Reply #8: Allstate's practices (and I'm sure the others follow suit):

[Feron]

"The basic concept, Berardinelli says, is that Allstate gives customers a choice: accept a settlement now for a fraction of the true cost of damage, or expect to spend several years in grueling litigation. McKinsey predicted that 90 percent of claimants would be forced to capitulate because they'd need the money in a prompt settlement, Berardinelli said.

"People are giving them money for something they will never receive," Berardinelli said. "What that really means is they're selling uncollectible insurance."

Allstate's strategy has paid off handsomely, Berardinelli says. In the years since it began implementing McKinsey's strategy, the company's profitability shot through the roof. In the ten years before the McKinsey strategy was implemented, Allstate was making an average of $82 million a year in pre-tax operating income. In the ten years after the McKinsey plan roll-out began in 1995, Allstate was making an average of $2.4 billion a year in pre-tax operating income."

http://www.nola.com/business/t-p/index.ssf?/base/money-1/118776405969200.xml&coll=1&thispage=2">Link

A bunch of thieves.