force insurers to pay more for damage from Hurricane Katrina — literally hit home.
His white-washed house on Beach Boulevard, just 50 yards from the Gulf of Mexico, is gone. The house, with its columned entrance and sunny breakfast room, appeared in the movie “The Insider,” about a whistle-blower who helped Mr. Scruggs win a $248 billion settlement in the tobacco case. It was so badly mangled that it had to be bulldozed to the foundation slab.
The loss made him a partner in grief with tens of thousands of residents along the coast of Mississippi. Many turned to him in their battle for insurance money in a fight that has become a financial and public relations nightmare for the insurance industry.
Mr. Scruggs, 60, slim, often folksy and smooth as molasses in court, is using techniques that he honed in his earlier legal fights. He is arguing now, as he did before to such good effect, that he is fighting for the little guy who cannot stand up alone to big anonymous companies.
“These are not just legal wars,” Mr. Scruggs said in a recent interview. “They are public relations and political wars.”
The insurance companies counter that Mr. Scruggs has portrayed them unfairly and misleadingly.
“Mr. Scruggs has taken a tiny portion of the claims associated with Katrina and tried to paint the entire insurance industry with a brush of malfeasance,” said Robert P. Hartwig, president and chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute. “And that is an entirely incorrect characterization.”
Joseph Annotti, a spokesman for the Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, whose members provide 40 percent of the home insurance in Mississippi and the rest of the country, calls Mr. Scruggs an opportunist. “People are looking for someone to blame and someone to pay,” Mr. Annotti said. “He’s playing on that anger and people’s raw emotions. On our part, we underwrite policies that go through strict regulatory approval. Every word is approved by the state regulator.”
The insurance dispute centers on two main kinds of damage in a hurricane: wind and flooding. People along the Mississippi coast say they thought their policies covered any type of hurricane damage. The insurers, with the backing of the courts, have insisted that flooding is not included.
But in some cases insurers have also refused to pay when a house was wrecked by both wind and flooding — and there, a federal judge has ruled, they were wrong. Flood insurance is sold by the federal government. But fewer than 20 percent of the coastal residents in Mississippi bought it.
Insurers note that they have paid $41 billion for damage from Katrina, including $5.5 billion for homes in Mississippi. The insurers add that only 1 percent of their customers have taken them to court, but that amounts to more than 2,000 lawsuits in Mississippi and many more in New Orleans and elsewhere in Louisiana that are being dealt with separately.
For months after the hurricane hit on Aug. 29, 2005, the insurance dispute in Mississippi was stalled. But in mid-January a Biloxi couple won a $1 million verdict against State Farm, the largest home insurer in the nation and in Mississippi.
Less than two weeks later, Mr. Scruggs completed negotiations on settlements with State Farm worth at least $130 million, setting the pattern, many insurance experts said, for resolving hundreds of other cases and potentially providing hundreds of millions of dollars for rebuilding along the coast.
Mr. Scruggs conceded he has used “every trick in the book” to gain advantage over the insurers.
“This is very personal,” he said. “This is about my family, my friends, the people I grew up with. I wake up at 3:30 every morning thinking of ways to get at this thing.”
In what some of his critics sniff at as unlawyerly decorum, he missed no opportunity to bash the insurers in newspaper and television interviews and press releases. He embraced two whistle-blowers who walked away from their jobs as claims adjusters, taking with them thousands of State Farm documents. Then he turned over the information to the attorney general of Mississippi, who began a criminal investigation.
In his talks with State Farm, Mr. Scruggs regularly dropped the names of two of his clients — his brother-in-law, Senator Trent Lott, and his friend, Representative Gene Taylor, who both lost houses to Katrina and had their claims rejected by State Farm.
Both men have been leading efforts in Congress to eliminate the industry’s exemption from antitrust laws and to strip the insurers of some tax benefits. Also, at their behest, federal investigators have been looking into some of the practices regarding claims payments that Mr. Scruggs has been challenging.
[On Monday, Mr. Scruggs surprised State Farm by abruptly filing court papers to withdraw from the agreement he had engineered. But other lawyers said they thought Mr. Scruggs was merely maneuvering to force State Farm to agree to modifications requested by Federal Judge L. T. Senter Jr. to improve terms for policy holders before approving the deal.
[State Farm said it had not been consulted by Mr. Scruggs on the move. But Phil Supple, a spokesman, said the company was “still open to any reasonable and just proposal to put these issues behind us.”
[In a separate case, a jury in Gulfport, Miss., on Thursday awarded a homeowner $66,234, and State Farm settled the policy holder’s claim for punitive damage for an undisclosed amount.]
Mr. Scruggs began his career often defending insurance companies at a prestigious law firm in Jackson after graduating from the University of Mississippi Law School in 1976.
Looking for more independence and more money, Mr. Scruggs said he persuaded his wife, Diane, to move back to Pascagoula, the hard-scrabble town where they both were raised. His first year on his own he tripled his income.
“I was not altruistic,” he said.
