RE: state farm insurance company
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/28/2006 10:21:33 PM
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jm
Posts: 3
Joined: 4/19/2004
Status: offline
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get a rope...
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 2:38:44 AM
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swink_d
Posts: 260
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: Lexington, NC
Status: offline
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Quick glance at MS Doi
only shows Kerri witha license
Cori does not hold one for MS
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 1:06:17 PM
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vlmulder
Posts: 1
Joined: 6/12/2006
Status: offline
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My experience w/ sf has been good..I have work for many team leaders all having their own style. Some good some not so good.Having worked the same storm it was very to hard determine wind vs wave. They worked for E.A Renfroe..
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 1:30:15 PM
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bent1973
Posts: 76
Joined: 9/20/2005
Home base: DFW, TX
Status: offline
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Swink,
I don't think Cori is listed under her maiden name. I remember seeing a hyphenated last name on her when I was reading the press release.
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 1:47:31 PM
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ALANJ
Posts: 108
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: BIRMINGHAM, AL
Status: offline
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Wonder if the single sister has a boyfriend. I always wanted a rich and famous girlfriend.
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 2:36:53 PM
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CATSCRATCHED
Posts: 46
Joined: 10/10/2005
Status: offline
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ALANJ,
Be sure and get a signed confidentiality agreement and keep a close eye on all your important papers...LOL. 
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 9:04:10 PM
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wscook
Posts: 85
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: Orlando, Fl
Status: offline
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Associated Press; Sat; Aug 26, 2006
OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. - Who are the moles? The question was like a parlor
game for employees of State Farm Insurance Co. after Hurricane Katrina, one
they nervously played during coffee breaks or in the parking lot after work.
Richard "Dickie" Scruggs, a prominent lawyer of tobacco litigation fame,
created a stir by announcing in March that two "insiders" were helping him
build cases against insurers for denying claims for Hurricane Katrina
losses. Their identities remained a mystery until the day in early June when
Cori and Kerri Rigsby - employees of a company that contracted with State
Farm - told a supervisor they were cooperating with Scruggs.
That startling admission - and their subsequent resignations - ended a risky
charade. The Rigsbys say they spent months collecting reams of internal
State Farm reports, memos, e-mails and claims records before they gave them
to Scruggs and state and federal authorities.
The sisters, who managed teams of State Farm adjusters, say the documents
show that the insurer defrauded policyholders by manipulating engineers'
reports so that claims could be denied.
"I think we've given him the smoking gun," Cori Rigsby, 38, told The
Associated Press during a recent interview at the home she shares with her
sister near Ocean Springs.
State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said the Bloomington, Ill.-based company is
reviewing the sisters' allegations but hasn't been allowed to question them.
"State Farm's employees are committed to conducting themselves in an ethical
and appropriate manner," Supple said. "Any suggestions to the contrary are
simply wrong."
Hundreds of homeowners on Mississippi's Gulf Coast have sued their insurance
companies for refusing to pay for millions of dollars of damage from
Katrina. A judge who presided over the first Katrina insurance trial ruled
this month that Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. must pay for damage caused
by wind but not from flooding, including storm surges.
The first of Scruggs' cases against State Farm is scheduled to be tried
early next year, and he said the Rigsbys' cooperation has been invaluable in
building his case.
Scruggs is no stranger to whistleblowers: Jeffrey Wigand, a former Brown &
Williamson Tobacco Corp. executive, helped Scruggs and other lawyers secure
a multibillion-dollar settlement with tobacco companies in late 1990s. The
case was portrayed in the 1999 movie "The Insider," starring Al Pacino and
Russell Crowe.
The Rigsby sisters were both eight-year employees of E.A. Renfroe, a firm
that helps State Farm and other insurers adjust disaster claims. Although
they weren't State Farm employees, the company issued them computers and
business cards that identified them as State Farm representatives. They also
had confidentiality agreements with State Farm.
"We have always been proud to work with State Farm," Cori Rigsby said.
The sisters say that pride faded, however, as they began to suspect the
company was pressuring engineers to alter their conclusions about storm
damage so claims could be denied.
Kerri Rigsby says her suspicions grew in November after finding a
handwritten note attached to an engineer's report that read: "Put in Wind
file - DO NOT pay bill. DO NOT discuss."
She said the engineer's report, dated Oct. 12, concluded that Katrina's wind
caused most of the damage to a Biloxi policyholder's home. That should have
been good news for the policyholder, she noted, since State Farm's policies
cover damage from wind but not water.
But when Kerri Rigsby pulled the policyholder's file, she said she found a
subsequent report based on a second inspection of the home Oct. 18. This
time, the same engineering firm concluded that water caused most of the
damage, according to the report, which the AP reviewed.
"The policyholder did not get a copy of the one that said wind," said Kerri,
35. "He should have gotten lots more money."
It wasn't the only case in which State Farm's engineers drafted conflicting
reports on storm damage, according to the Rigsbys. They say managers were
surprised and disappointed that many initial engineering reports blamed
damage on wind.
"That's when they went into a frenzy and started mass-canceling all these
engineering reports," Cori said.
Kerri says "the bible" for State Farm adjusters was a "cookie-cutter"
report, prepared by Haag Engineering Co. of Dallas, which concluded that
rising water, or wind-driven storm surge, was responsible for most of
Katrina's damage in Mississippi.
"If it didn't match the Haag report, then it wasn't accurate," Kerri said.
