Insurance and Finance Update - Written by Beasley Allen on Monday, July 10, 2006 8:19 - 0 Comments

The Shredding Of Records By State Farm Looks Bad

An employee currently employed by State Farm Insurance Co. has verified that the insurance company has been shredding records relating to arising out of Hurricane Katrina. It appears that State Farm has been shredding records weekly at the Biloxi Catastrophe Office and on various schedules at other south offices since Hurricane Katrina hit. This verification comes from Shred-It, the company that does the work, and that’s not good news for State Farm policyholders. State Farm that the records were shredded for very good reasons and that it wants to keep customer information out of the wrong hands.

The State Farm employee, based in Biloxi, told the Sun Herald that at least one shredded document was an engineering report that went missing after General Jim Hood subpoenaed records of this sort from State Farm for use in a grand jury investigation. The General says that he also had subpoenaed that specific report and others for his against State Farm. He says his office is trying to determine whether insurance companies are using falsified engineering reports to blame tidal surge for property damage and thus deny .

The Biloxi employee who told about the shredding is a current representative on the State Farm Catastrophe Team. The employee first learned, while working on a policyholder file, that an original engineering report had been destroyed. He was told by a co-employee that the engineering report in question had been shredded. Apparently, this was after State Farm had been subpoenaed by General Hood to produce all the engineer reports for the grand jury. Even if State Farm is somehow able to justify shredding documents, I have to say that it sure doesn’t sound right under the circumstances.




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