Lexington’s insurance company President & CEO is Lou Levinson. He must really have a big ego because what he allows his company to promise regarding claims practices has nothing to do with what is delivered. I invite him and his claims vice president to show up at a claims townhall meeting anywhere in the five largest states to listen to what their customers have to go through. They can invite whomever they want, and we will invite who we want.
I represented a Miami Beach billionaire with his claim last year. He was furious with the delayed payment—more than 60 days after the agreed dollar settlement, which was in litigation.
The above picture is a contractor for a Florida condominium that was underpaid and payment delayed by Lexington. We are now in the bad faith lawsuit. Lexington desk adjusters never called him—on a loss that happened while he was fixing a previous covered loss that was also delayed by Lexington!
In, Failure to Communicate with the Insured’s Contractor is Bad Faith, we wrote that contractors fixing the damage should be interviewed promptly by insurance adjusters. Failing to do so is like covering one’s eyes so there is an excuse not to pay or delay paying rather than simply analyzing available information.
The need for prompt communication and investigation is obvious: besides the absence of peace of mind, the untimely adjustment of a claim exposes a claimant to additional loss of property. Thus, we conclude that defendant had a duty to promptly and effectively communicate with anyone it was reasonably aware had or legitimately needed information pertaining to the handling of plaintiffs’ claim.
Why don’t we find these common-sense directives to Lexington claims representatives? Do they hope by ignoring facts claims are not timely paid so their executives can invest on the float or hope people go away?
I can attach thousands of consumer complaints to this blog about delayed and underpaid claims by Lexington. Eventually, Lexington and AIG executives should have their audit committees do research to discover if they are allowing systemically based processes to exist that underpay and delay claims to their customers.
If they called me and some of my friends, I could provide them a lot of data. The question is whether the AIG Board is willing to learn the truth about what it allows Lexington Property to do.
If you are a policyholder or an attorney representing a policyholder suffering from Lexington’s slow and underpaying staff of adjusters and attorneys who ignore you, please call us. We are sharing information to make a meaningful change to prevent such an entity to continue this way or be held accountable for not promptly paying claims and failing to care for their customers.
Thought For The Day
Success on any major scale requires you to accept responsibility . . . . In the final analysis, the one quality that all successful people have is the ability to take on responsibility.
—Michael Korda
