that would be so -- difficult. and i just think that that's something i think the american people really to understand like is it that, you know, your time of greatest need not only are you not able to rely upon those that are supposed to help you, but they're actually making things worse. and i just think that that's something that just eats away. i mean, it just hurts so much to your stories. and i'm sorry for what you all gone through and the fact that you're sharing it. it's for the betterment. and hopefully we can save save this to help fix and make it easier for other families in the future to be able to go through this. i want to thank all of the witnesses for here today on this panel. thank you. thank you for your testimony. thank you for being willing to. share with us your stories, expertise, your knowledge of this industry. i want to say again, sorry for what you've had to go through, particularly you, miss miguel. you, mr. fertel. and we'll continue to do everything we on this committee to get the facts.

and you've us a lot with that today and to get some accountability. we're going to take five minute break here and the committee will stand in recess while we change the panel's and we will reconvene in about 5 minutes, subject to the call of the chair. the committee return to order.

where now? we now welcome our second panel of the day. it is our practice. witnesses, as i said at the first panels our practice and this committee and of the subcommittee to swear our before we begin. so let me ask you to rise and raise your right hand and repeat after me if you would. do you swear that the testimony about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing the truth, so help you god? very good. and now we will hear from each of the witnesses their opening statement. we'll start with mr. michael keating. mr. keating is the operations vice president at state. mr. keating, floor is yours. to do that. my apologies. chairman hawley. ranking member kim, distinguished members of the subcommittee. thank you for the invitation to appear before you today. i appreciate subcommittee's interest in insurance claim handling and i am grateful for the opportunity to provide insight regarding state farm's

approach to helping our policyholders after disaster strikes. but before i begin, my my formal statement, i do want to address difficult situation. i heard with mr. vettel's testimony. state farm is made up of 66,000 employees and. we're human beings. we make mistakes. i listen to mr. vettel's testimony and quite frankly, it was difficult to hear we made mistakes in. the handling of this claim. as a 30 year employee of this company, i know the actions did not. the values of state farm on behalf of state farm. i want to sincerely to mr. and mrs. fertel, their family and again, we're not satisfied with how this claim was handled and where we're going to work hard with them and are already working with them to get this resolved. and if i may, i'd like to acknowledge mr. fertel.

so i'll continue. state farm is the largest provider of personal home and auto in the united states. headquartered in bloomington, illinois. our mission for over 100 years has been to help our policyholders manage the risk of everyday life and recover from the unexpected. as a mutual insurance company, state farm operates for the benefit of our policyholders. state farm has no shareholders seeking a quarterly return. our organization is able to focus on the long term interests of our policyholder group as a whole and deliver on the promises we make to them. i joined state farm nearly 32 years ago as homeowner's claim representative. currently, i serve in the role of operation vice president, where i help lead state farm's

claim process, how i work, and how i lead my team are direct reflections on those over three decades and the values of customer service, integrity. they are what we hold dear at state farm. from my first day at state farm, i've had the privilege privilege of helping people put their lives back together after the unexpected. it has shaped my role and how i lead others to fulfill state farm's commitment to our policyholders to ensure that we pay policyholders. what we owe under the terms of their policy properly courteously and. our commitment to our policyholders. navigate some of the most difficult moments of their lives. that is especially critical in of the recent devastation caused by natural disasters across the country. we share the subcommittee's concern for the families and

communities impacted by these events. at state farm, our policyholders are also often our neighbors. and as the largest claims force in the industry, we take serious our role to help communities recover and rebuild. in the southeast, damage from hurricane selina resulted in approximately. 129,600 property claims and. state farm has already paid out nearly. $1.28 billion under those claims. of these claims, less than 1% have received one or more policyholder complaints. in california, as of may six of this year, state farm companies have handled approximately 12,600 wildfire related claims and have paid out more $3.4 billion. in the wake of these natural disasters, state farm is hard at work on the ground so policyholders can return to their communities and to their homes. to put this into further

