"Si non datur porta, per murum erumpendum"
                            -- Quintilian

   "One should forgive one's enemies, but not before they are hanged."
                            -- Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)

All of these pages and the remote links contained in them are provided as a public service and as educational material and for the purpose of the disemination of of knowledge needed for personal protection when one has been wronged by an insurance company. On verified information and belief, reliable and unreliable insurance companies are distinguished, and evidence for such categorization is presented, which is to say the categorization is not arbitrary, capricious or intentionally punitive. The intention is merely to expose a reality, that reality being a general set of diseases that have infected a very large part of the insurance industry. These diseases have turned the very notion of insurance into a joke. It is the sick joke and the dieases that it causes in all areas related to insurance that these pages seek to explore and expose.

Many personal and legal and medical references, both specific and general are given as local and remote hyperlinks; these should substantiate and amplify further, any assertions found on this website.

   American Trial Lawyers have on line petition for ERISA reform. [04/08/99]

                             Please sign it.

   ******* ATLA ALERT: PATIENTS' BILL OF RIGHTS PETITION DRIVE *******

   One of the most significant civil justice issues under consideration in the 
   Congress--one in which there is potential for expansion of legal rights--is 
   the Patients' Bill of Rights (S. 6 and H.R. 358), which would eliminate the 
   ERISA preemption and allow patients to hold their managed care insurers 
   legally accountable for denial or delay of needed medical care.

   In order to build support for the Patients' Bill of Rights, Congressional 
   proponents and the Clinton Administration are unveiling an online petition 
   drive as part of a national rally day on April 9th to draw support for real 
   managed care reform.

   ****NOTE: ATLA urges you, your families, your colleagues, your clients and 
   your friends to sign this important petition, which you can find by 
   visiting  http://www.atlanet.org/
   and clicking on "Support Real Managed Care Reform."

   The idea of the petition is to build grassroots support for managed care 
   reform before managed care reform legislation goes to the House and Senate 
   floors.

   ATLA anticipates floor action on managed care legislation in the U.S. 
   Senate as soon early as May. S. 326 by Senator Jim Jeffords (R-VT), the 
   legislation supported by the opponents of the Patients's Bill of Rights 
   does not provide patients with any additional remedies and does not even 
   offer truly independent external appeals.

   We need to build support today for the Patients' Bill of Rights, which will 
   be offered as a substitute to S. 326 on the Senate floor.

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   AMA's Brief in Opposition to Aetna/Prudential merger [04/08/99]

   Also, in case you haven't read it yet, you should check out the brief
   written by the AMA to protest the Aetna/Prudential merger.  It's at
   http://www.ama-assn.org/ad-com/aquisitn.htm

   It will help you realize that insurance companies continue to act like
   criminals EVEN WHEN THEY ARE DEALING WITH THE AMA.

With a reasonable degree of searching and asking, I've recently (Sept. 9, 1998) run across two insurance companies that do not appear to be crooks: AMICA and Progressive. [SCRATCH *ANY* ENDORSEMENT OF PROGRESSIVE: They are becoming just as bad as the others.] I don't know anybody at either company, and they are certainly not paying me to say something nice about them. They've both been around a while, proving that it is not necessary for an insurance company to be a crook to succeed. That there are so many thieving insurance companies is just a manifestion of a very sick form of greed, not necessarily unrelated to usual, brainless and often corrupt mucking about by our Congress.

   From an honorable insurance agent:

   In response to your request for DI carriers who still do a good job
   and pay a fair claim, I presently place a lot of business with

	Union Central Insurance and Investments
	of Cincinnati, OH.

   They are a small midwest mutual company that still believes in
   policyholder service and strong values.

	Berkshire Life Insurance Company
	of Massachusets

   also is a fine company in the disability market.  My only complaint with
   them is that they projected dividends to offset a third year premium
   increase and have now stopped paying dividends at all.  Considering the
   problems of all the other carriers, this is a fairly minor sticking point.

In the area of Life Insurance, I have it on a very reliable source that the two top good guys are Guardian Life Insurance Company of America and Northwestern Mutual Life, in that order.

So, so far, it sems we have 3 good guys in Life Insurance, and only 1 in Disability Insurance and unfortunately none in auto insurance, which happens to be the one that the government, regulates the most. Coincidence?

The worst and sleaziest "Insurance" company of all time:
You're in Bad Hands with Allstate and State Farm.

There may even be more decent insurance companies; when I run across them and am reasonably convinced, I will post their names here. If I'm going to report the criminality and corruption of some, it seems only fair to report the lack of it in others. I hope I'm not ultimately disappointed in the two above.