[StBernard] Congress will take on insurers

[Westley Annis]

I wasn't sure if the URL would wrap or not.  It did.  Made a tiny url for
the letter:
 
http://tinyurl.com/ytcurd
 
 



	By KATHERINE SAYRE
	
	
	SUN HERALD WASHINGTON BUREAU
	
	
	WASHINGTON - A House panel will investigate how insurance companies
handled
	claims after Hurricane Katrina, Rep. Melvin Watt, D-N.C., announced
	Thursday.
	
	"The hearing will examine concerns raised by both Democratic and
Republican
	members of Congress about whether private insurance companies have
been
	properly paying claims after Hurricane Katrina," said a news release
from
	Watt, who chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
for Barney
	Frank, D-Mass. Frank is chairman of the House Financial Services
Committee.
	
	The hearing convenes at 2 p.m. Feb. 28, Watt's release said.
	
	Taylor and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood are scheduled to
testify,
	according to a release from Taylor's office.
	
	Insurance companies have maintained that they paid what was owed
under their
	policies and can't be faulted for denying claims they collected no
premiums
	to cover.
	
	But Taylor believes insurers wrote off damage they should have
covered under
	wind policies to the National Flood Insurance Program, which covers
damage
	from flooding.
	
	"The Mississippi Coast suffered several hours of very destructive
hurricane
	winds before inundation by the storm surge," Taylor wrote in a Jan.
5 letter
	to Frank. "Insurers paid billions of dollars of wind claims inland,
where
	they could not possibly blame flooding, but assumed that flooding
caused all
	the damage near the Coastline."
	
	Hood led a year-long investigation into claims practices by State
Farm Fire
	and Casualty Co., but ended the inquiry as part of a settlement with
the
	company, which denies any wrongdoing.
	
	Taylor and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., have sent Hood a
letter
	asking him to preserve the records he collected for Congress. Taylor
also is
	collecting "insurance horror stories" from policyholders for
Congress.
	
	Taylor, a State Farm policyholder who lost his Bay St. Louis home to
	Katrina, said Wednesday that the panel will examine possible
"criminal
	aspects" of insurers' practices.
	Brian Martin, Taylor's policy director, said the congressman hopes
this will
	be the first of several hearings aimed at uncovering any wrongdoing
and
	proving the need for insurance reforms to prevent future problems.
	
	Link to Rep. Taylor's request for hearing:
	
	
http://www.sunherald.com/multimedia/sunherald/archive/0119Insurance.investig
	ation.request.pdf