Index 09/18/2000
Insurance Consumer Advocate Network: Empowering Consumers Nationwide
     
www.iCan2000.com
     

Insurance Consumer Advocate Network
Applauds / Endorses Mike Causey in NC

Tempe, AZ (09/18/00) - The Insurance Consumer Advocate Network, an on-line consumer advocacy effort headed by a retired insurance adjuster [www.ican2000.com], is pleased to recommend Mike Causey to the voters of North Carolina as the only true Consumer Advocate candidate running for the office of Commissioner of the Department of Insurance.

Mike Causey's platform of Consumer Sensitive Conservatism, and his willingness to confront the insurance industry's march to HMOize auto and homeowner insurance, is a breath of fresh air after 16 years of Jim Long's record of ignoring consumers' rights.

In 1963 the insurance industry and the U S Attorney General's Office [under Robert Kennedy] entered into a binding agreement in which insurance companies promised to stop suppressing ["low-balling"] claim settlements that defrauded consumers. Since then, insurance companies have systematically ignored the "1963 Consent Decree" and continued to defraud consumers. Jim Long has known of these fraudulent practices and has chosen to do nothing!

AFTER-MARKET PARTS
For the past 15 years many auto insurance companies have been refusing to pay for factory replacement body parts to repair consumers cars when cheaper, lower quality and potentially dangerous after-market parts are available. These inferior parts have jeopardized passenger safety, have compromised a vehicle's factory warranty, have added to the reduction in resale value of consumers' vehicles and have failed to fulfill an insurance company's promise to their policyholders. Last October an Illinois jury found State Farm Auto Insurance Guilty of Fraud for having mandated these inferior parts and still, Jim Long has still chosen to do nothing!

DIMINISHED VALUE
For almost 100 years, auto insurance companies have owed their policyholders for any reduction in resale value that may be directly related to a covered loss. This was the case when Jim Long took office. For the first 15 years of Jim Long's tenure he chose to do nothing to enforce these policyholder rights. Civil courts have had to step in to do Jim Long's job for him. Within the past year, auto insurance companies have issued new endorsements on their policies which now specifically Exclude Diminished Value from coverage. Again, Jim Long chose to do nothing to stop this rape of consumers' rights.

For the past 16 years consumers have gotten little more than a "deaf-ear" and a "kiss-off" form letter from the North Carolina Department of Insurance. It's time Jim Long be sent back to the insurance industry he has served so well. It's time to get a new Commissioner who will actually Listen to and work for Consumers.

If Mike Causey says it's going to rain . . . you can set your tubs out, cause friend . . . it's going to rain!