Miss. Insurance Commissioner Finds Self in Political Harm's Way

by Ana Maria

Once again, Mr. Foot-in-Mouth Diseased Insurance Commissioner of the State of Mississippi—George Dale—has implied that the majority of Americans ought to move. That’s right, George Dale thinks that the 55% of Americans whom the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency reported live within 50 miles of our nation’s gloriously beautiful coastlines should move from our homes, families, communities, places of worship, jobs, and friends . . . and that if we don’t, then—by George—we get what we deserve from the worst of Mother Nature.

Oh, George, you are such a horse’s patoot!

Rather than having worked tirelessly as an exceedingly strong, faithful, and compassionate advocate on behalf of every Mississippi family and business owner—especially in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, George Dale has spent his tenure being in the pocket of the very insurance industry he is responsible for regulating.

Gary Anderson is Dale’s opponent in next week’s Democratic primary. Anderson’s television ad asserts that Dale has received $260,000 in campaign contributions from the insurance industry and raised insurance rates 29%.

Mississippians for Fair Elections is running a television ad asserting that the insurance industry is denying valid claims all over the state while making over $60 billion in profits in 2006 alone. The ad asserts further asserts that George Dale raised insurance rates implying that raising the rates may be the reason the industry has invested over $200,000 in his campaign.


A month and a half or so ago, Dale clearly showed his hand to the Clarksdale Lion’s Club.

Katrina was “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history . . . and put an undue burden on insurance companies.”

Yeah, I feel so sorry for the corporate fat cats whose boards of directors have insisted on drowning their CEOs in millions. State Farm increased the salary of its CEO by 82%. Last year, Allstate gave its CEO a $5 million annual raise on top of a nearly $10 million bonus. That sure would have paid for an awful lot of homes and businesses to be repaired.

Heck, rather thandefending the billions in profits from an industry that is hurting his own Mississippi people, George Dale should have pro-actively sent down boatloads of folks from his office—hired more if needed—to help his constituents fill out the paperwork to get the insurance claims filed and to apply for the state grants. Then, Dale should have led the charge to ensure that the insurance companies honored their legal contracts rather than pull the “wind vs. water” baloney he apparently allowed to go unchecked.

We have elderly and mentally disabled folks. We have folks simply devastated from the magnitude of Katrina’s force. We have folks exhausted from battling insurance companies. The commissioner of insurance should have battled the insurance giants on behalf of his constituents. Instead, Dale forced these good people of all political, religious, and economic backgrounds to turn to trial attorneys such as our state’s very own Dickey Scruggs to get the helping hand they needed from a good friend.

To my knowledge, Dale has NEVER mentioned the significant burden that the insurance companies have placed on Mississippi families and businesses by refusing to pay legitimate claims on their wind policies. No, he has not used his office as a bully pulpit to get the insurance companies to honor their contracts. Rather, Dale is using the power of his office to bully Mississippians who live on the Gulf Coast into believing that we deserve no help from our government or our insurance company regardless of whatever bad weather comes our way damaging our homes, our businesses, our communities, and our places of worship . . . and no matter the legal contract we had signed up for with our insurance company. Oh, George, how utterly vile and contemptible.

Now that he is in a tough election campaign for the job he has held for 32 years, Dale is choosing to attack the fact that his constituents live on one of America’s coastlines. Speaking recently before the Rotary Club in Columbus, Miss., Dale asked

“Should we be allowed to live wherever we choose even if it's in harm's way? Should we make taxpayers pick up the tab of those who choose to live in harm's way?”

Mississippi Insurance Commissioner George Dale
Dale discusses Katrina's impact on insurance, campaign
The Commercial Dispatch

Excuse me?! Since when is Dale in charge of determining whether a geographic area constitutes being in “harm’s way”?

