TRANSCRIPT OF CONVERSATION  JUNE 30, 1996
                      BETWEEN WILLIAM HAMMEL AND
        ESTHER BENEVITZ, OF N. J. ASSEMBLYWOMAN WEINBERG'S OFFICE 

	Recept: Good morning, Assemblywoman Weinberg's Office

	WH: Is Esther there, please?

	Recept: Who's calling please?

	WH: Bill Hammel

	Recept: Hold on.

	WH: Sure.

	E: Hello, May I Help You?

	WH: I certainly hope so.

	E: Yeah.

	WH: My name is Bill Hammel

	E: Oh! Hi!  Where are you?

	WH: I see you've heard of me...

	E: Yeah, where are you?

	WH: I'm in North Carolina.

	E: Oh my!  This'll be a quick conversation.

	WH: Well...it'll be as long as it has to be, if that's all right
	with you.  I am still having problems with State Farm, I don't
	know whether you received their alleged report...

	E:  Have you received our letter?

	WH: No, not yet.

	E: I sent you a letter last week.

	WH: Last week...

	E: Easily, last week.

	WH: OK..

	E:  Maybe even the week before.  We got it May 30th.

	WH:  May 30th...OK...

	E: May 30th, Somebody just looked it up for me.

	WH: It may not have arrived.

	E: I sent it General Delivery.

	WH: OK...I'll check the Post Office today.

	E: OK.

	WH:  I have written back to Mr. Only, and I also faxed
	Senator Baer about 34 pages of...

	E: (pausative)

	WH: Addressing the two letters, apparently State Farm's only answer,
	or the only report that the Insurance Department has given me,
	are two letters from State Farm, that are pure nonsense.

	E:  Well, what I have, let me...if you'll just hold on I'll
	pick up the file.

	WH: Sure.

	E: Hold on...(away from phone) OK. Umm, my letter to you is
	May 30th, which encloses the response from the Insurance
	Department, from Elizabeth Randall, the Commissioner, dated
	May 22nd.

	WH: Right...Ok I have that.

	E: You have that.

	WH: Yes.

	E: Umm, and my letter simply forwarded that on to you, and told
	you, that's it, there's nothing more we can do.

	WH: OK...

	E: I...you know, I'm very, very sorry about that, but the Insurance
	Department, apparently, you know, can only go so far.

	WH:  Apparently they're ignoring all of the letters that I sent
	them that indicate...I mean they've come to a conclusion that's
	wrong, ahh, State Farm is claiming that Mr. Bellamente refused
	medical examinations.

	E:  Well, true.

	WH: He declined a medical examiner, in one instance, and two
	physicians declined to see him ahh, that were assigned for
	IMEs, because they didn't want to deal with State Farm, so I...

	E: Yeah, I understand that, but, you know, er, I batted my
	head against the wall, I mean how long have we been doing this?
	It's over a year.

	WH:  Ahh, well I submitted the complaint on December 4, '95.

	E: Right.  OK.  You know, I have a file here, it's like pages,
	and pages, and pages, and pages.  I know that you've been faxing
	pages, and pages, and pages.

	WH: Yes.

	E:  But, the only thing we can do...I..I..I..I wish there were
	words that I could express, you know, how concerned we are about
	it.  The only thing we can do as a legislative office, is to
	pass it on to the Department of Insurance, and explain to them
	how miserably unhappy we are.

	WH: OK.

	E: We have done that more than once.

	WH: All right...I understand that.

	E:  And they're writing us back now, and saying to us, you know,
	thank you very much we have, um here, their last sentence is
	"While I regret we were unable to assist Dr. Hammel, I trust this
	addresses his concern.  Once again, thank you for bringing this to
	our attention."  They don't want to hear from me again!

	WH:  Right.  Apparently they don't want to hear from me again,
	either.

	E:  Oh, I think that's definitely true. (She laughs)

	WH: Um, I have a question, perhaps you could do...

	E: Yeah.

	WH:  Let's say, this is not a formal thing, this is an off the
	record...

	E: Sure. Go ahead.

	WH: Do you have any recommendations for, or knowledge of, ah,
	attorneys who will actually sue an insurance company for fraud?

	E: Ahh, I don't.

	WH: Fine.

	E: Didn't you have one in Hackensack?

	WH: No.

	E: Wasn't at some point our correspondence going to an attorney
	in Hackensack?

	WH:  It was going to John Gavejian, he is, first of all, he
	want's out of everything at this point...

	E: Right..

	WH:  Which sort of leaves us in a lurch.

	E: Right.

	WH: Umm, and he was dealing with personal injury, and anybody
	who deals in personal injury...

