No name nutcase has returned. No name, could you at least make some attempt to address at least one small part of the topic? Nobody actually reads much of what you post because you are a complete nut case, so you may want to waste your time on another site. Any other site would be nice.
THE STUPID LINE STARTS HERE: Liberty Mutual, Hartford, Indiana, Peerless, and pretty much any other RAM Company of Liberty Mutual. I ARE AN UNDERWRITER, let me take your order. Loss Runs? What are those?
Add agents to the STUPID line. They compete against Liberty and give all of their business to Indiana and Peerless. They don’t like Nationwide, and they follow the likes of Allied blindly. “Boy they hate it when Zurich Direct, formerly Universal, takes my auto related risks”, and then they give business to Zurich.
Agents are about as dumb as they come, and then they complain, complain, complain. Sell integrity, and you’ll see a market with integrity.
They’ve been talking about mergers and acquisitions, and foreign purchases for months now. And so far all we have is Liberty buying Safeco. I thought Traveler’s was going to gulp up somebody? And QBE is waiting to find out what happens with IAG before they make more noise in the U.S. Why doesn’t Allianz buy a company to go with FF? They’re a mess.
The broker needs to be responsible and carriers need discipline. Most of the time this downward pressure begins with the broker asking for better pricing, then the next guy comes along and takes that price to another carrier and asks for more of a discount, so they can get the business based solely on price. What value is the new broker bringing?
Hey, Nobody Important, dead on correct. Only problem is, when they mess it up they always piont fingers at every ones else. Over the years of being an agency owner I can’t even speculate how many times I have scratch my head at the lack of smarts at the highest levels of the insurance industry.
General rule: they will screw it up and we get left holding the smoking gun. It really is to bad the companies don’t utilize more agent input, it would save them from a lot of heart burn in the long run. One last thing, when this soft market does end plan on a blood bath. They’ve streached this thing way past the prudent man limits.
Not every company buys into the soft market mentality. The agent needs to make sure they know who is going to be there hard and soft markets. The consumer in a sense is the real problem since they will go for the lowest rate regardless of the company. Not a lot of sound thinking at many levels with our product.
As a fellow agent, I agree with Joe Bean that companies should utilize more agent input. Unfortunately, I don’t think many of today’s company management teams even know who agents are or where their premium money comes from. In fact only this morning, I was wondering how many company leaders have actually visited an agent’s office or even know what we do from day to day. Sadly, I sometimes think we agents are considered just another expense line on the P&L sheet to be dealt with.
As for the excess capital, I think that many companies sitting on a lot of cash might also be targets for purchase by foreign companies, especially given today’s global economy and the weak dollar. That’s a bit scary, too.
Oh sure, lets get more agent input. Agents and sales people have it “all figured out”…especially when they are accountble for little if the results go south. Stick to you order taking and donought deliveries.
State Farm spin doctors
Comment:
State Farm spin doctors they try to claim no knowledge of any changed documents and want to put blame on engineering companies. But I have information that puts the light on the real problem with what is happening at State Farm. I am a former agent of State Farm who has proof that State Farm has breached the contracts of its own agents. The information shows that a California Appellate Court has ruled that State Farm breached the contract and the California Supreme Court refused to hear State Farm’s appeal making the Appellate Court decision final (Case#C050591 California Third Appellate District). What does this mean to the average policyholder? Well a policyholder who has a policy (contract) with State Farm expects State Farm to honor that policy (contract) if the policyholder has a loss. Now the question is if State Farm will not even honor their own contract with their own agents what chance does the average policyholder have? In addition to this State Farm has not even notified the agents of this decision by the California Courts.
insurance law A new insurance law in Washington has changed the definition of “accident”. “Ethel Adams Law” is named after a woman who was injured in March 2005 when her car was hit in an incident of road rage by a pickup truck driven by Michael R. Testa. In November, Testa was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison for trying to ram Adam’s truck on Aurora Avenue North. He caused the multi-car accident that injured Adams, sending her into a coma for nine days. After the accident, Adams’ insurer, Farmers Insurance, at first refused to pay Adams’ claims because according to them, Testa was trying to cause a wreck and the crash was not an accident. Outrage over the case in which Farmers eventually decided to pay the claims, prompted the State to change the definition of “accident” to “an occurrence that is unexpected and unintended from the standpoint of the person who is injured.” In a statement, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said, “Ethel Adam’s insurance carrier tried to apply an imaginative interpretation of the law to keep from paying her claim. This new law bears her name with the hope that no other innocent insured will have to go through the nightmare Ethel experienced
Hey Genius, Sounds to me like youve had a few to many cups of Joe Bean your self today. It’s ok though because I understand that the first thing many agents want when they arrive at the office in the am is a news paper and some coffee. HOWEVER! there is a huge amount of talant out here in agency land.Proof will be in how hard and how devestating the comming hard market will be. HA
INSURANCE COMPANY MASS DENIAL OF CLAIMS IS ERODING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE. WHY THE PUBLIC CAN’T RELY ON THEIR DISABILITY INSURANCE AND OTHER KINDS OF COVERAGE.
