Personal Injury Law

Allstate makes controversial "McKinsey" documents public on website

By Brian F. LaBovick, Esq.

The Allstate Corporation, one of the the nation's largest publicly held insurance companies, recently released approximately 150,000 pages of documents pertaining its review claim practices from the 1990s. Although, some media have regarded the documents as coming up short, according to a recent Times Picayune article.

On the opposite side of  the argument, the release of the documents by Allstate can be viewed as  Allstate's way of showing that they have nothing to hide. Undoubtedly, the Mckinsey documents issue will not go away for awhile, in light of the looming release of the new tell all book for the public by New Mexico attorney David Berardinelli, called "From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves: The Dark Side of Insurance."

An Allstate spokesperson, Rich Halberg, downplays the significance of the documents in a recent  Allstate press release, "When aired in the unbiased setting of a court of law, allegations about the documents have been shown to be without merit. Most recently, some of the documents were seen and explained in context to a jury during a two-week trial in Kentucky (Hager v. Allstate)."

The Hager v. Allstate case involved a rear-end automobile accident case that occurred in 1997. The Plaintiff, a 60 year old accident victim, sued Allstate for not paying claims related to the personal injury in the car accident and for allegedly violating Kentucky's Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act. The outcome of the two week trial was for the Defendant, Allstate. According to several published reports, the jury came back with this verdict after deliberating for a short while. One can only wonder if the Jury took the Plaintiff seriously for asking for $1.425 Billion for what is typically referred to as a soft tissue injury.

Click here to view the extensive site of the Allstate "Claim Review" documents.  The site shares comprehensive information on Casualty Review, Homeowners Review, Auto Physical Damage Review and Field work Information.

We encourage the public to read the documents and let us know your opinion of the documents.

Full post as published by LaBovick Injury Law Blog on April 14, 2008 (boomark / email).