BOURHIS CHARGES LONG-TERM CARE INSURANCE CARRIERS WITH BAD FAITH / RACKETEERING

Confirming allegations made today in a front page NYT article by Charles Duhigg, Ray Bourhis of Bourhis-Mann in San Francisco (www.Bourhis-Mann.com) charged that major insurance carriers are defrauding elderly people whose companies know they are too old and sick to fight back.

Bourhis, author of Insult to Injury: Insurance, Fraud and the Big Business of Bad Faith and founder of www.InsuranceConsumers.com, has obtained record verdicts and settlements in bad faith cases and is lobbying Congress to reform ERISA Preemption and abolish the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption.

Bourhis' latest broadside against the industry alleges that "some of the same characters who made billions by cheating disability policyholders are now going after the most vulnerable segement in our society -- chronically ill senior citizens.

"Some of the people running these companies are total crooks. The industry has collected over $50 billion in premiums and now companies are delaying and denying clearly legitimate claims, knowing the companies will outlive their policyholders.

"The insurers don't give a damn about lawsuits, punitive damages, horrific publicity or anything else. We put Unum on 60 Minutes, Dateline and the front pages of major newspapers all over America. Eliot Spitzer and John Garamendi levied $millions in fines and publically called some of these companies "outlaws." We obtained huge punitive damage verdicts that were unanimously upheld by courts of appeals. But none of that makes a difference.

"The profits earned by cheating policyholders far exceeds the price paid for doing so.

"Insurance companies have learned all they have to do is put an ad on television and the public will soon forget everything else.

It's time for Congress to get off the dime and do something about this."

Contact Information:

Ray Bourhis 415.407.7773

www.Bourhis-Mann.com
www.InsuranceConsumers.com
www.InsultToInjury.org