context, state farm receives approximately 30,000 claims every day, and we understand every claim is a person a family or a small business who needs our help. no two disasters are the same, and each claim is different. just as each individual submitting that claim is different, our goal and claims handling is to understand scope of the damage. identify the cause, and determine what may owe. this is, i've instructed my teams to approach claims. listen carefully. show empathy, investing thoroughly and pay what is owed under the terms of the policy. now we try to respond to most of the claims work ourselves. but sometimes we need to work with external independent adjusters to help us process. us a large volume of claims a timely way. similarly when a claim is particularly complex or requires special expertise, we may use

engineers to help us resolve it. in such cases, we require that engineers appropriately licensed, independent and objective and base their analysis analysis on facts. so thank you again to the subcommittee for having me here today. and i do look answering your questions. thank you very much. our next witness is mike fiero of allstate. mr. fiero is the executive vice president, chief claims officer of allstate corporation. mystery out of the floor is yours. chairman holley, ranking member kim and members of the subcommittee. thank you for inviting all state to share how we help customers recover disaster strikes. my is mike fiero. i am the executive vice president for claims and allstate, a team of 23,000 claims professionals who help customers when they have fender or when their home burned to the ground. i joined allstate about a year and a half ago after having spent more three decades leading

claims at several other leading insurers. in my opinion, allstate, among the finest in the industry and the exceptional when it comes to helping customers after natural disasters. allstate's purpose is to serve customers. from small setbacks to large scale disasters, we help customers recover from life's toughest moments so that they can move forward with confidence. i like to tell our team that our customer worst day needs to be our best. my written testimony discusses in detail. allstate's claims process. allstate responds with urgency to get accurate payments to customers for their recovery. last year, allstate paid customers over hundred million dollars a day on average, enough to rebuild an entire community every day. this adds up to more than 37 billion in claims payments and includes 57 million following hurricane milton and 527 million after hurricane helene. i have personally visited damaged damaged areas and witnessed destruction that our

customers through. given the nature of this hearing, i would like to address the test. timoney of the preceding panel and to provide the subcommittee with a more complete picture of what happened with rms mogul's claims of september 20, 24. let me start by saying that on behalf of allstate, i regret them as miguel was unhappy with the settlement of our claims. our business is to help customers during some of their toughest times. we're willing to work with our customers when new information is presented to ensure that claims are settled fairly and accurately. some of what you heard in the first panel is just not accurate, and it's important that the record is correct. i will focus on a few key points. first, our adjuster performed comprehensive in-person evaluation of his miguel's home after the storm completed a thorough estimate of the damage covered. and as miguel settled the claim for approximately $100,000. this covered damage and repair or replacement of the static damage. allstate provided for all remediation under the policy.

secondly, roughly 70% of the difference in estimates was attributable not to structural damage which allstate covered in full but to cosmetic damage such as the appearance of undamaged bricks. mr. millican estimate included replacing the bricks and entire side of house for esthetic reasons allstate's policy in georgia law does not provide for such coverage when there is no damage. third, an estimate of five times that amount by a public must include undamaged or uncovered items and is simply not credible. fourth, mr. millican not agree with the public adjusters estimate $500,000 and in fact noted that the public adjuster amended demanded excessive roof repairs. fifth, mr. milligan's original estimate totaled roughly $200,000, and allstate adjusters sought clarification on some of the areas. mr. millican updated his estimate and came back with an estimate approximately $100,000, which is where the claims settled.

we have reached out to ms. mccall's public adjuster to see if there is new information related to the claim that we can review and consider. given my extensive experience in the claims business. i can speak confidently that allstate place pays claims with precision and fairness. at allstate, we have robust internal risk oversight and compliance protocol to ensure our customer's claims are paid accurately and efficiently. additionally, as part of our commitment to quality, consistency and customer experience, we have a separate quality department that reviews oversight standards for consistent application claims. like most component of the property casualty business are also heavily regulated through our state departments of insurance. 51 regulators oversee and regulate everything from pricing and underwriting to policies and claims where we are routinely subject to market conduct exams, including large catastrophe events like hurricanes. let me close with four key points.

