Allstate makes controversial "McKinsey" documents public on website
The Allstate Corporation, one of the the nation's largest publicly held insurance companies, recently released approximately 150,000 pages of documents pertaining its review claim practices from the 1990s. Although, some media have regarded the documents as coming up short, according to a recent Times Picayune article.
On the opposite side of the argument, the release of the documents by Allstate can be viewed as Allstate's way of showing that they have nothing to hide. Undoubtedly, the Mckinsey documents issue will not go away for awhile, in light of the looming release of the new tell all book for the public by New Mexico attorney David Berardinelli, called "From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves: The Dark Side of Insurance."
An Allstate spokesperson, Rich Halberg, downplays the significance of the documents in a recent Allstate press release, "When aired in the unbiased setting of a court of law, allegations about the documents have been shown to be without merit. Most recently, some of the documents were seen and explained in context to a jury during a two-week trial in Kentucky (Hager v. Allstate)."
The Hager v. Allstate case involved a rear-end automobile accident case that occurred in 1997. The Plaintiff, a 60 year old accident victim, sued Allstate for not paying claims related to the personal injury in the car accident and for allegedly violating Kentucky's Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act. The outcome of the two week trial was for the Defendant, Allstate. According to several published reports, the jury came back with this verdict after deliberating for a short while. One can only wonder if the Jury took the Plaintiff seriously for asking for $1.425 Billion for what is typically referred to as a soft tissue injury.
Click here to view the extensive site of the Allstate "Claim Review" documents. The site shares comprehensive information on Casualty Review, Homeowners Review, Auto Physical Damage Review and Field work Information.
We encourage the public to read the documents and let us know your opinion of the documents.
Just as Harry Truman said when he fired McArthur that the fury would subside in a year. It did. And, the Allstate fury will also fade in a year unless you Plaintiff attorneys keep it alive.
And, there in only one thing that will work - It's the reverse of Adam Smith's classical economics - Wealth of Nations.
Here's why. Let's assume that there are 400,000,000 cars in the U.S. Further, 1% of those cars are in accidents. Each accident will produce at least two claimants - One for collision coverage and one for liability coverage. 4MM accidents with two claimants or 8MM claimants.
Lets assume that 20& of those claimants get fair claim payments with 80% not satisfied with the claim settlement offers. (Statistical rule of approximation 80/20) That's 6,400,000 unsatisfied claimants.
Lets say that the 6,400,000 claimants are divided among five insurers. That's 1,280,000 unsatisfied claimants per insurer. All file suit. That means each insurer (don't send to local claims office. Send to home office claim department) That's 5,818 suits arriving every working day. If each one of those suits cost 2,000 to defend, that's 2.5 billion just in defense costs.
And you can almost rest assured that the insurer can't handle that many suits per dayAnd, if they don't startetreating claimants fairly, they can expect that number of suits every year.
But, the insureds will need to bite the bullet to prevail. The plaintiff attorneys will also need to bite the bullet.
Class action suits - Don;t file one . File 50 - one for each state.
The insurers actions are based upon numbers - 90 plus percent will settle for something whether fair or not. The plaintiff bar need to try and reverse that ratio. Complaints filed is the only way to send the message and if enough complaints are filed, management will eventually get the message.