Perhaps George Dale would like to list the “safe” geographical places in our nation so that the 55% of us who live within 50 miles of our nation’s “unsafe” coastlines can immediately pack up and move to this alleged “safe place”. By the way, according to the Census Bureau, 55% of our nation’s population equals 167 million Americans. I wonder where George is anticipating us to move? Where exactly is this fictitious place where we can live outside of harm’s way?

If that list of “safe from all of Mother Nature” isn’t at Dale’s finger tips, perhaps some of his buddies inside Big Insurance can provide him with it—should such a list exist. Of course, where ever these “safe-from-Mother-Nature” cities and towns are, well, surely to goodness our need for insurance will evaporate into thin air. After all, as the “billionaire insurance titan” himself stated

"We are in the insurance business. We are in the risk business. And if you start taking away every risk that industry is exposed to, then what do you need an
insurance company for?"

C.V. Starr & Co. Chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg
Insurance Journal
May 2007

But really, why would George stop at recommending only the 55% of Americans who live within 50 miles of America’s magnificent coastlines? He had told the Columbus Rotarians

“over $122 million in claims have been paid in Hinds County alone, which is more than 150 miles inland.”

Shall we infer that Dale will eventually recommend that any American who lives within 150 miles of our coastlines also deserve whatever Mother Nature dishes out and perhaps should move in order to obtain insurance and governmental assistance? What an utterly ridiculous thing to consider. The whole thing is George Dale’s attempt to deflect from answering key questions.

Why is George Dale running away from his post-Katrina record on the coast? He’s so ashamed of it that he didn’t even buy any air time for campaign television or radio spots. [See George Dale is a Coward.]

Why is George Dale essentially saying that the 55% of Americans who live, work, and worship within 50 miles of our nation's beautiful and spectacular coastline deserve all the Katrinas that Mother Nature can dish out?

Why is George Dale defending the insurance industry he is supposed to be regulating on behalf of the people of Mississippi?

Why did George Dale fail to vociferously, aggressively, and faithfully advocate in a successful manner on behalf of the families and business owners who had religiously paid their insurance premiums only to be screwed over by various companies that refused to honor their wind policy contracts?

All of George’s hatred spewing with him telling the Gulf Coast residents to move if they don’t like the way he permits insurance companies to run all over them? Bizarre campaign strategy, really. What could be the point other than sour grapes because the folks on the Gulf Coast aren’t thanking him for enabling the insurance industry to harm families and businesses by the thousands?

Then, a celestial spirit again visited me in the night sharing these ever-important poignant insights.

George is still trying to divide Mississippians one against the other. His standard line to audiences in North Mississippi:

“Should we be allowed to live wherever we choose even if it's in harm's way? Should we make taxpayers pick up the tab of those who choose to live in harm's way?”

He plays to the worst instincts of his audience by making them think they will have to pay higher premiums just because other people live near the Coast.

Wow! Now that makes it fall into place. While it explains his behavior, it does not excuse it. The commissioner of insurance is supposed to be a trusted public servant. Down here on the coast, his actions have instilled betrayal rather than trust. Personally, I don’t cotton to that.

Insurance commissioners don’t have to be that way
Let’s contrast Mississippi’s insurance commissioner with California’s former insurance commissioner John Garamendi, who won his race for Lt. Governor in last November’s election. Garamendi has a fierce reputation for defending California’s policyholders and going up against insurance companies like State Farm. About a year ago, Garamendi went public “accusing California's largest auto insurers of using political extortion to get him to delay implementing laws that would save California motorists money,” See video here.

San Francisco’s CBS television station reported that Garamendi received a phone call in which

“he was offered a take it or leave it deal. [Garamendi] says a lobbying group that represents the state's top auto insurers threatened to spend over $2 million in a negative ad campaign unless he delayed new insurance regulations - regulations that require auto insurance companies to give more weight to how people drive rather than where they live, a practice known as red lining.”

