I’m sharing this Letter to the Editor with the membership directly because, after several rounds of back and forth, the Wall Street Journal ultimately declined to publish our response to an article that grossly mischaracterized our industry. NAMIC will always speak out and defend NAMIC members and our industry, and it’s disappointing that the Journal would shy away from the kind of exchange that would’ve been genuinely useful for readers to see play out in the open.
Setting the Record Straight: NAMIC’s Neil Alldredge Responds to the WSJ’s August 9th Piece
Readers of your Aug. 9 article, “If You Get in a Car Crash, the Risk Is Growing Your Insurance Won’t Pay,” deserved the full picture on auto insurance claims. Unfortunately, they didn’t get it.
Buried well into the piece is this: no-payment figures reported to regulators include claims paid by the other driver’s insurer, claims withdrawn by customers, claims outside policy terms, and claims below the deductible. These simple facts explain much of the gap between the data and the headline’s implication. They belong at the top of the story, not near the bottom.
The analysis also excluded claims still open at year’s end, which the Journal itself acknowledged will lower recent years’ nonpayment rates as those claims resolve. That caveat also appeared far too late in the piece.
Next, quoting sources without disclosing their interest is a major omission. For instance, the piece failed to note that the nation’s largest billboard lawyer might have a vested interest in mischaracterizing claims management.
The claims process is governed by extensive laws and regulations in every state. If the statistics the Journal cited reflected systemic nonpayment, consumers and the marketplace would notice.
The average mutual insurer has been in business more than 100 years. That longevity isn’t an accident. It’s what happens when you show up and deliver for people on their worst days.
The U.S. property/casualty industry generates nearly $1 trillion in net written premiums annually and protects the assets of countless businesses and families nationwide. That contribution deserves coverage as rigorous as the scrutiny the Journal applies elsewhere.
