Complaint Review: Western World Insurance Group

Western World Insurance Group, is located at 400 Parson's Pond Drive, Franklin Lakes, NJ 07417, it was founded in 1964, and writes insurance under the names: Stratford, Westco, and Tudor. Western World is an underwriting organization, offering insurance products. They provide commercial general, professional, product liability, and commercial auto coverages.

In 2005, the company reported $28 million in profits with $311 million in revenue. The company has $1.3 billion in assets.

In my opinion this firm has a demonstrated miserable record of paying out on its claims.  Collecting premiums they like, paying out money they do NOT like and they spend quite a lot of time in the courts trying to hold onto every penney they can.

From 1983 to 2011, Western World and its 2 clones, Tudor and Stratford Insurance companies, have been in 81 Federal Courts, from Arkansas to West Virginia, 392 times; 340 of these were civil cases, 16 bankruptcies and 36 appeals.  State cases are simply to many to bother counting.

One of the larger actions Western World was involved in was big news on the West Coast and was reported in the press as:  "Western World Insurance Company pays $2 million to settle group care homes discrimination claims", when Western World agreed to settle a federal Fair Housing Act lawsuit for $2 million.

The suit, a joint effort between the Fair Housing Council of Washington and the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, alleged that Western World systematically canceled the insurance policies of businesses that provided housing services to persons with mental disabilities.   In an unsuccessful motion to dismiss the suit Western World did not deny its discriminatory policies against persons with mental disabilities.

Other egregious actions of Western World (Thomas F. Mulligan, President & CEO), Jimcor Agencies (Francis Mastowski, Sr.VP, 60 Craig Road, Montvale, NJ)  and their lawyer Carl A. Perrone of Iaciofano & Perrone (157 Washington St, Morristown, NJ), involved the owner of a building which was leased to a tenant and used as an adult book store.

The Turnersville, NJ store was severely vandalized 12/29/10 and for over a year Western World stalled any payment by repeated requests for documents that had already been provided several times and by demands for information from the tenants, who were not part of the claim nor were they insured by Western World. 

The bookstore eventually filed suit saying that "The refusal to pay coverage . . . has been wrongful without reasonable basis to deny, in bad faith, and designed to deny the benefit of insurance coverage by defendant"  The Owner of the building was forced to make repairs out of his own pocket despite having paid years worth of insurance premiums to Western World  The Owner's claim was for the $114,000 repair costs and $132,000 loss of earnings while the building was unusable.

In a final piece of legal slight of hand Western World lawyer Carl Perrone cross filed against the prior tenant and with no proof at all stated in documents that they believed that the prior tenant caused the extensive damage and the Owner should be compensated by that tenant and not Western World Insurance, thus making the assertation that Western World had no duty to pay the insurance claim but the tenant should pay it!

Details on these cases and others can be found at: http://westernworldinsurancestinks.blogspot.com/ and http://westernworldclaimsphotos.blogspot.com/

This is another example of why consumers put insurance companies, like Western World, and their lawyers like Carl Perrone, on par with used car salesmen and IRS Agents.