allstate's practices are fair, fast and have high customer satisfaction. allstate helps millions of homeowners rebuild after severe weather events, paying over 17 billion over the last five years for catastrophe events alone. allstate helps one in ten homeowners protect one of their most important assets with affordable, simple and connected. allstate is constantly in innovation to better serve customers. leveraging technology, connectivity and industry analytics. i look forward to discussing the role of our claims organization with you today. thank you. thank you very much to both of the witnesses. we now have five minute rounds of questions. we'll do a couple of rounds here and i will start let me just start with you, mr. beato. so i take it from your statement just now that you don't have any regrets, miss miguel's case, mr. keating, apologize to mr. fertel and promised to work with him, resolve his case. thank you for that, mr. keating. i didn't hear anything to that extent from you. mr. fierro. so you think allstate handled it just fine?

no, i stated in my statement, i regret that miss miguel is unhappy with the. yeah, well, that's like saying i'm sorry you're unhappy, right? that i apologize, but i don't apologize. would you like to apologize to her now? maybe i just misunderstood her. mr. singh, i would like to say, is miss miguel here? you go ahead. i'm sure she's watching. i miss miguel. i'd like to say i. i want to make sure that we get your claim resolved to your satisfaction and if there's additional information or things that we can do to continue to work to you with you, will do that. so i notice that you said in your written testimony just repeated it here, let me be sure i get this right. i'm going to quote you now. we live and breathe. our motto our customers worst day needs be our best. i have to tell you, mr. fajardo, based on the testimony i've heard today, on the witness statements, i've taken four witnesses. it sounds like to me that it really ought to be amended to say that our customers day is your big profit opportunity. i mean, we've just heard testimony here, sworn testimony from, multiple adjusters that your company ordered to delete

or alter damage, to reduce payouts and to make you profits. it sounds to me like you're running a system of institutionalized fraud. yeah, that would that would be incorrect. senator. that's not what we do. so you have never ordered allstate has never asked an adjuster to change assessment on their report. when we review an adjusters estimate most often for authority requests. so most adjusters have an amount of financial authority that they can settle claims up to without having to wait a minute that's not what they testified to. that's not what they just testified to you just heard sworn testimony from multiple adjusters and they said it happened. one adjuster had only ever worked you over years in the industry and he said he was repeatedly directed by you by your company allstate to change factual findings to delete material in his reports to alter his reports to make them factually incorrect act all with the purpose of driving down the

award and padding your profits. i disagree with his statement. well, you know, i have to notice that you mean your profits have never been better. i mean, they're really quite extraordinary. fiscal year 24, allstate had $64 billion in revenue. that's 12% above the previous year. you made $4.6 billion in profits. and your ceo, tom wilson, last year was paid $26 million. now, miss miguel can't get her claim paid out, but tom wilson, whoever the heck he is, gets $26 million. i mean, really extraordinary. do you just not you not have the money to pay people like miguel? why is she not a priority? tom wilson salary is we we've paid miss miguel's claim. no, you didn't you have given her a paltry sum. your own adjusters. you said in your testimony just a second ago you sent out an adjuster. in fact, sent out three. and two of those adjusters testified just now under oath that your company ordered them

to alter their reports against their will, contrary to their advice, and in fact, to render them factually inaccurate. i that's extraordinary. i disagree with you. disagree. that's what they said. i disagree that that's our our process. so they're just there. just they're lie. they're lying. that's what you're saying. i can tell you that for example, mr. schroeder wrote 15 estimates for for us. none of those were reviewed by allstate. listen to another listen to another tested piece of testimony from another witness. this a whistleblower report that has come in to us. this person says, i've dedicated my entire adult life to the claims adjusting world in numerous roles. i worked for pilot and allstate for 12 years as an independent. i worked claims all over the country regularly throughout the years, and i have watched the progression and controlling nature of claims worsen progressively. allstate created an internal review team with the sole purpose of making sure claims were paid as low as possible.