Herb Denenberg Column for January 16, 2003
Here’s more on the common practice of some insurance companies that deny claims arbitrarily to save money and boost their profits. The practice has always been all too common (as with HMOs, for example), as we’ve pointed out, but now it is reaching the point where the public confidence in the insurance industry may be destroyed. That would have grave implications for the public, the industry, and our economy.
The latest example involves the UnumProvident Corporation, which dominates the disability insurance market. Consider this lead from the October 6, 2002 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle: “The nation’s largest disability insurance company has been accused of systematically denying legitimate claims from seriously ill customers, a corporate strategy allegedly concocted for one purpose: boosting profits.” This practice has sometimes been called nullification of the insurance policy, as that is exactly what it does.
Here’s the opening paragraph of a Dateline NBC television segment of October 16, 2002: “Insurance – we buy it for peace of mind to cover our homes, our health, our lives. Millions of Americans have disability insurance to help replace lost income in case of serious illness or injury. If you can’t work, those benefits may be crucial for you and your family. But what if, suddenly, unexpectedly, your benefits were cut off? That’s what happened to the people in this story. We found some startling charges against the biggest disability provider in the country.”
CBS’s 60 Minutes asked this key question in its November 17, 2002 report: “If you’re one of the 50 million Americans who has money deducted from his or her paycheck to pay for disability insurance, or if you’ve purchased a disability policy on your own, you may think you’re covered if you’re injured or too sick to work. But don’t be to sure.”
The detailed case against UnumProvident has been put together in a special issue of The Insurance Forum (dated February 2003), a highly regarded newsletter, which reaches this conclusion: “UnumProvident may not be alone in the use of the claims practices described in this article. Some insurers that may have used acceptable practices have transferred blocks of unprofitable disability insurance to other insurers who may then use unacceptable practices in administering those blocks of business. While the widespread use of unacceptable claims practices may increase profits or reduce losses in the short run, it will be disastrous in the long run because it will destroy public confidence not only in disability insurance but in other lines of insurance.”
This UnumProvident case study has many important lessons for policyholders, insurers and the makers of public policy. Here are some conclusions I’d draw going beyond those of The Insurance Forum:
(1) If insurance commissioners were doing their job, improper claims practices could be nipped in the bud, instead of being allowed to grow like a cancer that threatens public confidence in the insurance industry. Commissioners have ample authority to act on individual complaints as well as to investigate and prosecute companies with systemically bad claims practices.
(2) This case study shows the importance of preserving the rights of policyholders to sue. It tells policyholders to go to war against the current campaigns to restrict and destroy that right to sue. The UnumProvident scandal was brought to light by litigation and by plaintiff’s lawyers doing their work. Without litigation, these problems would be far worse than it is. Historically, insurance commissioners have been lapdogs for the industry, and have not protected the public from improper insurance practices, most notably improper claims practices. So beware of all the current attempts to restrict or destroy the right to litigation, now most notably appearing in the medical malpractice area, but a constant threat to the rights of consumers because powerful interests are always putting forward legislative proposals to restrict the right to litigate in many different areas.
(3) The insurance industry should start insisting on tougher insurance regulation for its own good. Without tough regulation of claims and other insurance company activities, some bad apples can succeed in destroying public confidence in the entire industry, which will go along way towards destroying or irreparably damaging the insurance industry itself. Right now the whole disability insurance field has a dark shadow that will spread to other lines of coverage.
(4) The Congress of the United States has sent a gilt-edged invitation to insurance companies to fraudulently deny claims by letting stand, without amendment, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It has been interpreted by the courts to make it extremely difficult or impossible for policyholders (covered by employee benefit plans) to obtain a reasonable remedy when their claims have been denied by an insurer acting in bad faith or even fraudulently. So until Congress amends this law, it will encourage the kind of contractual nullification that should be punished most severely.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner and consumer advocate.
No name nutcase has returned. No name, could you at least make some attempt to address at least one small part of the topic? Nobody actually reads much of what you post because you are a complete nut case, so you may want to waste your time on another site. Any other site would be nice.
