Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies – New Report From the American Association for Justice
Insurance giant Allstate leads the top 10 list of worst insurers in the country, according to a comprehensive investigation of thousands of legal documents and financial filings by the American Association for Justice (AAJ), a national trial lawyers group. According to this article, the group based this top 10 list on what it calls “a distinct pattern of industry greed” among these insurance companies that do what they can to avoid paying claims, play hardball with consumers and put profits over the welfare of their policy holders.
According to AAJ’s chief executive officer Jon Haber, Allstate “publicly touts its ‘good hands’ approach” but has privately instructed its agents to adopt more of a “boxing gloves” strategy against policyholders, making it near impossible for them to get claims paid. As for Allstate, the strategy is a gold mine – to increase profits, expand salaries for their executives -- all at the expense of its suffering policy holders. The other top 10 worst insurers include: Unum, AIG, State Farm, Conesco, WellPoint Health, Farmers, Torchmark and Liberty Mutual – in that order from 2 to 10.
I commend our friends at the AAJ for releasing this valuable report and putting pressure on insurance companies to do their jobs. As a personal injury lawyer that is constantly working to help victims of auto accidents, I know how tough the process of negotiating with an insurance company can be. Be it medical insurance or auto insurance, if you have a claim stemming from an auto accident, you are in for a significant challenge.
Insurance companies are adopting more of a “hardball” approach to claims, systematically denying rather than approving them. They’re hiring high-powered consultants to increase profits and that rarely works to the consumer’s advantage. The fact is, insurance company ads tout that they are working for you, however, their high paid consultants have shown them ways to make more money by systematically denying and delaying all claims, regardless of validity.
My law partner, Brian Chase, and I are proud to be members of the American Association for Justice.
Comments
Of course Allstate and State Farm are going to be at the top of the list when they are the top two companies in the United States to insure people! I am sorry but you are going to have bad experiences no matter where you are insured when you have bad people filing claims. People complain about how much insurance costs them but it is those same people that are out filing claims on every little thing they can. What do you think makes the cost of insurance go up!!! The more frivolous claims people file the more your insurance costs everyone!!! Its not that insurance companies are denying all claims just the stupid frivolous ones that they feel like people should be paying out of there pockets. Insurance is designed for major catastrophic claims. Not every little bit of roof damage you have.....
Posted by: Wendy | August 27, 2008 12:08 PM
Accepting that since Allstate and State Farm are the top two companies in insure people does not give them the right to be the worst at fairly paying claims.
Let's talk frivolous. For a law firm to file a frivolous claim would be economic suicide. Insurance companies do not pay frivolous claims.
What insurance companies do every day is create frivolous defenses. Even in the clearest of liability situations, where they know their insured is at fault, they still deny paying claims and file answers to law suits that not only deny liability but deny that the accident even happened.
Over thirty years I have filed thousands of lawsuits. Not once has an insurance company as much as admitted that the accident in question happened.
The insurance companies, every day file frivolous denials to claims they know are valid. They deny, deny, delay and delay. They have determined that it is to their economic benefit to deny and delay claims, so that is what they do.
The result of their deny and delay tactics is their profits go up and a great deal of lawsuits are filed in cases where the insurance company knows they are liable and just wants to extend the day of payment.
Frivolous defenses to legitimate claims is a much bigger problem than frivolous lawsuits.
Hopefully you will never have to experience the claim process yourself.
Posted by: John Bisnar | August 27, 2008 8:30 PM
If Allstate is the worse Insurance company in America .why are they still in Business? The Consumers have the power to say enough is enough and this greedy giant will soon be out when you jointly bad mouth their name.i can not pay a dime to these companies.they are not good for us and they should not take our money
Posted by: Anonymous | September 13, 2008 4:10 AM