Group Demands: Impose Allstate Rate Cuts

A California consumer group said controversial documents from a consulting firm used by Allstate that were released Friday are justification for regulators to slash the company's rates, even though it had not examined them.

Meanwhile, Andy Mais, a spokesman for the New York Insurance Department, said New York regulators are "aware of and reviewing the documents and conferring with other states."

The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog (formerly the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights) said the materials made public exposed a strategy of "systematically underpaying claims to policyholders or forcing them into protracted court battles to secure a fair settlement."

Leaders of the group called on state insurance regulators to order restitution for policyholders and a re-examination of the company's rates across the country.

However, Doug Heller, Consumer Watchdog executive director, admitted that his organization had not done a study of the documents in question.

Allstate, the nation's second-largest insurance company, released 150,000 pages of documents from the McKinsey Consulting firm after losing a court fight with the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation, which had sought the material as part of a challenge to a property insurance rate increase Allstate is seeking.

"We have not begun to look at the material as a unified 150,000-page document," Mr. Heller said, but the group, he added, had earlier seen "bits and pieces" of the McKinsey material that "were already out there."

He said Allstate claims critics "take everything out of context. I doubt that. I have no expectation that the mean-spirited tactics that have come out in bits in pieces will be less mean spirited in a broader context."

The insurer, in releasing the report, said the documents as a whole demonstrate "a careful, fact-based analysis to better enable the company to more promptly investigate and more consistently and effectively evaluate claims based upon their own merits."

Allstate has been found in contempt by a Missouri judge for withholding the McKinsey report, and fined $25,000 a day. In Indiana, the company is appealing a $10,000 fine.

The company said after it lost in a Florida appeals court that it was releasing the material "to address misunderstandings resulting from the growing misplaced focus by our critics on very small pieces of the whole..."

Based on the pieces that Consumer Watchdog has reviewed, Carmen Balber, a spokesperson for the group, said that "Allstate's 'good hands' are stealing from customers' pocketbooks."

Ms. Balber maintained that "thousands of pages of Allstate's internal documents reveal the company's 'Us versus Them' attitude toward its customers. Allstate policyholders who paid their premiums faithfully were fleeced while the company underpaid claims and padded profits with the money they owed their customers."

She added that "these revelations demand that state regulators open examinations of Allstate rates, and require the insurer to refund consumers for overcharges and lower insurance premiums where they have been too high across the country."

Allstate's posting of the documents on its Web site came after more than a decade of court battles to shield the documents that it said contain "trade secrets and confidential, proprietary information."

Access to the documents online came with a proviso that the reader must agree that access was sought simply for information or media reporting, and not for any commercial purpose.

Consumer Watchdog noted that California insurance regulators had already acted to "rein in the company's excess profits."

The California insurance commissioner a ordered a 15.9 percent reduction in Allstate's auto insurance rates last month that, according to Consumer Watchdog, will save policyholders nearly $250 million.

The company's documents were demanded in Florida, where homeowners' insurance rates are under examination by Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty. He sued to obtain the McKinsey documents with other material after the company applied for a rate hike and did not present material at a scheduled hearing.

In addition to breaking off the hearing over failure to gain access to some material that was subpoenaed, Mr. McCarty suspended the company's ability to sell new policies, which resulted in a court challenge that was decided Friday in his favor.

The suspension has been held in abeyance pending to company's appeal of Friday's ruling. Florida regulators yesterday asked the Florida First District Court of Appeal in Tallahassee to specify a filing deadline for the Allstate appeal. Today the court said April 14.

In California, a rate challenge has been initiated by Consumer Watchdog that the group calculated could lower Allstate homeowners' rates by more than $300 million.

Regulators and consumer advocates have the ability to challenge unfair insurance rates in California under the state's landmark insurance reform initiative, Proposition 103, which bans excessive profits and requires insurance companies to open their books and justify rates to state regulators and the public.

"Lawmakers and regulators around the country need to crack down on insurance company gouging and abuses to protect consumers, not just from Allstate, but from rate and claims abuse throughout the insurance industry," said Mr. Heller.