Allstate Appeals to the Florida Supreme Court

On May 19, 2008, Allstate appealed for discretionary review of the Florida First District Court of Appeals decision that affirmed the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation's suspension of Allstate's ability to write new insurance policies in Florida to the Florida Supreme Court.

The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (FOIR) had held hearings over Allstate's claims handling process. The Office issued subpoenas to Allstate. At issue is Allstate's use of certain claims management procedures and programs that are alleged to violate certain provisions of Florida law. In other state courts, Allstate has withheld such information and has incurred substantial fines and penalties rather than respond to subpoenas. In Florida, the FOIR contends that Allstate refused to comply with valid requests and subpoenas and, under Florida law, the FOIR was empowered to suspend Allstate's ability to write future business in the state.

Allstate had appealed the ruling to the Florida First District Court of Appeals. The First District issued its final ruling on May 14, 2008. Not only did the First District lift a stay of the suspension, but its final decision states, "Allstate's willful, indeed potentially criminal, failure to comply with its disclosure obligations has prevented OIR from adequately investigating its reasoned belief that Allstate is systematically defrauding its policyholders." Not exactly a good result for the good hands people.

On May 16, 2008, Allstate submitted an affidavit to the FOIR stating it had complied with the subpoena requests by producing over 800,000 pages of documents. In response, the FOIR stayed continued enforcement of the stay as long as Allstate remained cooperative. A local business paper points out that prior to the imposition of the suspension and First District decision, Allstate had produced only 36,000 documents as "responsive."