THE STUPID LINE STARTS HERE: Liberty Mutual, Hartford, Indiana, Peerless, and pretty much any other RAM Company of Liberty Mutual. I ARE AN UNDERWRITER, let me take your order. Loss Runs? What are those?
Add agents to the STUPID line. They compete against Liberty and give all of their business to Indiana and Peerless. They don’t like Nationwide, and they follow the likes of Allied blindly. “Boy they hate it when Zurich Direct, formerly Universal, takes my auto related risks”, and then they give business to Zurich.
Agents are about as dumb as they come, and then they complain, complain, complain. Sell integrity, and you’ll see a market with integrity.
They’ve been talking about mergers and acquisitions, and foreign purchases for months now. And so far all we have is Liberty buying Safeco. I thought Traveler’s was going to gulp up somebody? And QBE is waiting to find out what happens with IAG before they make more noise in the U.S. Why doesn’t Allianz buy a company to go with FF? They’re a mess.
The broker needs to be responsible and carriers need discipline. Most of the time this downward pressure begins with the broker asking for better pricing, then the next guy comes along and takes that price to another carrier and asks for more of a discount, so they can get the business based solely on price. What value is the new broker bringing?
60 days my friend. 60 days. At least two signficant acquisitions (heavy in the East, but with affects in the Midwest)
Soon.
We insurance companies soft market mentalities illustrate the line used by one comic, “you can’t fix stupid.” We never learn.
Hey, Nobody Important, dead on correct. Only problem is, when they mess it up they always piont fingers at every ones else. Over the years of being an agency owner I can’t even speculate how many times I have scratch my head at the lack of smarts at the highest levels of the insurance industry.
General rule: they will screw it up and we get left holding the smoking gun. It really is to bad the companies don’t utilize more agent input, it would save them from a lot of heart burn in the long run. One last thing, when this soft market does end plan on a blood bath. They’ve streached this thing way past the prudent man limits.
Not every company buys into the soft market mentality. The agent needs to make sure they know who is going to be there hard and soft markets. The consumer in a sense is the real problem since they will go for the lowest rate regardless of the company. Not a lot of sound thinking at many levels with our product.
As a fellow agent, I agree with Joe Bean that companies should utilize more agent input. Unfortunately, I don’t think many of today’s company management teams even know who agents are or where their premium money comes from. In fact only this morning, I was wondering how many company leaders have actually visited an agent’s office or even know what we do from day to day. Sadly, I sometimes think we agents are considered just another expense line on the P&L sheet to be dealt with.
As for the excess capital, I think that many companies sitting on a lot of cash might also be targets for purchase by foreign companies, especially given today’s global economy and the weak dollar. That’s a bit scary, too.
Oh sure, lets get more agent input. Agents and sales people have it “all figured out”…especially when they are accountble for little if the results go south. Stick to you order taking and donought deliveries.
State Farm spin doctors
Comment:
State Farm spin doctors they try to claim no knowledge of any changed documents and want to put blame on engineering companies. But I have information that puts the light on the real problem with what is happening at State Farm. I am a former agent of State Farm who has proof that State Farm has breached the contracts of its own agents. The information shows that a California Appellate Court has ruled that State Farm breached the contract and the California Supreme Court refused to hear State Farm’s appeal making the Appellate Court decision final (Case#C050591 California Third Appellate District). What does this mean to the average policyholder? Well a policyholder who has a policy (contract) with State Farm expects State Farm to honor that policy (contract) if the policyholder has a loss. Now the question is if State Farm will not even honor their own contract with their own agents what chance does the average policyholder have? In addition to this State Farm has not even notified the agents of this decision by the California Courts.
insurance law A new insurance law in Washington has changed the definition of “accident”. “Ethel Adams Law” is named after a woman who was injured in March 2005 when her car was hit in an incident of road rage by a pickup truck driven by Michael R. Testa. In November, Testa was sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison for trying to ram Adam’s truck on Aurora Avenue North. He caused the multi-car accident that injured Adams, sending her into a coma for nine days. After the accident, Adams’ insurer, Farmers Insurance, at first refused to pay Adams’ claims because according to them, Testa was trying to cause a wreck and the crash was not an accident. Outrage over the case in which Farmers eventually decided to pay the claims, prompted the State to change the definition of “accident” to “an occurrence that is unexpected and unintended from the standpoint of the person who is injured.” In a statement, Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler said, “Ethel Adam’s insurance carrier tried to apply an imaginative interpretation of the law to keep from paying her claim. This new law bears her name with the hope that no other innocent insured will have to go through the nightmare Ethel experienced
Hey Genius, Sounds to me like youve had a few to many cups of Joe Bean your self today. It’s ok though because I understand that the first thing many agents want when they arrive at the office in the am is a news paper and some coffee. HOWEVER! there is a huge amount of talant out here in agency land.Proof will be in how hard and how devestating the comming hard market will be. HA
INSURANCE COMPANY MASS DENIAL OF CLAIMS IS ERODING PUBLIC CONFIDENCE. WHY THE PUBLIC CAN’T RELY ON THEIR DISABILITY INSURANCE AND OTHER KINDS OF COVERAGE.