allstate reviewers instructed adjusters alter and delete factual findings in their estimates to drive down the cost of the claim. the alteration and deletions were often factually wrong. during hurricane isaac 2012 2012, an email sent out that no adjuster could buy a no matter the damage present. this looks like a pattern this is someone who's not even involved in this case in hurricane helene. we've heard from person after person. all this testimony is on the record it sounds to me like your company is running a racket and you're making more than you ever have. those are not our processes, senator, but multiple people have testified that they are. in fact, this really all goes back to a strategy that your company pioneered with the mckinsey company back in the nineties. isn't that right? let's just take a look here at what mckinsey advised allstate as early as the 1990s. you went to mckinsey and asked them, how can we get rich and mckinsey gave you this advice, sit, wait. they said, delay, delay, delay.

it's a zero sum economic game. there can only be one winner. and the winner is to be allstate. it's not going to be the policyholders. then good hands are boxing gloves. mckinsey suggests allstate make a low offer on a claim like you did to ms. mcgill. and then if the policy owner has the temerity to protest you go after them hard, just like you did her. her home hasn't one lick of work done it not one lick and you sit here today and say you're sorry she feels about it. i mean, this this is really your strategy, is it not? and it's made your company just filthy rich. that report is over 25 years old. we've had you've implemented to the tee in those 25 years. we've multiple departments of insurance indicate that this is not an issue or or we're doing anything untoward. what do you mean it's not an issue? you're saying that you don't follow mckinsey's advice? that's not the way we handle claims. you've never done it this way. you didn't go and seek their advice. i've been at allstate for about

a year and a half. i can't speak to what oh, 25 years ago. i see this all predates you. you don't know anything about it. i don't know anything about the mckinsey. oh, of course. of course. right deny delay. right. it's the same tactics over and over. let me ask you, do you ever engage retaliation for employees come before committees like this one or who raise objections what you're doing to the fraud that you're engaged in, you ever retaliate? it's a hypothetical question, but it's actually it's not hypothetical. but go ahead. what's the answer would be? of course not what we just heard sworn testimony from mr. milliken that you have retaliated against him, that he has been informed by allstate that he is not going to be doing any further work. i see you're your suits behind. you are shaking your heads. no often allstate didn't have any communication. we never had any communication with milligan on this subject. you're you're under oath now i just my of of this specific we communicate with mr. milliken for many times he's worked for pilot it like now we're prevaricate ing no we're now we're prevaricating so my

question is have you retaliated against, mr. milligan? of course. did you tell mr. milliken that he won't be doing any further cases with allstate? not that i'm aware of. not that you're aware. of course not. did you you taken any you are also taking any adverse action against mr. milligan ever at all? no. have you that has allstate ever done that against any other employee? i can't answer that question. i can only answer what i've done. no. in fact, you've been sued multiple times in court after court after court retaliation. you've been sued for fraud successfully. time, time after time. mr. gatto, i have to tell you, i just. i find your testimony absolutely stunning here today. i can't believe after what we've heard, i can't believe after what ms. mcgill has been through, that you would sit here and insist that everything is fine and above. i can't believe that you. this this pattern of fraud that you would have nothing to say about and these outrageous profits, i mean, don't you think that your policyholders deserve

better than this. i'm not sure what the question is, senator don't you think they deserve better than what you're giving them? that's my question. i think do our best to service our policyholders every day. oh, i think you do your best to make profits. and i you're very good at it. and i think your policyholder are getting the shaft. senator kim, in previous panel, we continue hear from adjusters talking about how they send forward, you know, their numbers and it goes to the insurance and then they're being told to change it. so, you know. mr. keen, i guess i just to get a sense from you, what is your response to that type of claim? who was it going to what expertise do they have? you know, why is it that are saying know constantly, it seems like, you know, the number is too high. thank you, senator kim. and appreciate that question. it's an important one. the process that was described