Garamendi said the lobbying group behind the threats “is funded by State Farm, Farmers, Safeco, Allstate and other top insurers.” The San Francisco television station reported that “State Farm confirmed to CBS 5 that the phone call to Garamendi did take place, but they denied blackmail or coercion.” State Farm sure is busy these days, and apparently not with taking great care of its policyholders.

Rather than buckling under the weight of the alleged blackmail and extortion, Garamendi went public. View news clip. He also turned the matter over to the FBI and state officials. Read Garamendi’s letter to the FBI and state officials.

Garamendi is proof positive that standing up to corporate bullies can be successfully accomplished. All it takes is courage, character, and commitment to the public good.

Clearly the sun needs to set on George Dale’s tenure as insurance commissioner. So here are a few political hell raising activities that will help push over the finish line a candidate who has signed a pledge not to take money from the insurance industry AND with our help has a chance to win.

Contribute a few dollars into Gary Anderson's campaign, volunteer with the campaign--maybe phone banking long distance if the campaign is dong that, and vote for him are all steps that can be taken to be part of a solution to the problem with George Dale's cozy relationship with the insurance industry that has ravaged the coast in ways beyond what Katrina did. This is how we help George Dale understand that by deliberately placing others on a path of financial and emotional distress has consequences, he placed himself in harm’s way.

___________________________________________

If you enjoyed this piece, you may also enjoy reading the following.

George Dale is a Coward

Mr. “I can do my job” isn’t doing his job


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A Southern Moonlit Sauna Has Me Thinking of Bush and Jesus

With the beauty of Saturday night’s moon beaming brightly upon the water, hundreds of people gathered at the Bay St. Louis Yacht Club to listen to the deliciously divine music of Deacon John, a New Orleans legend playing all the favorites going back some fifty years. I couldn’t believe how hot it was or that sweat was running down my legs! A young friend informed me, “That isn’t sweat. It’s the humidity stuck to your legs.” I guess it’s been a while since I went dancing under the moonlight with humidity in the night air making life almost unbearable were it not for Deacon John’s music.

I immediately thought, “Thank GAWD I wore shorts and a t-shirt.” Looking around, I saw sweat poring of off everyone. Thus the reason for the HUGE four to five foot fans under the tent where the band played and the rest of us danced. Now, if you thought this was some uptight-dressed-to-the-nines-with-diamond-jewels kind of crowd, you’d have been wrong as wrong could be. At best, everyone wore picnic attire, the same thing many of us had worn earlier that day when we went to the annual Crab Festival at Our Lady Academy, the Catholic all girl high school I attended.

I bought myself a shrimp po-boy—a New Orleans specialty—and sat down at a table filled with folks I didn’t know. Like me, they were enjoying the divinely mouth-watering delicacies for which our region is so well-known. Across from me was a couple who had lost a 5,000 square foot home in Katrina. What did their insurance carrier offer for the damages? $19,000. What a jaw dropper!

Being smart business people, they had tried to get flood insurance and were denied it because they didn’t live in a flood zone. This insurance nightmare pushed this couple into joining one of the Scruggs Katrina lawsuits.

After we finished our meal and concluded our discussion, we parted knowing that we’d be seeing each other at THE event of the weekend: dancing to Deacon John that night. Indeed, we ran into each other soon after the gig began to crank up. Music and dancing are a strong part of our cultural history here which can be most easily understood when taking into consideration the fact that many families, like my own, are originally from New Orleans. Our heat and humidity are other similarities to the birthplace of Jazz.

The South’s Natural Sauna
Saturday night, I voluntarily re-experienced the “Southern Sauna,” as my brother Michael called the horrendous humidity with which we grew up. Of course, being out under the moonlight dancing with my friends was pleasurable play time. I was just out having a good time as sweat ran down the back of my t-shirt and the humidity grabbed a hold of my legs then rolled right down. At least, I could go over to a fan and cool off occasionally. Eventually, I would return to my car with air conditioning which I would drive to my mother’s home that was also air conditioned. I could jump into the shower. These are choices that most of us take for granted.