	E: So that's why he want's out, because he's not seeing his money.
	That comment's also off the record.

	WH: More than that, he's suffering health problems.

	E: Oh, sorry, OK.

	WH: Umm, but anybody that deals with personal injury does not
	want to be on the bad side of an insurance company.

	E: Absolutely.

	WH:  They want to be able to settle cases.

	E: Ahh, it's way out of my field.  Like way out of my field.
	You might try calling the Bar Association.

	WH: OK, that's a good suggestion.

	E: OK, and here's another one, umm, I don't think you're limited
	to the New Jersey Bar Association.

	WH:  All right, that's also interesting, because that's something
	I wouldn't know.

	E:  I..I'm, you know, again, this conversation is so far off
	the record it should probably be done in code (laughter), but
	ummm, I can't see, you know, if you're residing in North Carolina,
	I can not see, and State Farm obviously doesn't exist only in
	New Jersey.

	WH:  Well, one of the interesting things about State Farm is
	that, as I understand it, it is separately incorporated as
	State Farm Indemnity of New Jersey.

	E: Yeah, now I can explain that to you, that's not going to
	help or hurt your cause.

	WH: OK.

	E: State Farm, er, umm, lets go even further, it's a code.

	WH: OK.

	E: State Farm is one of the most slimy people I deal with.

	WH: All riiight.

	E: OK. Umm, somebody just walked by here and said "they're my
	insurance company".

	WH: I didn't hear that.

	E: Right. OK, all right.  They're not mine. Let's put it to
	you that way.  In the state of New Jersey, and this has nothing
	to do with your case, I'll try to talk fast at these rates.

	WH:  That's OK.

	E:  OK, in the state of New Jersey, umm, we have something called
	the Fair Act(?) of 1992, which is basically a 'take all comers'
	thing, umm, nobody knows about it, by the way, it was part of
	the Automobile Insurance Reform Act.  I'm really trying to do
	this fast, and I think I can't do whole sentences without the
	sense OK.  Part of the idea was that everybody who lived in
	New Jersey, and probably lives in New Jersey, is petrified of
	the 'Assigned Risk Plan'.

	WH: Right.

	E: Which doesn't exist, but it has been so imbued into our
	semiconscious state, that if you get into the least little
	fender-bender, you get out there and settle immediately,
	because you don't want to end up in the Assigned Risk plan.

	WH: OK

	E:  One of the things that the Fair Act of 1992 did, was to
	eliminate the Assigned Risk Plan, and what they did was, they
	said that any company doing business in the state of New Jersey
	must take all comers.  Needless to say, the insurance companies
	went nuts.

	WH:  Well yeah.

	E: Understandably, and, as a result of that, various measures
	were introduced to sort of take some of the liability off of the
	insurance companies, who were then going to have to take people,
	it's not really 'all comers', it's people with less than nine points.
	But, that included the vast majority of the innocent citizens who
	had previously been in the Assigned Risk Plan.

	WH: Right.

	E:  I believe that if you moved to New Jersey after 1968, you were
	automatically in the Assigned Risk Plan.

	WH: Er, no...

	E:  Well no, I moved here in '75, and I still wasn't in it, so
	maybe '79.  But by like '80, you were probably in it.  OK.  Now,
	make a long story short, there were various measures that were
	made to try and make this more paletable to the insurance
	companies, and one of those things was that the insurance
	companies were allowed to charge points...charge surcharges for
	any points, even if they were below eight points, which really
	was not terribly unfair, because it sort of spreaded the liability
	out among the bad drivers...there were problems with it...major
	problems with it, but it doesn't have to be at your rates on your
	time.

	WH: Right.

	E:  The other thing was, they allowed three companies, one of
	them being State Farm, to re-incorporate.

	WH: OK.

	E:  And what that meant was that if you had been a member of
	State Farm, prior to 1992, and you were accident free, you
	remained with State Farm.

	WH: OK.

	E:  There was just an article locally about this, I, maybe
	two Sundays ago, in "The Record".  If you applied to State Farm
	after 1992, State Farm gave you a quote.  it told you you were
	welcome to join them, but you weren't joining them, you were
	joining State Farm Indemnity of New Jersey, and their rates
	were different than the State Farm Rates.

	WH: OK.

	E: So, basically, what they did is they established their own
	assigned risk plan.

	WH: I see.

	E: In New Jersey.

	WH: I see.

	E: And that's what you're dealing with now. If..if..I don't know
	which one you're in, but if you're in State Farm Indemnity...

	WH: Yes.
	    
	E: Then, basically your..I can tell you what happened is you
	applied for insurance after 1992, and/or you have a large
	number of accidents, but under eight, because over eight, they
	would have kicked you out a long time ago, and what they have
	done is they...you think you're in State Farm, but officially
	speaking, you're in a totally separate company.