by the first panel is something that's different from what state farm does. we do not have that that inside review. i think as they were describing it, that's just not part of the process when we're using independent adjusters, we provide them with authority and they go out and spec losses all in an effort to pay what we owe in accordance with the policy that the customer has. and so that review a in office perspective, that's not part of. so you're saying from your company's standpoint there isn't that practice that was talked about in terms of of saying you know change this part of estimate or or you know that's too high or that's not the right that's correct that's not one of the processes we use a state farm. mr. fiero, can you explain the process on years? would you mind pulling the mic up closer to? could you repeat the question for me? so i guess i'm just trying to

get a sense in the previous panel, we hear them talk about the adjusters talking about how they they they come up with their number, they send it forward to the insurance company, and then they're being told, you know, that's too high or they're said, oh, maybe this part is, it needs to be changed or this needs to be. and they were saying that it's seems like a constant effort to try to bring the number down in terms of what the policyholders are owed. most often they can you pull it up close you. yeah there you go. most often we review an adjusters work it's for authority purposes. so most adjusters have a set level of financial authority in which they can resolve claim without having to have anybody else look at that work and that could be dependent whether or not their tenure how many estimates they may have written for us a bunch of things that would qualify them for different of authority when they submit a for to us for review it goes to

a senior technical reviewer who's going to look at a number of things they're going to look at the documentation that was presented to support the decisions that the adjuster made. it's also going to be a technical review. did you did you estimate, according to the standards we set forth and what what expertise through these senior technical reviewers have just showed there their senior technical adjusters, they're very tenure adjusters, probably for the most part, have written a lot of highly complex losses. home differs from auto in respect. senator, if you write an auto estimate and you go into it, you we use a software to do that it's going to give you every part it's going to be the parts going to have number it's going to have a price. it's going to have the number of hours it takes to put that part on a car. when you when you write an estimate for a home. so i just want to make clear here. so you're saying you would disagree with what you heard, that there's a pattern of trying

to bring that number down? i would, yes. you know, i guess i'm just trying to think here, you know, if there are these senior technical reviewers, why does it always seem like what's being reviewed brings the number down, not up? you know, i mean, are there circumstances in which can think of or. there are there are reviews. are there reviews or data that you have that that actually, in some cases, the senior technical reviewer will say that? no, actually, the the amount for the claim should be higher, not lower the data that i've seen would tell me that we reduce an estimate generally 27% of the time we review it and 9% of the time we increase the estimate and the rest of the time we do not change the estimate at all. is there a in your company, mr. fiero, of removing adjusters just in general, when they're on a claim or on particular case?

are there reasons why adjuster be removed from that case? there are reasons why. so if you think about particular, let's use cat as an example. if you think about the we're just ex of managing a catastrophe event, an event happens we assign adjusters and another another event will happen a few days and then another event. and as that happens logistically, we try to ensure that when somebody is getting close to finishing a deployment, which means working for a period of time on a on a cat that we want to move them to a new cat and give them a new set files if they have one or two files remaining, we'll reassign into somebody who is not as far along so that we can ensure that we're being efficient and getting to many customers as quickly as we can, but doesn't that just start the process over? it doesn't start the process over because we document our work and people should be able to pick up where they where they leave, where adjusters left off. mr. keating, is this a that that your company uses terms of

removing adjusters? so there are instances. in catastrophes if a one of the either independent or even one of our deployed claims specialists, you know, they they could you could have some turnover. you could have a, you know, someone go out on a medical leave or if we redeploy them to a new event. you do have a scenario where if that claim is not closed, we will reassign it a next adjuster. and in that case we have a warm transfer process that should ensure good clarity as to what has been done on the claim. what's still and ultimately what are the next steps that need to take place to make sure that that customer gets their claim resolved just more question this round, mr. keating, is there a black list? is there? some list where, you know, there's a adjuster that that you