Two years ago when Katrina hit, electricity and safe-water were near non-existent commodities. My older brother Rosie told me that he would put water in jugs and sit them out in the sun to warm up all day. That way he would have relatively warm water for an evening wash up. Because the water source wasn’t safe for weeks after the storm, he’d put bleach in the jugs to kill the germs.

Rosie said he noticed that those who failed to put bleach in their water ended up with sores on their bodies. And the weather was more scorching than it is at this point in the summer. As I think and write about these things, I cannot imagine the turmoil and nightmare that family, friends, and strangers all lived through in those months, particularly with the horrendous weather.

The worst weather comes in August and September, the two months in which hurricanes tend to hit the Gulf Coast region. Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans on September 9th, 1965. Camille hit the Mississippi Gulf Coast August 17th, 1969, and Katrina hit on August 29th, 2005, devastating my beloved Gulf Coast and breaching the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers’ levees which flooded our New Orleans.

Sister cities: New Orleans and Baghdad?
I have often thought that the destruction, betrayal, and their accompanying mental toll along the Gulf Coast and in New Orleans resembles that experienced in war-torn areas of the world.The other day, I came across an excerpt in a Daily Kos Diary of an Iraqi blogger writing about his experience in New Orleans. I thought his words particularly insightful.

New Orleans Isn't Very Different from Baghdad!
What shocked me the most in this trip was how the city looked like Baghdad. New Orleans looked like Baghdad after the war in 1991; I swear I kid you not. The devastation, empty houses, the people returning to their life in the city, the "rituals" people practice before they completely come back, the bumps in the streets and the smell of destruction (it has a distinctive smell people. Yes it does.)

I arrived to New Orleans Thursday. On the way to the hotel, I saw the same thing I saw on tv two years ago, destroyed buildings. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two years later and the scene is the same? Where are we? A government that spent hundreds of billions of dollars on wars overseas is not capable of dealing with a crisis on its own soil! A crisis that all what it needed was money!

Priorities, Hearts, and Money
I grew up with a saying that my mother would recite. It went something like this. “Show me where you spend you money, and I’ll show you where your priorities are.” Other times it would end with “I’ll show you where your heart is.”

When it comes to the priorities and heart of George W. Bush, his White House, and his cronies in the corporate insurance industry, evidence abound. Plenty of taxpayers’ money and resources for his big time campaign contributors even if fraud is committed in padding his contributor’s pocketbook. Nothing much for the rest of us, including his Republican supporters in the Katrina ravaged region.

On the floor of the House of Representatives, Gulf Coast Democratic Congressman Gene Taylor showcased these fraudulent-riddled priorities with regard to Katrina recovery. Specifically, Taylor discussed FEMA trailers that were

“delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Purvis, Miss., down to the Gulf Coast , hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in. 16,000.” [Watch the video.]

Clearly, Bush’s priorities are heartless.

Families remain in the toxic formaldehyde-FEMA trailers. Grants remain unpaid. Insurance companies refuse to pay appropriately on claims without the force of attorneys, refuse to provide insurance at reasonable rates, and/or refuse to write policies anymore. Bush has turned a deaf ear refusing to respond appropriately to the heartfelt prayers of the families in need of real leadership in Katrina Land.

Bush and Jesus
My return to the annual fair that the Catholic elementary school of my youth had put on this weekend has me thinking. At Mass and Catholic school, I learned about charity and service to others. More than anything, though, I learned about taking one's responsibilities seriously. Truly, God forbid if I didn’t follow through on some responsibility. I have no idea what would have happened had I been a slacker like George W. Bush. All I know is that I was taught to be responsible. Like many of you across the country, I learned this at home, at school, and at my family’s place of worship.

When it comes to the many responsibilities that Bush neglects especially here in Katrina Land, I’d like to ask Mr. “I’m the nation’s Preacher-in-Chief” one question. What responsibilities would Jesus neglect?

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