	WH: OK...Ah, interesting question that arises...

	E: (Aside) Yes...Tell him I'll call right back...(To WH) OK, yeah.

	WH: They've shipped all of their files down to North Carolina.

	E:  That's right, because the reality is that, that they're a
	subsidiary, you know, this is a legal fiction.  The whole thing
	is a legal fiction, but it's legal and it does exist.  The
	article that was in "The Record" was even better.  The State
	Department of Insurance puts out a ahh, booklet, which we send
	to constituents, which lists all of the regulated rates for the
	various companies, and what we've been finding is that they have
	a company called Hanover, which has very low, very attractive rates.

	WH: Umm Hmm

	E: So we recommend Hanover to our constituents, we think we're
	doing a wonderful thing, we pat ourselves on the back, and this
	article, two weeks ago, said that Hanover is another one of those
	companies which has reconstructed itself.  It has reconstructed
	itself as Hanover of New Jersey, and people send away for the
	rates, get the rates, realized that in the booklet they were the
	lowest rates, and sign up for Hanover New Jersey, not realizing
	that Hanover New Jersey is not Hanover.

	WH:  Which makes you feel just great!

	E:  It made me feel like...I can't use the word in this office,
	what it made me feel like, because most of the people we're
	helping are in dire straits, and to think that I put them into
	a company that is ripping them off...

	WH: Trust me, I've been using the very words you're thinking of.

	E:  I..exactly.  I mean, I feel terrible.  I really, I do.
	It's good to talk with you, I really did not expect this conversation,
	you know, but its real, it's good to talk to you, ummm.

	WH: Likewise. You've given me a lot of information.

	E:  None of which is very helpful, but...

	WH: Well, maybe it is!

	E: No, what I'm telling you is that I don't care that they're
	Indemnity of New Jersey.  I think that, probably, you can, and
	I'm making this up but I think probably you can sue from North
	Carolina.  

	WH: That's interesting.

	E:  OK.  But, try it.  Try it.

	WH: OK

	E: Because, as I understand it, you've given up your residence
	in Bergen County.

	WH:  Well, how about it's been taken out from underneath us?

	E: OK. It's not there, so you've got to be living somewhere.

	WH: Right.

	E:  I..I..Again. I'm not an attorney, I don't play one on TV.
	But I can't imagine why the courts would require you to come
	back there, and maybe in North Carolina, you know, there.. there
	are lawyers who would take it on.

	WH: Could be.  I don't know what the situation is, because
	North Carolina is, first of all, not a No-Fault state, and..

	E:  But, it shouldn't matter because as I understand it, and again,
	I'm not an attorney, your claim is a valid claim that is old.
	They're not going to adjudicate it on the basis of what's
	happening now, in the state where you live.  I'm saying that
	your court may be the local court, or at least you can try it.

	WH: OK. All right, maybe we'll have to give that a shot.  Because,
	trying to operate with an attorney from New Jersey, in North
	Carolina...

	E:  Is difficult.

	WH:  Is difficult, at best.  It's crazymaking.

	E: Right.  Right, I hear you.  I hear loud and clear.  Allright.

	WH:  All right.

	E:  Listen..I..this really..I mean you know, after dealing with
	somebody all these years in the mail, this is really very novel.

	WH & E: (Laughter)

	E: It's, you know, I, I, ah, we don't usually have total failure.
	But, you know, I would chalk you up as one of those.

	WH: Ahhh, OK...

	E: And I'm very sorry.

	WH:  Well, I'm not finished yet.  I'll take this as far as I
	have to.  I'm turning into a real warrior over this.

	E: Good! Go, you know!

	WH: If I can find a way to get it in the Federal level, I'll do
	that too.

	E: I..That was the next words out of my mouth.

	WH: OK..

	E: Because, if you're crossing interstate lines, it may be
	a Federal thing.

	WH:  That was exactly my thought.

	E:  Hey! What do you need me for!?

	WH:  Oh, to talk to you...

	E: Right.  This was great..this was really good.  All right, listen,
	I wish you well, as we have been all along.

	WH:  Thank you.

	E: OK? And, if you come back this way, let us know, but do me
	a favor, don't run for office, you'd be a formidable opponent.

	WH & E: (Laughter)

	WH:  I certainly would not run against Mrs. Weinberg.

	E:  All right,  She's pretty good!

	WH:  I know that.  I gather that, already.

	E:  She's..she's pretty impressive.  All right?  It was a pleasure,
	thanks a lot.

	WH: Thank you very much.

	E:  All right, Bye'bye

	WH: Bye'bye