SH – Former adjusters never realized where challenging State Farm would lead them
“I guess they’re going to get away with hiding the truth,” Kerri Rigsby said. “That’s what they’ve been trying to do the whole time. There is no justice.
“How is State Farm now the good guy?”
State Farm responds that the Rigsbys’ allegations, aired nationwide on an ABC news program, have proven false. One report in question was supervised by Kerry Rigsby, they pointed out, who later agreed in sworn testimony, as did the engineer whose report was changed, that the property suffered the flood damage documented.
“If two people came forward and very publicly – I’m talking ’20/20′, AP (The Associated Press), the Biloxi Sun Herald – impugned your reputation, called you frauds, said you were systematically cheating customers in Katrina-claims handling and the whole world saw it and the whole world reacted that way, wouldn’t you wish to know what the actual truth was?” said State Farm spokesman Phil Supple.
The sisters said they were naïve in February 2006 when they first reported in a meeting with policyholders’ attorney Dickie Scruggs what they called underhanded tactics at the State Farm Catastrophe Office.
“It was a tough decision, but we just needed help and needed somebody to stop what was going on,” Kerri Rigsby said. “We didn’t know what we were getting into at the time.
“I would do it again. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody else. We just definitely didn’t know what to do. I guess, in my wildest fantasy, I thought that Dick (Scruggs) would just fix it.”
As it turns out, they didn’t know what they were getting into with Scruggs or State Farm.
SunHerald
4/27/8
Magnolia Tribune
