A View from the Press Box

There was a fabulous article in the May 19 edition of “The New Yorker,” headlined: “The Bribe: How the Mississippi Lawyer Who Brought Down Big Tobacco Overstepped.” Yes, it’s the incredible tale of Dickie Scruggs, who pled guilty a few months ago for trying to bribe a judge in a lawsuit over the division of contingency fees in a Hurricane Katrina suit. It was a disgraceful end to an audacious and amazingly successful legal career, in which Scruggs brought down corporate titans in asbestos, tobacco and insurance. The problem is that while the greedy, arrogant Scruggs went too far, what is the alternative for those with valid claims seeking top legal talent to make their case?

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Continuing our discussion about regulation, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners stepped on a hornet’s nest this week with its proposal to collect market conduct data as part of the annual statement process–then keep it in a central data base. Consumer groups are all for it, but insurers fear more class-action suits and tipping off competitors to proprietary information. No matter what happens, this is one battle the industry can’t win. All they can do is limit the fallout.

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Joel Wood should be a blogger. The senior vice president of government affairs for the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers is a colorful writer with a lot to say, providing valuable insights on a host of controversies inside and beyond the Beltway in his regular column to members. The latest example is his post about last week’s extraordinary pow wow with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners to talk about federal regulation, which he opens with the keen political maxim that “the foot you step on today is connected to the ass that you have to kiss tomorrow.”

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Rather than be dismissed as part of the problem, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners appears poised to be part of the solution when it comes to regulatory reform, if what we hear from the grapevine is correct. However, did the group make a mistake leaving out a key constituency–consumers–in its recent pow-wow with industry leaders?

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We asked NU readers to share some of their weirdest and whackiest claims, and you folks came through big time! Check out this week’s cover story (featuring cola-drinking cows), have a few laughs, and feel free to chime in with some of your own war stories about your most challenging and unusual claims. Click here for the full story.

Our May 5 cover story–headlined “Should Illegal Aliens Get Workers’ Comp?”–generated quite a stir, and not because of the content. It was the image with the article–depicting an Hispanic man in a wheelchair with crutches, holding both an American and Mexican flag–that drew reader complaints.

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One of my big complaints about property-casualty insurers is that with the industry split on several critical issues, it’s difficult to get some badly needed reforms passed in Washington or the individual states. However, PCI President and CEO David Sampson says the industry is united on far more issues than the few dividing the various segments and associations, while predicting an even closer working relationship among the key players in the face of the “real existential threats” ahead.

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Now that it’s clear Congress won’t be adding wind exposures to the National Flood Insurance Program anytime soon, should private carriers be forced to write coverage for both risks in one policy, and then have the government reimburse them for flood-related claims? That’s the trial balloon being floated by one academic.

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Maybe there is some justice in this world after all. “The Insurance Hoax”–a pure hatchet job in the September 2007 issue of “Bloomberg Markets” that indicted the entire insurance industry for its claims-handling practices–did not win the prestigious Daniel Pearl Award for Investigative Reporting, given out by the New York City Deadline Club–an affiliate of The Society Of Professional Journalists.

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Remember the old saying, “children should be seen and not heard at the dinner table”? The insurance industry has expanded that concept, because they often act as if customers should be seen but not heard, period. To invite feedback and establish more trust with consumers, perhaps it’s time for carriers to launch social media sites.

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