Supple, the spokesman for the insurance company, said State Farm ordered
engineering reports for less than 2 percent of the more than 100,000 claims
it received in Mississippi after Katrina. State Farm also says it made
payments on more than 60 percent of the claims involving engineers. Supple
rejected the allegation the company pressured engineers to change their
conclusions.
"State Farm's claims-handling practices have been in a public fishbowl," he
said. "With the world watching, we've done what we do every day, and that's
be fully up front in all aspects of our claims work."
The Rigsbys say they didn't know what to do with the information they had
gathered until their mother, Pat Lobrano, arranged a meeting with longtime
friend Scruggs in February.
The sisters say they ultimately printed out and copied roughly 15,000 pages
of claims records. In addition to providing the material to Scruggs, they
say they gave copies to Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood and U.S.
Attorney Dunn Lampton's offices on June 5, the same day they told a
supervisor they were cooperating with Scruggs.
Hood, whose office is investigating whether State Farm fraudulently denied
claims, declined to comment on the Rigsbys' allegations. A spokeswoman for
Lampton also would not discuss the matter.
In March, a state judge ordered State Farm to turn over copies of its
Katrina engineering reports to Hood.
After the sisters resigned, Scruggs hired them to help his legal team with
lawsuits filed on behalf of hundreds of policyholders. The Rigsbys wouldn't
say how much Scruggs is paying them, but they say it's less than what they
earned from their insurance jobs.
"Our whole lives are upside down," Kerri said.
Why would they do it? They say they wanted to help their neighbors get their
claims reopened and paid.
"We don't know what the future is going to hold," Cori added, "but we sleep
a little better."
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/29/2006 9:59:54 PM
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JGardner
Posts: 325
Joined: 2/28/2005
Home base: Daphne, AL
Status: offline
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By no means, should anyone jump to conclusions. The Scruggs team has had months to prepare and create a large scale initial attack on State Farm.
What if the engineers actually were wrong (water is much more powerful than wind)? Could it really be- an engineer that was simply wrong?! But what about the seal?!
Perhaps one of the engineers had some serious conflict of interest issues? Maybe that's why State Farm brought in an out of state firm versus using a local firm.
What if some of the stray comments ("do not discuss") were taken out of context? Perhaps the manager was so disgusted with the results and provocative quality of the intitial report that no discussion was necessary.
"But Jud, they were managers and worked for this firm for eight years! They were smart and surely they wouldn't have done this haphazardly." Ok, how many of us have heard the story about the manager who called HVAC, "Heavy Duty Vacumm"?
Just my first thoughts. State Farm still has their work cut out for them. Even if SF wins the case, they still have a public relations disaster to dissolve as many people have already formed their opinions based on the initial allegations.
_____________________________
Jud
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/30/2006 1:17:40 AM
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tesseract
Posts: 16
Joined: 2/1/2006
Home base: Denver
Status: offline
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Considering Haag seems to be the major firm of carrier approved adjuster training, regarding intrepretation of wind/water causes of damages and resulting claim interpretations by adjusters, I wonder what scrutiny will result towards Haag Engineering from the Rigsby allegations?
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/30/2006 3:14:43 AM
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racko
Posts: 241
Joined: 2/17/2006
Status: offline
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Let the defense bring in the friends of the sisters,and give them "This is Your Big Break on a new reality TV show. Then, let the credibility roll!!
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RE: state farm insurance company - 8/30/2006 7:31:05 AM
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jlombardo
Posts: 340
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: clearwater, fl
Status: offline
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Alan,
Forget the paper work.....sleep with one eye open..........
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 4:31:25 PM
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RedSupraT
Posts: 274
Joined: 10/31/2004
Status: offline
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Way to go Renfroe!
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 5:50:29 PM
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dcmarlin
Posts: 145
Joined: 2/10/2006
Home base: Morrison, CO
Status: offline
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If these girls broke the law, I'd like to see them prosecuted.
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 6:13:32 PM
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Tom_Toll
Posts: 560
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: Austin, AR
Status: offline
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I don't think there is any question that they broke laws and I am with you. They should be confined behind bars for taking intelluctual and confidential property, not belonging to them. Scruggs should accompany them. as it appears he was the mask behind it.
_____________________________
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 6:26:48 PM
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bcashon
Posts: 8
Joined: 6/5/2006
Home base: Stephenville,Texas
Status: offline
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Money is the chief culprit here, but State State Farm is not at fault. Colusion between the lawyer and the whistle blowers is more likely than not. I would like them to take a lie detector test.
Say nothing--Do nothing-----------Expect nothing--Achieve nothing
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 7:12:51 PM
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RedSupraT
Posts: 274
Joined: 10/31/2004
Status: offline
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I can't wait to see what legal action SF takes! Major PR hit from this little diddy.
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RE: state farm insurance company - 9/26/2006 9:52:02 PM
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Gale
Posts: 739
Joined: 4/19/2004
Home base: Murray, KY
Status: offline
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http://whistleblowerlaws.com/protection.htm
http://jobsearchtech.about.com/cs/labor_laws/a/whistle_blower.htm
“Under U.S. law, a whistle blower (or whistleblower) is an employee who "tells" on an employer, because he or she reasonably believed that the employer committed an illegal act….. Even if it turns out that an employer didn't actually break a law, an employee is still entitled to whistle blower protection from retaliation, if he or she reasonably believed that the employer committed an illegal act….”
This is a subject I have never read about before due to the lack of interest but from what little I read tonight it is some strange law. How does one disprove that “she reasonably believed that the employer committed an illegal act.”?
Will not the 24 hours news hounds and evening news cover this suit and in effect try the case before the public?
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