Herb Denenberg Column for January 16, 2003
Here’s more on the common practice of some insurance companies that deny claims arbitrarily to save money and boost their profits. The practice has always been all too common (as with HMOs, for example), as we’ve pointed out, but now it is reaching the point where the public confidence in the insurance industry may be destroyed. That would have grave implications for the public, the industry, and our economy.
The latest example involves the UnumProvident Corporation, which dominates the disability insurance market. Consider this lead from the October 6, 2002 edition of the San Francisco Chronicle: “The nation’s largest disability insurance company has been accused of systematically denying legitimate claims from seriously ill customers, a corporate strategy allegedly concocted for one purpose: boosting profits.” This practice has sometimes been called nullification of the insurance policy, as that is exactly what it does.
Here’s the opening paragraph of a Dateline NBC television segment of October 16, 2002: “Insurance – we buy it for peace of mind to cover our homes, our health, our lives. Millions of Americans have disability insurance to help replace lost income in case of serious illness or injury. If you can’t work, those benefits may be crucial for you and your family. But what if, suddenly, unexpectedly, your benefits were cut off? That’s what happened to the people in this story. We found some startling charges against the biggest disability provider in the country.”
CBS’s 60 Minutes asked this key question in its November 17, 2002 report: “If you’re one of the 50 million Americans who has money deducted from his or her paycheck to pay for disability insurance, or if you’ve purchased a disability policy on your own, you may think you’re covered if you’re injured or too sick to work. But don’t be to sure.”
The detailed case against UnumProvident has been put together in a special issue of The Insurance Forum (dated February 2003), a highly regarded newsletter, which reaches this conclusion: “UnumProvident may not be alone in the use of the claims practices described in this article. Some insurers that may have used acceptable practices have transferred blocks of unprofitable disability insurance to other insurers who may then use unacceptable practices in administering those blocks of business. While the widespread use of unacceptable claims practices may increase profits or reduce losses in the short run, it will be disastrous in the long run because it will destroy public confidence not only in disability insurance but in other lines of insurance.”
This UnumProvident case study has many important lessons for policyholders, insurers and the makers of public policy. Here are some conclusions I’d draw going beyond those of The Insurance Forum:
(1) If insurance commissioners were doing their job, improper claims practices could be nipped in the bud, instead of being allowed to grow like a cancer that threatens public confidence in the insurance industry. Commissioners have ample authority to act on individual complaints as well as to investigate and prosecute companies with systemically bad claims practices.
(2) This case study shows the importance of preserving the rights of policyholders to sue. It tells policyholders to go to war against the current campaigns to restrict and destroy that right to sue. The UnumProvident scandal was brought to light by litigation and by plaintiff’s lawyers doing their work. Without litigation, these problems would be far worse than it is. Historically, insurance commissioners have been lapdogs for the industry, and have not protected the public from improper insurance practices, most notably improper claims practices. So beware of all the current attempts to restrict or destroy the right to litigation, now most notably appearing in the medical malpractice area, but a constant threat to the rights of consumers because powerful interests are always putting forward legislative proposals to restrict the right to litigate in many different areas.
(3) The insurance industry should start insisting on tougher insurance regulation for its own good. Without tough regulation of claims and other insurance company activities, some bad apples can succeed in destroying public confidence in the entire industry, which will go along way towards destroying or irreparably damaging the insurance industry itself. Right now the whole disability insurance field has a dark shadow that will spread to other lines of coverage.
(4) The Congress of the United States has sent a gilt-edged invitation to insurance companies to fraudulently deny claims by letting stand, without amendment, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It has been interpreted by the courts to make it extremely difficult or impossible for policyholders (covered by employee benefit plans) to obtain a reasonable remedy when their claims have been denied by an insurer acting in bad faith or even fraudulently. So until Congress amends this law, it will encourage the kind of contractual nullification that should be punished most severely.
Herb Denenberg is a former Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner and consumer advocate.