OKLAHOMA CITY –
On Thursday, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced he had made a motion to intervene in a lawsuit between a Broken Arrow family and State Farm Insurance.
His request follows reporting from Oklahoma Watch, which broke the story about families alleging State Farm had engaged in a practice of underpaying claims for storm damage.
“If we are permitted to intervene, then we will jump in the middle of the discovery issues so that I can build a fact pattern,” Drummond said. “Is this an isolated incident just to these plaintiffs? Or is there a pattern in practice throughout Oklahoma with State Farm?”
It will be up to the judge over the case to decide if Drummond can step in.
His office has been specific and severe about the allegations it’s investigating against State Farm. Those include an allegation of racketeering; a term typically associated with sophisticated organized crime.
“I think that the racketeering is by virtue of what appears to be a coordinated effort throughout State Farm,” Drummond said. “And you can coordinate with yourself. And that’s what I believe is happening now.”
He revealed on Friday that, before the recent headlines about State Farm, his agency had already been investigating the insurance company for three months.
Oklahoma Watch reporter JC Hallman has tracked upwards of 200 cases. But, he believes the true number of impacted people could be in the thousands.
“I think there are lots and lots of people out there who have not yet acted, but who might,” he said.
In response, State Farm provided a statement:
“At State Farm, every claim is important to us, and each claim is unique and handled on its individual merits. At State Farm, we’re committed to giving our customers all the benefits their insurance policies provide. The fact that someone files a lawsuit does not mean the allegations made are true.”
If his intervention is successful, and Drummond finds evidence of a systematic practice to keep Oklahomans from being able to use their full insurance benefits, he said he could seek a large settlement on behalf of the state.
“We would effectively create a resource pool through which Oklahomans could apply and say ‘hey, I had State Farm as a carrier from these years. I had hail damage. It was denied or my claim was reduced,’” he said.
While the Oklahoma Insurance Department is not involved with the lawsuit, its commissioner also released a statement on Friday.
“We are aware of Attorney General Drummond’s intervening on a lawsuit with State Farm. Though our agency is not involved in this private lawsuit action, we regularly conduct investigations into the market conduct of the companies that we regulate. We have been engaged in an ongoing investigation for a couple of years now regarding the handling of roof claims. There are strict confidentiality laws surrounding these investigations. Market conduct investigations can take some time to complete because we follow rigorous national guidelines to ensure we have fully and thoroughly investigated an insurer’s claim practices. To our knowledge, we are the first Insurance Department in the country to send out third-party engineers to inspect the insurance adjusters’ work. I recognized more than a year ago that the importance of these roofing claims and the impact they have on consumers is too important to not take these extra steps to ensure Oklahomans are protected.
We expect to have this investigation wrapped up in the first quarter of 2026.
If action is taken, that action will of course become public information.”
Commissioner Glen Mulready
