Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) ripped into insurance companies, notably Allstate and State Farm, on Tuesday for lowballing disaster victims who had paid premiums but received paltry compensation offers from insurers.
As Breitbart News has noted, many victims of the Eaton Fire and Palisades Fire report that State Farm, in particular, has established a pattern of behavior in which adjusters’ estimates of damage costs are revised downwards dramatically by corporate headquarters. The result is major financial stress for policyholders.
Hawley chaired a hearing of the Subcommittee on Disaster Recovery and Intergovernmental Affairs, part of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Executives from Allstate and State Farm were present — as were policyholders hit by recent hurricanes in North Carolina and Florida.
Hawley’s remarks — as quoted in a statement by his office, and verified by Breitbart News — were as follows:
“This isn’t charity that we’re talking about. [Americans] turn to their insurance companies because they pay premiums to those insurance companies. It’s a contract,” said Senator Hawley. “And unfortunately, time after time they find when disaster strikes–in their moment of utmost need–the insurance companies come back to them and they delay, and they deny, and they offer excuses, and they send out two adjusters and three adjusters and 15 adjusters and 25 adjusters, and they constantly change the estimates. And at the end of the day, they just won’t pay what is due. What is required. What is just.”
…
“It’s not like it’s happened to just one family,” he said. “It is a deliberate strategy to maximize profits.”
Senator Hawley also called out Allstate and State Farm for defrauding their policyholders and intimidating whistleblowers.
“We’ve just heard testimony here–sworn testimony from multiple adjusters–that your company ordered them to delete or alter damage estimates to reduce payouts and to make you profits,” Senator Hawley said. “It sounds to me like you’re running a system of institutionalized fraud.”
The insurance companies, thus far, continue to deny practices that appear widespread across the country.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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