Office of Superintendent of Insurance — Local services in Santa Fe

I filed a complaint with the NM OSI because an insurance company had received the proof of their insureds' liability that they'd demanded, a vet-written letter in support of my allegations, but instead of acknowledging it & paying my claim, they ignored it & gave me a new reason to deny liability & refuse payment. I wanted to know if they had the right to do that or was there a law requiring an insurance company to pay a claim once liability had been established. After the OSI had stated they can't decide factual disputes, that's exactly what they allowed the company to turn my complaint into. In their response to my OSI complaint, the company made multiple misstatements of facts concerning their insureds' actions then stated how both the NM vet board & magistrate court had dismissed my complaints against their insured; she wasn't liable. No mention of the vet-written letter they'd demanded of me & received, that pesky 9-page letter (not including the 3 pages of the vets' qualifications & experience) that listed 12 instances where the care, skill or knowledge of the companys' insured fell outside acceptable professional standards & constituted negligence & malpractice, and the OSI never asked them about it. I tried explaining & sent the OSI a copy of that letter & a copy of the exam summary the insured had written where, in her own words, she proved she'd misdiagnosed my horse & prescribed the wrong course of treatment for him, but it didn't matter. The OSI told me claim denial stands & quoted two of the companys' misstatements, events that actually occurred with another vet & not the insured, as being the reason why. Their insured was 1 of 3 vets who had a role in my horses' death. After what the company did with that expert opinion & denied my claim again, I filed in court against all 3 vets. The judge ruled all my evidence was hearsay, including the vets' own docs & the expert opinion, threw it all out then dismissed my case due to a lack of evidence. The judge never ruled on the evidence, the insured was never found not guilty & I learned the company was familiar with the vet who wrote the opinion, was aware of her letters being accepted in other magistrate courts & winning plaintiffs' cases & sent this to the OSI. I'd learned from the audio recording of the vet board hearing that the vets had lied & the board protected them. Not my opinion, the vets' own docs proved it. The director told me, in writing, the board determined there were insufficient grounds to conclude the vets had violated professional standards to such a degree as to warrant discipline & I sent this to the OSI. But the OSI told me the company hadn't changed their position, claim denial stands; the company doesn't find their insured liable, again quoted those events that involved another vet at the clinic as the reason why & added the courts hadn't found them liable either. An OSI/CAB supervisor told me they found no violation of any NM statute, didn't find any deceptive or unfair practice & liability has not become reasonably clear. The true facts about who of the 3 vets at that clinic did what with my horse & when had been spelled out in detail in the written opinion. That vets' conclusions had been based on factual docs from me, photos, labs & the vets' docs, and the liability of the companys' insured had been made perfectly clear. But the company refused to consider that relevant evidence which supported coverage & instead picked evidence they claimed supported their position that their insured wasn't liable, the very hallmark of bad faith. NM statute 59A-16-20 E says an insurer who doesn't attempt in good faith to effectuate prompt, fair & equitable settlement of a claim, in which liability has become reasonably clear, is defined as an unfair & deceptive practice & is prohibited. Shame on you OSI; yet another black eye for the state of NM. My claim was...

When I found out that there was an Insurance Superintendent's office in New Mexico, I was encouraged, believing that I had found an entity that defends clients who were victims of injustices by insurance companies, especially when I saw that they had a Consumer Assistance Bureau, which is also located in Santa Fe, the State Capital, near the Governor, who would surely answer to her, and that, in addition, the email addresses of their representatives end in .gov. I immediately contacted them, presenting my case, about how Farmers agency, who accepted that one of their insured cars damaged my vehicle and does not want to pay for the repair after almost 6 months have passed. They said that the cost of the repair, without any physical examination, is $3,691.37, and because it is greater than the value of my vehicle $2,254.24, according to them, Farmers declared it as total loss by using only that argument. I showed the New Mexico Superintendent of Insurance's Office estimates made by two companies specialized in this type of repair, in Albuquerque where I live, with costs much lower than Farmers', one of $1,750.00. I also sent them photos showing that the damage was on the lower rear door of my vehicle and a little bit on the quarter panel. I told them that I have continued driving my car in perfect mechanical conditions for my daily work as substitute teacher for Albuquerque Public Schools. That Office, in which I trusted, limited itself to being a messenger between Farmers and I. It did not even give its opinion or point of view on the case in any of the three correspondences, nor did it respond to my last letter of September 29. What kind of representatives we have!

Confesor...

Wow. I have attempted over and over to get OSI to address the financial elder exploitation of an vulnerable insured where the insured's entire retirement was wiped out by her Allstate Agent while she was undergoing extended and aggressive cancer treatments rendering her incapable of understanding or participating. The Allstate Agent is also the daughter in law of the insured so they refuse to address the grossly unethical actions of the Allstate Agent. Dismissing the theft of the worst kind. Someone's retirement. OSI has a duty to protect New Mexicans from predators but instead give them power, authority and...