The American Association for Justice ("AAJ") has named The Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies in America. In doing so, the AAJ report cites content in the Trial Guides book From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves, and major media investigations arising from publicity around that book as the basis for naming Allstate the #1 worst insurer in America. This includes an 18 month investigation by CNN into Allstate's claim handling methods.
The 29 page Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies in America report has a section for each of the ten worst insurers. The section on Allstate notes at footnote 11 "There is no better analysis of [Allstate's] McKinsey documents than the book, 'From Good Hands’ to Boxing Gloves,' by David Berardinelli, and Michael Freeman. Many of AAJ's citations to articles about Allstate's institutional "Deny, Delay, Defend" policy cite the book as the authoritative source on Allstate's policies and procedures as well as the way Allstate's claim practices have impacted the rest of the insurance industry. The articles citing From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves cited in the AAJ report include feature articles by Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Money magazine, CNN and others.
Trial Guides' author work wasn't limited to #1 Allstate. Trial Guides author Rick Friedman and his firm Friedman Rubin has done groundbreaking work on UnumProvident's bad faith denials of disability claims. Unum was named as #2 on the list of The Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies in America for its patterns and practice of denying or discontinuing payments on valid disability claims. Friedman Rubin's litigation against Unum has uncovered the company's denials and resulted in significant insurance bad faith verdicts against the company including a $60 million verdict in Merrick v. Paul Revere Life Ins. Co. Rick's work on insurance bad faith cases against Unum and other insurers led to him writing Rules of the Road.
Our groundbreaking book Colossus: What Every Trial Lawyer Needs to Know by Aaron DeShaw publicly disclosed extensive bad faith conduct by Farmers Insurance upon its release in January 2004. The book, extensively quoted since its release (often without attribution) led to the information upon which Farmers Insurance was named #7 on The Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies in America. The book detailed the nationwide underpayment of claims by setting the Colossus program to underpay claims. The contents of the book became the basis of the national class action of Sikes v. Farmers Group Inc., filed by Whitten Burrage, (with DeShaw as legal consultant) resulting in Farmers ending its use of the Colossus program. DeShaw, Whitten Burrage and two other firms are presently co-counsel on another Colossus class action case (Hensley v. CSC) against Allstate and over 500 other insurers for the use of Colossus on first party claims.
AAJ's List of The Top 10 Worst Insurance Companies in America is as follows:
1. Allstate Insurance
2. Unum
3. AIG
4. State Farm
5. Conseco
6. WellPoint
7. Farmers Insurance
8. United Health
9. Torchmark
10. Liberty Mutual