Customer Reviews

Insult to Injury: Insurance, Fraud, and the Big Business of Bad Faith

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If, like the average American citizen probably does, you view the insurance industry as a benevolent protector that exists to serve its' customers, you are in for one rude awakening. Ray Bourhis, who served as plantiff's counsel in the case detailed in the book he later wrote, confronts the awesome duplicity of his adversary, one of the largest insurance underwriters in existence, a company that seemed determined not to honor its obligations at any cost. Bourhis describes the unending legal gamemanship, the obdurate refusal to settle, the psychological brutality of a company that appeared to prefer to destroy a policyholder than pay a claim on the agreed terms. The jury was not deceived and awarded Bouris' client a $7.7 million judgement a compensation for the egregious bad faith demonstrated by the insurer. This is an absolutely revolting story of an "ends justify any and all means" philosophy run amok at the senior management level and the terrible human cost exacted from the trusting and powerless who had believed their policies would protect them in times of dire need, when illness or injury rendered them unable to work. If you ever plan on purchasing a long term disabilty insurance policy from any insurer, you MUST read this book first; you have no idea what you may be setting yourself up for.

Insult to Injury is a passionate account of the insurance-related problems so many Americans must face on a daily basis. Ray Bourhis makes a compelling argument for reform and does so with gusto. This book is relevant, engaging, and well worth a read.

It shows the worse of the worse in the insurance industry. I came away wondering if the all the money I spend on medical, auto, home and life is actually buying me something. Maybe I need reinsurance for my insurance. What a mess?

I always assumed they charged an appropriate rate for the risk and numbers. If they made a mistake like they made foreseeing interest rates, the new policies holders just paid more in premiums.

In the end, the case was made for higher punitive damages. I still struggle with this. It seems to me companies who are doing this much wrong by the numbers need to be deterred. But I still have trouble seeing dollars that large going to a few plaintiffs. I am not sure if this is where the class action suits come into play. I don't what the fix is but my gut says there must be a better way to punish them. One thing for sure is it needs to be stopped.

Being in a moneymaking society, companies obviously thrive on making economic gains; however, at the risk of dehumanizing its customers? This book solidifies what we've all been thinking and understanding about said insurance companies and charges us to continue in making this a political issue.

This book should be required reading for every policy holder and potential policy holder. Bourhis clearly defines the dark side of the insurance industry whose reach influences state, federal and local government. His writing style is clear and interesting as he details the facts supporting his thesis. It is a shame that President Bush tried to pin the rising cost of medical care on so-called "frivolous lawsuits", when in fact the insurance companies keep costs high by insisting on unreasonable profits even when company executives make poor business decisions. After reading this book most citizens should demand a rethinking of how insurance companies do business and are regulated.

What happens when greed literally crowds out all human emotion and empathy? The process UnumProvident has set up to review claims is a chilling precursor to a world we may be entering if our elected officials and regulators don't step up to the plate. Unum explicitly sets up procedures to award employees for denying claims, and you don't have to take Mr. Bourhis' word for it, though this book is well-documented and supported. You can go read the cases that are beginning to come down. One can only hope that Mr. Bush's effect on the judiciary won't be enough to foreclose the last bastion that policyholders have. This book could be invaluable to those denied coverage or their attorneys.

Insult to Injury" focuses on a disabled chiropractor driven to the brink by an insurance company (UnumProvident) that unjustly denied her claim for benefits; the "good news" is that Bourhis and his associates were eventually able to right the wrong after a long legal battle made incredibly difficult by the company's calculated mendacity and the industry's success in prior lobbying of Congress and state legislatures.

When Dr. Hangarter first purchased her disability policy from Paul Revere Insurance, companies made their profits primarily on double-digit investment profits. However, the market changed and the companies found themselves under increasing pressure. In the meantime, Dr. Hangarter was injured providing treatment to a patient, and despite significant efforts at treatment, had to give up her practice and rely on disability payments from Paul Revere. Eventually Revere was sold and then became part of UnumProvident, and Dr. Hangarter's world was turned upside down.

New corporate leadership was brought in and began a deliberate policy of searching for ways to deny benefits - goals were set, customers were lied to regarding whether they could appeal and what was covered, expert testimony was slanted through incomplete information, documents destroyed, and the disabled often forced to go through lengthy, risky, and expensive litigation to collect. Possibly most frustrating of all (to me) was the fact that even when the company lost, it simply continued the same practices with other customers, and made it as difficult as possible for those victims to learn of the firm's already uncovered pattern of deceit.

Eventually because of all the resulting bad publicity UnumProvident's CEO was "forced out," given a $17 million payment, and all his cronies were left behind. Not much of a victory for truth and virtue. Meanwhile, President Bush touts his efforts and legislative victory to make righting such wrongs more difficult, and most state insurance commissioners and laws remain toothless. (California was a fortunate exception.)

"Insult to Injury" also goes a long way towards explaining why large punitive damages are sometimes necessary in the absence of innate corporate honesty and laws that mandate such.

And now we're reading about insurance companies and how they are managing to not pay Hurricane Katrina victims.

Ray Bourhis has done a masterful job of telling the story of his client, Joan Hangartner, (and several others) in their battle with the Unum-Provident disability giant. This book is an easy read that will terrify anyone who is thinking about making a claim against a disability insurance policy. As Bourhis points out, Unum is no worse than any of the others--the disability insurance companies have "done the math" and figure out that denying valid claims and forcing people to litigate for years if very profitable for the companies.

The disability insurance companies don't care about getting hit every once in a while like the massive verdict he got on behalf of Dr. Hangartner... their profits are still enormous. Bourhis also does a great job (discouraging as it is) of showing how most states lack any real "bad faith" laws that can be used to discourage the disability insurance companies from continuing to look after themselves before their insureds. Finally, Bourhis accurately shows that there is no effective meaningful oversite of the insurance industry by the federal government.

Simply, it takes lawsuits like his to break down the veil of secrecy that the insurance companies hide behind.

In short, if you like to read legal non-fiction, (and you like, for example the Gerry Spence books about his trials) then you will enjoy this book

The author gives us an inside look at what happens when someone goes through the process of filing a disability claim and being denied benefits. This book does an excellent job of preparing you to handle a very difficult process that could lead you to personal and financial
disaster.

After reading this book I am no longer shocked by anything I read about the insurance industry. I found it to be well written, and kept thinking about that Erin Brockovich and her real-life battles. Shame on that insurance company, and all the other ones like it.