Not long after, he began handling the asbestos cases of workers at the Ingalls shipyard. “Over time, I became aware of how they were being treated by their employers,” he said. “Like another consumable in the manufacturing process. Like a welding rod.”
Mr. Scruggs and several partners received $50 million for their work on the asbestos cases. He used the asbestos money to bankroll the litigation against big tobacco and has been using the tobacco money to take on other industries, like health care and now home insurance.
Mr. Scruggs said his first objective in his latest legal battle was to help people get back on their feet. But he also wanted to tilt the balance of power in insurance more toward the customer.
In hopes of getting stricter regulation, he has quietly begun campaigning to replace George Dale as commissioner of insurance in Mississippi and he is pushing insurers to rewrite their policies in plain English.
“The policies are designed to be ambiguous,” Mr. Scruggs said. “They can say, ‘This is as clear as the nose on your face,’ or, ‘It doesn’t mean that at all.’ All this litigation has got people talking and realizing that these insurance companies really aren’t in it for them. They’re in it for themselves.”
Not so, the insurers say. “There’s no benefit in short-changing consumers,” Mr. Annotti said. “But you have to draw the line somewhere and say, ‘Look, these were the terms of the policy.’ ”
Mr. Scruggs came to terms with State Farm in two phases. First, the insurer agreed to pay $80 million to 640 homeowners, many of whom had been originally denied any payment by the company. Then, State Farm agreed to reopen damage claims for up to 36,000 others. In that agreement, State Farm said it would pay at least $50 million.
Some lawyers, who are pursuing separate cases against the insurers and who oppose the larger settlement, have raised suspicions that Mr. Scruggs drove a harder bargain for his initial clients, the 640 homeowners, than for the others. And there have been complaints from rival lawyers about potential fees of more than $46 million for Mr. Scruggs and the pick-up team of two dozen lawyers in his Scruggs Katrina Group.
Mr. Scruggs, who has earned more than he says he could spend in 10 life times, said he got the best deal he could for all his clients and that the earnings of his group would rise as payouts to homeowners increase.
He said he would never have signed off on a deal that slighted coast residents. “It’s important to me to be respected in your hometown,” he said. “Not to betray, or be perceived to betray, the people who got you where you are.”
Mr. Scruggs said that his own insurer, USAA, had paid him several hundred thousand dollars but that his claim was still not fully resolved. He was one of the few homeowners along the coast who bought federal flood insurance, and he said he was paid the maximum $250,000 on the house and $80,000 for some of the furnishings.
As part of the settlements with State Farm, Jim Hood, the attorney general of Mississippi, agreed to end his criminal investigation of the company and drop it from a civil lawsuit that accuses most of the insurers in Mississippi of failing to live up to commitments in their policies.
State Farm further angered Mississippians by declaring that because of an uncertain legal climate in the state, it would stop providing new coverage on homes.
Mr. Scruggs said he was sure other companies would come in to pick up the slack. “If this is the way State Farm is going to treat their trusted customers, then don’t let the door hit them in the fanny,” he said.
The insurance companies may not like Mr. Scruggs. But if he wanted to run for office in Mississippi, now might be a good time. Outside the Beau Rivage Casino in Biloxi one morning, Michael Foster, a security worker, overheard a reporter on a cellphone arranging to meet Mr. Scruggs.
“He’s good people,” Mr. Foster said after the phone call ended. “He’s down to earth. If he tells you something, it’s gospel.”
Less than a year before the hurricane, Mr. Scruggs bought a house in Oxford, Miss., the home of the University of Mississippi. He had already shifted his main office there. Since then, Mr. Scruggs, a former Navy pilot, has commuted to the coast in a corporate jet that he often flies himself. In Pascagoula, he stays in a boxy mobile home parked on the waterfront slab where Senator Lott’s home once stood.
He has sold his bare lot on Beach Boulevard, but he has not abandoned the coast. He is repairing storm damage to his late father-in-law’s home, and plans to make that his Pascagoula home. It is about 100 yards farther back from the water than the home he lost to Katrina.
