A class-action lawsuit has been filed in North Carolina’s Guilford Superior Court claiming that Hix Insurance of Greensboro has misled thousands of its North Carolina customers, especially Latinos, into unknowingly buying motor club memberships with automobile liability and workers’ compensation coverage.
The lawsuit accuses Hix Insurance Center, with two offices in Greensboro and offices in High Point, Burlington, Charlotte and Raleigh, of systematically defrauding clients by implementing a policy to sell every customer a motor club policy, supposedly without their knowledge.
“It’s a cash cow,” Michael Williams, one of the Greensboro lawyers who filed the lawsuit told the Greensboro News-Record. On the other hand, the motor club membership — if the client even knew there was a motor club membership — would cover little more than small fees for towing, car rental, traffic fines and $1,000 accidental death coverage.
Hix executives, including J. Leon Hix, president of the company, either refused to be interviewed by the Greensboro News-Record or did not respond to requests for interviews. Pauline McCoy, regional director of the Hix offices in the Triad, is also a defendant in the lawsuit. She, too, refused to comment.
The North Carolina Department of Insurance recently launched a criminal investigation of Hix, which has headquarters in Greer, S.C., as Poinsett Insurance Agency.
Chrissy Pearson, spokesperson for the department, said the department began its investigation after receiving a complaint that Hix sold a motor club membership without the customer’s knowledge. She declined to provide details.
Greensboro lawyers Joseph Williams and Michael Williams filed the lawsuit on behalf of Guilford residents Janiece Perry, Maritza A. Hernandez and Saul Garcia Marquez.
The lawyers asked the court to expand the lawsuit into a class action so that all Hix customers in North Carolina would be considered plaintiffs against Hix.
The cost of the motor club policies, or memberships, ranged from $50 to $800, with no apparent reason for the price difference, Michael Williams said.
Topics Lawsuits Claims North Carolina
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