FREEDOM, RIGHTS, AND EDUCATION FOR EVERYONE
PO Box 1009, Manitou Springs, Colorado 80829
Phone (719) 685-1870

Insurance Monopolies

Let me pose a question: Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired of the hassles you experience in trying to effect a legitimate settlement with various insurance companies? Are certain insurance companies getting away with murder; literally? How about extortion and fraud?

As you know, politics determines the cost of a loaf of bread as well as the policy pricing and the delivery of value by an insurance company to the everyday citizen. The term "everyday citizens" identifies the 80% of us who do not have $1,000,000.00 or more to contribute to whichever key political legislator/party currently is in power at the state and federal level. Key legislators who can pass legislation favorable to ourselves personally or for our corporation.

Two owners of Amway contributed a million dollars to the party presently in power and received a 19 million dollar a year tax exemption. Is this campaign finance system akin to bribing the judge to get a favorable ruling?

The insurance industry has made sizable campaign investments in key legislators in order to influence specially written legislation that gives them exemption from the following: Federal anti-trust laws ( since 1934...McCarren-Ferguson Act ), tort law exemption from being sued for malpractice & malfeasance by 125 million health care policyholders (ERISA), political protection from being prosecuted by regulatory agencies under civil and/or criminal statutes, and exemption from major tax laws that allow the insurance companies to exempt every year billions of dollars of premium income from tax liability. These tax exempt billions are placed in their asset base as tax exempt reserve funds to cover yearly estimated potential claim payouts. Obviously over the last few decades most of these payouts never occurred because the sum total of the asset bases of the 2,000+ insurance companies has increased in value by trillions of dollars. F.R.E.E. estimates that insurance customers get ripped off for about a billion dollars a day for every trillion dollars of insurance premiums collected, you and me included. Meanwhile the rest of us everyday citizens are required by legislated law...in all states... to purchase product and services from this corrupt industry. Lenders also require creditors to purchase insurance products and services at these inflated prices with the hope that, in the event of a claim, we will actually be made fully whole within the next three to ten years.. Or maybe never... in some cases.

The Top 15 Insurance Companies are Worth Over One Trillion Dollars Source: Dow Jones Global Index 1997

State Farm increased it’s asset base from 74 billion in 1996 to 104 billion in 1997, a thirty billion increase in one year. State Farm is controlled by one family, the Rust family. Warren Buffet is the world’s third wealthiest man behind Gates and Allen of Microsoft (80% gross profits) because he invests in insurance companies. Controlling an insurance company is a license to print money. The business, tax, and tort law exemptions as well as the politically protected exemptions from government prosecution on charges of fraud and racketeering are the main reasons why the top fifteen insurance companies have increased their asset base to over one trillion dollars (see table of net worth of the top 15, right). There are about 2,000+ insurance companies with many trillions of dollars of profits extorted from you and me ... with impunity. This extortion covers all types of insurance policies; health, car, P & C, workers comp, malpractice, liability, disability and many other types of coverage.

These business, tax and tort laws are laws that the rest of us must adhere to or face the threat of grave consequences including judgments, fines, prosecution and even jail. Yet, fraud is committed as soon as a stamp is put on the envelopes containing across the board denials of legitimate policyholder claims as well as other insurance company "dirty tricks" that can be documented by following their paper trail.

We at F.R.E.E. are aware of evidence that substantiates insurance company consumer/citizen unfair business practices and exemptions from business and tax law; federal and state. This includes price fixing, collusion among insurance executives in the fixing of profit margins in the 40% to 200% range, foreign bank accounts, universally agreed upon policy restrictive terms and conditions ( i.e. householder liability exemption). Also how insurance companies hassle and/or stonewall the claimant and their advocates and how they teach claims adjusters to lie, cheat and deceive the claimant and their advocates. We possess an insurance insider’s affidavit, Amy Zuniga, who has testified in legal proceedings in CA that State Farm insurance employees are taught how to lie, cheat and deceive the claimant, their health care provider or attorney. We also have copies of pleadings, case precedents, and class action law suits against major insurance companies.

A leading law firm in CA, Shernofff, Bidart, has just won a 120 million judgment against an Aetna HMO. They taught a seminar to other attorneys on the " dirty tricks" of the insurance industry in Santa Monica, CA in October, 1999. Recently several dozen former claims adjusters and agents of State Farm have stepped forward to expose the various fraudulent activities of this company. Several have lawsuits pending. F.R.E.E. is gathering statistics that prove that insurance companies are lying to everyday citizens about why their insurance premiums are rising when, in fact, there is a 25% or more decrease in the number of actual lawsuits filed against auto insurers in states like Colorado and New Mexico over the last ten years.

As a co-founder of F.R.E.E., a politically neutral and independent national consumer/citizen grass roots advocacy group, I can assure you that we, like you and your associates, feel that insurance companies and their executives must be held accountable for their nefarious business practices. It is state law that we carry auto insurance or pay fines, have our license suspended and/or go to jail yet they are not held liable by the laws and principles of the free enterprise marketplace. We need your help in changing the illegal and unethical practices of the insurance industry.

To paraphrase the words of Sir John Markes Templeton, the founder of the billion dollar Templeton Mutual Funds, "I figured out how to be in greater service to my clients and the money I earned was a by product of my efforts."