All material ©2007 The Gadsden Times
401 Locust Street, Gadsden, AL, 35902
(256) 549-2000
The Gadsden Times is a member of the New York Times Regional Media Group | | | "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new... Albert Einstein" | |
| Steve Beaumont
Founding Member
Member
Posts:320
| | 16 Mar 2007 07:56 PM |
| As many know, Mr Scruggs group recently withdrew their support of the proposed settlement of a group of claims/class action in MS. Some good reading is in the link below where it talks about a contempt of court hearing that is upcoming for the Rigsby sisters and Mr Scruggs over the alleged removal of some papers and documents by the Rigsbys from Renfroe and Co. This article came out about a week before Mr Scruggs requested the settlement proposals for the Class Action be tabled. Of interest in this article are two letters that went between Scruggs and State Farm a couple weeks back where in by my reading of them, Scruggs is trying to tell SF that if SF doesn't help him get Renfroe off his back and the Rigsby's, he will do away with the class action settlement going on in MS. (you can click on the link to the letters in the article) One has to wonder how much he is looking out for his clients best interest in the class action situation after reading these letters and seeing what took place with the class action in MS. I would hope there is more to it then what is evident here, but to me it looks like the contempt/Renfroe thing was tied to their decisions in MS.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/16841626.htm | | | |
| Mark Thomas
Member
Posts:1
| | 18 Mar 2007 07:05 AM |
| Amidst all the controversy, it has been fashionable amongst the public and tort community to vilify the insurance companies for not paying claims to insureds. This criticism has been made notwithstanding the policy provisions and the fact that a large portion of the damage (flooding) was clearly not covered by the policies written. What is worthy of note, but an aspect little discussed, is who should really take the blame for the poor coverage along the MS coastline. In considering this, one needs to think back to Camile. During Camile, the associated storm surge reached 28 feet (if my memory is correct). I remember visiting the coast the year after the storm and seeing the devastation. Any consideration of not having appropriate coverage at any point along the coast was optomistic insanity. Katrina proved the point - in a spactacular style. But why did so many people not have flood insurance?
Flood insurance is virtually universally required as a condition of any mortgage within a flood plain. The banks didn't require it because the areas were not considered in the flood plain. For the banks, this was fortuitous (or so they felt) in that it increased the demand for mortgages in their area and, hence, increased their profits. Communities were loath to being in a flood zone for the same reason of promoting growth. I suspect both effectively lobbied for ommision of numerous flood zone designations.
So who, after the lesson of Camile, opted to ignore the potential for flooding along the coast. The U.S. Government - through the Corps of Engineers - is legally tasked with determining flood zones. How they could omit the coast from flood zone designation in light of the recent lessons learned (yes, 30 years is recent when you are evaluating risk potential). So, had the government done it's job, more people would have had flood coverage, less growth in the lowest, most risk prone areas, probably would have occurred due to loan restrictions, and less people would have been in harms way. So, I ask, who should bear the blame for gross negligence regarding storm coverage? Should it be insurers who accurately assessed the risk and subsequently excluded flood coverage from their policies. Or, is the government really to blame for improperly promoting growth in high risk areas, allowing unreasonable risk to go uninsured, and not properly assigning flood zone status to areas clearly vulnerable to flooding (as the Corps is legally tasked to do)?
Uncle Sam clearly needs to be pointing his damn finger towards the mirror - not at insurers who assessed risk accurately, charged premiums based on that risk, and paid claims in accordance with their policies. | | | |
| joseph lombardo jr.
Member
Posts:112
| | 18 Mar 2007 01:28 PM |
| Mark,
With all due respect I disagree .......The responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the residents.....they are the ones that live on the coast and in harms way.....they did not need to be told that they were in a potential flood zone......You know, if you live within a mile of a main body of water and your house is only built at 10 feet above sea level, chances are you will get flooded.......and as far as the community lobbying for the lack of a flood zone declaration, whom makes up the community????
I am sorry, but if you live on the coast, you are at risk and it is the responsibility of each resident to protect themselves the best that they can.....
Senator Lott is a perfect example....house on coast....NFIP coverage for the max of $250,000...damage in excess of said policy...why did he not buy excess flood insurance from the private sector?????? I don't know about you, but momma drowned the stupid ones........
His brother in law, the famous attorney Scruggs...same deal.......
Enough said.....
Have a nice day......
Joe L.
People need to take responsibility for their own actions or lack thereof. And there is a period at the end of that sentence......
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| Meg Watts
Member
Posts:113
| | 18 Mar 2007 02:38 PM |
| Joe, I agree with you. There needs to be more individual responsibility and less pointing the finger at someone else. Its not the government who promotes building on the coast. I'm sure they could actually care less where anyone chooses to live. That is supply and demand. If you build it, they will come. People want the luxury of having a high priced home with a view of the water, but then when it comes to the dangers of that luxury, they then want the government to step in and provide remedy should there be a disaster. That's why they have flood insurance. That's why they have the excess policies available. If someone chooses not to purchase the proper insurance to cover a potential loss, its not the government's responsibility to step in and indemnify them for being stupid. Maybe they should purchase one less SUV or one less HDTV and make an insurance payment. | | Do the right thing, ALWAYS
~Meg~
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| joseph lombardo jr.
Member
Posts:112
| | 18 Mar 2007 02:51 PM |
| Meg,
Thank you... I have a very strong attitude about building on the water front, especially here in Florida where these jokers build multi-million dollar homes and Condos on the barrier islands........they are called barrier islands for a reason.......
I firmly believe that no government sponsored flood insurance should be available to people that build on a barrier island/directly on a body of water and those areas that have already been flooded in the past 40 years....and once a property is flooded, it would be no longer available for NFIP coverage........why do we have to supplement high priced real estate development through our tax dollars(FEMA-NFIP)???
Really, all we are doing is protecting the investment of the wealthy.......
Joe L. | | | |
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