didn't like the previous that other sorts of complaints you might have that say that person's not going to work for us anymore. so, senator, we do have the ability to request the removal of of an independent adjuster through that firm. if if, you know, they had customer issues or, you know lack of technical, whatever it may be, we have that ability. yes. mr. i don't have anything to add to that part of simply perhaps asking the general process, okay. with all your bit, mr. filler, just to come back to you if and i'll. allstate, supervisor, manager, employee directed adjuster to delete or to alter or to falsify a report that would be fraud wouldn't it would you agree with that? i would.

and your testimony is that that doesn't happen at allstate. however that's not our procedures, correct? yeah. your testimony is is that the people who testified today under oath that they're wrong or lying or you don't do that. is that correct? i just have a different view. i don't my view of the work is different. what they believe happened. let's take a little trip. memory lane as early as 1998, allstate eight was sued because adjusters had multiple times reported to policies. this is as far back as the 1998 earthquake. allstate was sued because reports had been changed to indicate the damage was unrelated to the earthquake and thus not reimbursable by the homeowner's policy. that was in 1998. or how about hurricane in 2007? in 2007 and a federal grand jury found that allstate had altered adjustment and engineering reports to defraud and the federal government the exact

same thing that these gentlemen testified to here today. they also found a judge also found that allstate. had paid $3 million, 2.8, to be exact, to hire a forensic company that falsified engineering reports, exact same type of behavior that these gentlemen testified today. then there are superstorm sandy where allstate was accused of engaging in widespread falsifying of engineering reports to benefit insurers. i mean, it just goes on and on and on. what's amazing is it's. what these two gentlemen said is still happening at your company. now, your testimony is that none of this ever. my. is that i wasn't involved that. yeah, but you're responsible for it now, and you're here. this committee. correct. so this happened. you acknowledge that this has

been a pattern and practice of your company since the nineties. it's not a pattern and practice. what you've changed it you're saying you rooted this out at some point that's not the way we handle claims. it has been the way you've handled claims historically. we've seen it from the nineties through the 2000. and then we had today two additional witnesses here under oath. we have multiple whistleblowers and, written testimony who say it's exactly same thing. you haven't changed a lick. we've got your word against everybody else's. why should we believe you? because i'm telling the truth. right? right. just like you apologize to ms. miss miguel. right. i mean, it's really extraordinary. you're asking us to look at all the evidence and don't believe our lying eyes. i mean, just ignore the fact that your company has over and over and over again been a sanctioned loss, paid out multi dollar verdicts all for this exact same thing, falsifying

reports, interfering with adjusters reports, hiring firms to send in false estimates all the pad your profits and you're just sitting here saying it just it happens don't believe it it's it's an alternate reality, isn't it? i don't believe so, no. know on what what world do you live in on the basis that i lead this organization every day. right. which means you're responsible for it. which is why i believe you wouldn't come in here and take responsibility for what your company is doing. i can't believe you wouldn't turn around and say to miss miguel, we will make this right no matter what. and i can't believe. won't take responsibility for the fact that your company, as we've heard from testimony, is continuing to engage in this behavior, continuing engage in this behavior and now is also engaging retaliation. it's a pattern and practice, if i've ever seen one. mr. beato is. unbelievable. do you have anything else you'd like to say in defense of allstate? it's our pattern or practice. we've just seen the record and

is a hellscape of fraudulent behavior to punish your policyholders. rip off the public, rip off the federal government, by the way, which you did multiple times in past years when you moved over funding and claims to the federal government. so would have to pay more. the taxpayer would have to pay more. and you would have to pay less. and i have to tell you, it's worked great for you. i mean, your are unbelievable. what do you make? i'd be happy to discuss that after you can tell us. i mean, what do you make a year your ceo makes 26 million a year. what do you make? i'm not discussing that in this forum. why not? i mean, i wouldn't be comfortable either if you i represented a company like this, if you won't tell, i will. i won't. it's amazing. it's amazing. well, this fellow all i can say is i think your testimony here is pretty shameful. just like i think your company's behavior is pretty shameful. mr. keating, let me just ask you. what state farm does state deliberately underpay claims?

