Makes one wonder more why any docs needed to be changed.

A mutual is a type of capital structure – it doesn‘t preclude bonuses or employee incentive plans.

AMICA is a mutual and I get a div every year – if you want to call the div a return of premium based on their claim experience – that’s ok with me

Again, less than 2% of all claims had any engineer’s report. If there was an effort to change reports to avoid payment, it appears to have been a stunning failure.

I believe State Farm is mutual company. No stock. No dividends. No profit sharing.

Plz tell us what State Farm was doing falsifying reports to deny claims – what I don’t understand is why a local office would do this – isn’t the local SF office losing potential new policies (the screwed will never do biz with SF again)?

Is there a company wide profit-sharing plan?

I skipped Katrina. Frankly, I didn’t go because I love New Orleans and just didn’t want to see it after the storm. That doesn’t mean I haven’t worked hurricanes. I’ve flown in to Florida. Been evacuated out of Florida. Flown back, and spent months working and living on the “front Line” in less than perfect conditions. I’ve also been to earthquake, flood, fire, and ice storms.

Here’s what I know: Thousands of people just like me volunteer leave our families and fly into truly miserable conditions to work storm claims. We do it for the company. We do it for you. I also know that the employees at my company donated millions of their own money to help the victims of Katrina. Millions my company quietly matched.

I also know that most adjusters simply want to pay whatever the contract says and move on. We’re far too busy to waste time doing anything else.

Take a look at the websites for any of the major companies. Take a look at the court records. The rough picture is this:

Over 90% of the claims are paid and closed

Over 80% of the people surveyed were happy with the payments

About 2% of the claims used an engineer.

Bottom line: Most insurers spent millions to get people there as fast as possible to pay as many claims as fast as possible.

I understand the devastation when you don’t get paid after your house has been destroyed, but that fact remains that the policy is a contract. It says pay for this, but not for that.

So when adjuster stands on a street and has nothing but slabs to the left and standing homes to the right with only roof and window damage, or the bottom floor is stripped of siding and walls but the upper floor is fine, it’s fairly easy to see what is wind and what is water. Then they look at the policy/ contract that says we don’t pay for flood/ tide/ wave driven by wind or not. They pay for what they can an move on.

Yes, it would be nice to pay for more, but it can’t be done.

Yes, insurance companies have made a good profit last year or two. But let’s not forget the lessons of Andrew: Major companies paid out more in losses than all the profit they collected over the life of their company. Large companies, a lot of them, went out of business and left the policy holders out in the cold.

One more thing before I bring this all too long post to a close: The policy/ contact that you claim has too much fine print was approved by your state. The premiums you pay are monitored and approved by your state. Few businesses are regulated an monitored as much as an insurance company.

I extend my heartfelt sympathy’s to all of you that suffered through the storm.

I also applaud the armies of insurance people that worked day & might to make it better for you.

great responses !

Are you objecting to the quantity of my posts or my optimism? The quantity is due to only having access to a computer at my work and can only post during breaks or after work hours so sometimes I store commentary or replies (like this one I‘m starting during lunch.)

The optimism is how I choose to manipulate reality since everyone’s reality is subjective and a function of their beliefs. My beliefs include the concept that I control events in my life rather than god, fate or others. In that way I can take the credit for success as well as failure and if I perceive the failure as an edifying experience then the so-called undesirable event becomes a valuable object lesson.

When one is pessimistic and they say “See, I knew it would suck, fail, end badly etc. (insert applicable pejorative of choice), I was right!!!” What does one have except the superficial perception that undesirable consequences occurred, and the ego gratification that one was clever enough to predict such an outcome? In other words bad stuff happened and it sucks but at least I expected it would and could have taken steps (and possibly did) to insure that I would not be more adversely affected than I might have otherwise been.

In my experience one gets what one focuses upon. Expect gloom and doom or look for undesirable occurrences and you will seize upon those and ignore favorable circumstances to justify your worldview. I focus on believing things are for the best and my life (and I do have one – contrary to your implication) is generally free of the Sturm und Drang that pessimists experience.

Peace,

Jazzman

Wonderful show. Also the Barry Manilow bit. Manilow — in Vegas — singing insurance jingles. Imagine paying to see that. Time to take out a policy, just in case…Talk about the song that makes the whole world sing…

“But you’re missing the forest for the trees. To say that you felt “safe” because the levees would withstand a Cat2 storm and not a Cat4 is bordering on idiotic.”

The federal flood insurance program based their premiums on the strength of the levees. People were required (w/ mortgages) or strongly suggested to be insured based on where the levees were and how they were supposed to perform. “safe” is not what we are taking about. Risk is what we are talking about, and justice. Man-made disaster. Understanding some of these things might help alleviate you from your inclination to call people idiotic. Come visit New Orleans, talk to some people, understand what’s going on. Come meet some of us “trees”…

And I also I don’t really begrudge New Orleanians their attitude. Life is all about risk. And yes you can take steps to mitigate risk here and there. But I’ve lived on the seacoast my entire life. I’ve been a sailor since I was six. And I damn well know two things: weather will always do what you don’t expect it to, and weather can easily destroy ANYTHING man tries to create.