[StBernard] State Farm settles Katrina lawsuits

[Westley Annis]

Gaby, I heard on the news that the reason they are not treating Louisiana 
the same way as Mississippi is because MS law says that the insurance 
company can be punished for not paying, punished with punitive damages.  We 
don't have that law.  The punitive damages can be much more than the the 
amount of the policy, as in the case of the MS couple that got 2.5 million 
awarded to them in addition to their policy limit.  State Farm does not want

to pay that penalty to everyone so they will settle and pay them.  We do not

have that law here, so they will play hardball with us.  It is not really 
logic, I think, it is what they can get away with. Still, I am not sure if 
they will revisit our claim because we went to mediation and I don't know if

that means that we "settled" with them.  They are supposed to re-evaluate 
all "unsettled" claims.  Westley, do you know the answer to this?

Laurie