do you engage in that behavior? no, senator, we do not. let me read to you a letter from a whistleblower who's a long time state farm employee adjuster. and without objection, i'll have the senator now into the record, the whistleblower says the following. i observed routine and deliberate underpayment of claims. the consistent removal or alteration of essential line items. these were not occasional discrepancies, but part of a broader consistent pattern of lowballing estimates. what's your response to that? that's not consistent with the state farm. i know and i'm certainly not familiar with the individual that's making those allegations. would you ever alter findings from an inspection report? allstate knows would not do that, nor do we anyone to do that. well, this same whistleblower says, and i quote, more concerning was the alteration and deletion of factual in my reports. in many, many cases, i

documented legitimate damage to vinyl siding that warranted full elevation replacement only to have the estimate changed to reflect spot repairs contrary to manufacturer specifications and professional standards. respectfully, senator, i'm unaware of the details. you know, surround these allegations, but we certainly follow the the recommendations, you know, based on the the standards as that person reference. do you retaliate against whistleblowers? no we do not. this witness says, and i quote, it is also my concern that whistleblower retaliation is a very real threat within the state farm. others before me have as experi angst, severe consequences for speaking, and i have reason to believe similar could result in the end of my ability to work in this industry, end quote. what's your response that. so again, i can't speak to

specifics because the individual is not here or i don't know of those, but it's inconsistent with the state farm that i know and that i've experienced for 32 years. it's amazing to me that both of your testimonies are very consistent in one respect, which is that it's a sudden case of amnesia before this committee. never heard of any of the stuff that's happened. your with your own company and your case, mr. fiero, before, like yesterday, there's no knowledge whatsoever. i have to say. it's awfully convenient that witness, that sworn testimony, that oath. it's amazing how often it produces amnesia. but these hearings, sadly, your policyholders don't have and they're suffering because of it. senator kim, i to pick up where i left off when it came to, you know, is there a blacklist or some type of list and which is being kept track who is able to work with your company or not. i heard you know your explanation certain types of behavior such you would want to remove but would you both that that practice a practice of

removing people from working for your company or as a third party contractor within because they are not agreeing to or lower cost estimates that that should not happen. would you both agree that that is not a practice that you think would merit being put on that kind of list? mr. that's correct. mr. keating i would agree as well, but it's not part of our process, as i stated earlier. mr. fiero. do you have a rule on books within your company that prohibits that type of potential retaliatory action? we do. would you mind afterwards sharing that with my pleasure. can you both assure us that those who testified here today will not be retaliated against? mr. fiore. absolutely. keating so the those individuals haven't worked for state farm, but we certainly wouldn't retaliate against them.

i wanted to just raise an issue that the chairman kind of pointed out with that slide that you had about, you know, mckinsey. i mean, i think regardless of that, i have not that slide before. we have heard numerous witnesses today raise the concerns, delays and that's something that i just wanted hear your side of is something that i'll be honest with you. you know, these are i get some high volume disaster in circumstances on which that can, but also just some really excruciating circumstances in which people and families are waiting through, you know, having, you know, a wife that is expecting a child, a little kids at home, other types circumstances like like how do you respond to that and how do you get better at especially when there are such challenge facing these families at that point? mr. keating thank you, senator. yes, the as you referenced, resourcing something like a

