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By stan_sipple

Allstate Insurance discloses on-line internal documents on its campaign to reduce its costs to settle low-impact automobile accident cases. KC Business Journal. A Jackson County judge had earlier ordered Allstate to produce these documents and assessed a $25000 per diem fine for failing to provide the documents. Allstate Insurance Co., besieged by lawsuits and negative attention for what plaintiffs alleged was a claims policy that short-shrifted consumers, decided to place sensitive claims documents on the company's Web site. The so-called McKinsey documents, which were prepared by a consulting company by the same name in the 1990s, had been sought by plaintiffs' attorneys in several lawsuits in several states -- including Jackson County -- because they supposedly outlined the methods whereby Allstate decided how much of a claim it would pay, if any. Allstate vigorously resisted the introduction of the documents in court without a protective order, insisting that the documents were trade secrets. The company said in a release that it still thinks the documents are trade secrets but that it decided to release the 150,000 pages online because it wanted to dispel the "inaccurate picture" that had been painted of its claims process. In a Jackson County case, a judge ordered Allstate to pay a $25,000 fine for each day it hadn't turned over the documents to plaintiffs requesting them. Allstate hasn't yet paid any of the fine. That case is scheduled for trial July 21..

Full post as published by Showmeblawgs on April 12, 2008 (boomark / email).