Mississippi to Get Added Payments
Associated Press
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
JACKSON, Miss., March 19 -- State Farm Fire & Casualty plans to reexamine more than 35,000 policyholder claims filed after Hurricane Katrina and make millions of dollars available for additional payments, Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale said Monday.
Dale said the agreement between his office and State Farm, of Bloomington, Ill., covers homeowners, renters and commercial claims in Mississippi's three coastal counties. The agreement with the insurer includes claims that are in mediation, those that are the subject of pending lawsuits and those that have been settled.
"If they feel like that they were mistreated and not handled properly, they too can have their case reopened and looked at by additional adjusters," Dale said of people who have settled.
He said that, based on his agency's examination of State Farm's handling of Katrina claims and the recent withdrawal of a proposed class-action settlement involving the insurer, he had persuaded the company to agree to the "accelerated process to reopen and readjust all Hurricane Katrina claims upon request in the Mississippi coastal counties."
Katrina struck the north-central Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Alabama in August 2005.
"We anticipate that this will be a quicker process for the folks on the coast so that they can get money, additional moneys in their pocket for the purpose of rebuilding," Dale said at a news conference at his office.
On March 12, a team of lawyers who helped negotiate the proposed settlement withdrew their request for U.S. District Judge L.T. Senter Jr. to approve the deal. Senter had been asked to approve a settlement calling for State Farm to pay at least $50 million to policyholders who had not sued the company. That deal, reached in January, called for State Farm to reopen, review and possibly pay 35,000 to 36,000 claims.
"When I learned that the proposed class-action settlement had stalled, I felt it presented an opportunity to negotiate with State Farm to bring closure for coastal policyholders," Dale said Monday.
State Farm spokesman Phil Supple said Monday that the company's agreement with Dale "generally follows" the same terms as the agreement that Scruggs presented to Senter in January. The company has agreed to pay a minimum of $50 million, but "there's no ceiling" on the total amount paid, Supple said.
One key difference between the two deals, according to Supple, is that Dale's mediation program would aim to resolve any lingering disputes between State Farm and policyholders. Under the terms of the proposed court settlement, those disputes would be settled through binding arbitration.
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