hurricane helene and milton there after shortly thereafter is really challenging. and in our case, we had close to 130,000 claims. and so we do is really we look to resource it locally with people that we have that work in those territories initially, we deploy our resources. so folks that their job is to deploy to catastrophes. so again, these are state representatives. and then that third layer really is the for independent adjusters. if we don't have that internal resource first. and so the goal is to serve our customers and do this properly and efficiently and it gets back to the heart of your question. it does become challenging when you have so not only lean provide a lot of claims but it also stretched across entire southeast. so resourcing becomes an issue for us. we continue to look at ways to

improve that resource piece. how can you you know, how can we increase our overall internal staffing so that we can deploy more and more, more provide more oversight so that in the scenario of mr. issue, that those type of gaps do not exist? you know, we always lines or certain types of performance indicators in terms of how quickly you should responding to these types cases. we certainly that every every storm is unique and you know again the helene and milton one being really unique from a standpoint of just the overall geography that it impacted the volume of we had. and so we track our, you know, cycle times that we have with those claims. and what we're trying to do is certainly handle these claims promptly.

so customers are not impacted the way that. mr. viertel described. look, i mean, this always something that we try to dive into more because i do think that you know as you said you know these are the moments of such crisis and challenge for these families. and the problem is i mean, i get it. both of you are a part of wildly successful companies, but perhaps you know, we see a situation in which, you know, the level of resourcing, the level trying to meet that moment. you know is not keeping up with just the level intensity that we're experiencing when it comes these crises that are out there. i wanted to just sort of raise one more issue here. do either of your companies to do work with third party contractors that have been found guilty of fraud? mr. fiero, i not believe we do. mr. keating i'm not aware any of those companies that have been found guilty so don't believe we

do either. well, i will. we'll make sure we follow up with. you mean in one of the testimonies here by mr. quinn, you know, raising these concerns that, insurance companies were continuing to work with companies, organizations or individuals that have been known to commit fraud. you know, the concerns that we saw when it came to my home state, when it came to superstorm sandy and other issues of that nature, i guess i just want to kind of ask you, you know, do you commit to not contracting with these third party firms? do you when you have the review process of who you're with, you do have in there a review that would weed out and ensure that those that have been found guilty of fraud. cannot work with your company again. is that something that you know that you have that on the books is part of the process like we i, i can certainly commit i will go and look at if they are in the i'm unaware of the specifics that but we'll certainly look into that. mr. fiala, i agree we will do

the same. we we do our best to vet every vendor that we use to ensure that we're making a good selection in that regard. so if you don't mind. well, we'll follow up with that after this. and i just ask that the two of you come back to us with that kind of assurance of of what is your policy with the company. your company. okay. i think with that i'm sorry. is is your testimony you neither of you you don't do business with u.s. forensic. go ahead, mr. keating. i'm unaware of that. that firm that you were. you don't you don't. you're not familiar with it, mr. fisher. same seem you're not familiar with u.s. forensic? i'm not familiar with u.s. forensic. u.s. forensic, which has been sued multiple was found civilly liable for widespread in katrina and superstorm sandy of your companies have contracted with you forensic for years for decades. your testimony is today that your per what i think you just said the ranking member you no longer contract with u.s. forensic because i want to be clear on this. is that right, mr. fisher?

i don't know if we do. okay. mr. keating. something i'm. okay. so, in other words, the testimony is an outcome that that maybe they continue to contract fraudsters. i think they can't recall which i think the theme of of testimony. i'll just end saying in missouri, two months ago, we lost 12 people to tornadoes a lot more than that, lost their homes. and that happens in my state. sadly, every year, every tornado season, every flooding season. and in those times of crisis, it's these good folks look to you for help and i'm sad to say that more often. not they're disappointed and it shouldn't be that way. they shouldn't be victims of fraud and abuse. they shouldn't be treated the way that mr. fertel and his wife were treated. mr. mcgowan, her husband were treated. the people of missouri and the people of the country deserve. and given the you're making, i

certainly think you can afford it with that, we will conclude today's hearing. so.

no. is.