State Farm CEO ordered to answer questions in Broken Arrow couple’s roof claim case

OKLAHOMA CITY — The CEO at State Farm Insurance must answer questions under oath in a case filed by a Broken Arrow couple who claim the company wrongfully denied them a fair payment on a legitimate roof claim, a judge ruled on Tuesday.

In the case of Billy and Lacy Hursh versus State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Oklahoma County District Judge Amy Palumbo denied a request made by State Farm to allow company CEO Jon Farney to skip appearing for a deposition.

Farney had previously been ordered to appear for a deposition in a separate, similar case filed in Comanche County.

According to attorneys for the Hurshes and other plaintiffs, State Farm also was dealt a setback after at least 31 internal documents it sought to withhold as confidential were ordered to be made available for full review as court records. One of the attorneys, Hannah Whitten of the Whitten Burrage Law Firm, said the documents showed State Farm developed a strategy in secret to purposefully reduce its payouts on wind and hail damage claims across the country.

After rolling the plan out in Dallas County, Texas, in June 2020, it was expanded to every state by the end of that year, