Declarations

Halt Non-Renewals

“These activities, we strongly believe, are prohibited by the Alabama Trade Practices Law. The law specifically says that inducements not specified in the policy are prohibited.”

—Alabama Insurance Commissioner Walter A. Bell, directing insurers to stop offering coverage on a single line such as property on the condition that the consumer also purchase another policy, such as a life or automobile policy.

What’s That Smell?

“If I knew they were getting paid that much I would have told them to get out of the office because it just didn’t smell right.”

—Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood after meeting with two men now entangled in a judicial bribery case who were allegedly paid $500,000 to try to influence Hood’s investigation of an insurance company’s handling of Hurricane Katrina claims.

Robbing Peter, Paying Paul

“We’re giving them a life raft, that’s true, but I don’t know what else we can do.”

—West Virginia Senate Judiciary Chairman Jeff Kessler, D-Marshall, commenting on the decision to help cities and towns with their police and firefighter pension funds, partly by reversing a recent tax break on consumer insurance costs. The state would restore a 1 percent surcharge on most policies, which had been cut nearly in half in 2005.

Elevating the Elevated

“These are homeowners who’d elevated above and beyond what was then accepted federal standards, and they were still flood damaged. The homeowner grant program can help these homeowners, too.”

—Jon Mabry, with the Mississippi Development Authority’s Disaster Recovery Division, on homeowners who can apply for up to $150,000 in federal grant funding. The deadline is March 15. Mabry said MDA has issued about $48 million in grants to elevated homeowners inside the flood zone. More than 500 applications are pending, he said.

Like Father, Unlike Son?

“The whole matter is difficult. It’s a father-son relationship. He’s concerned about his father, but at the same time, though, he’s in this case and our contention is he should be tried separately in his own case.”

—Zach Scruggs’ attorney, Todd Graves, in an interview with The Associated Press regarding a trial Zach faces with his father, Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, and an associate on charges of conspiring to bribe a Mississippi judge. As a partner in his father’s law firm, the younger Scruggs is entitled to millions in legal fees and the acclaim of working with one of the nation’s most powerful and media savvy plaintiffs lawyers. Now, however, Zach Scruggs is in the unusual position of having to distance himself from his father.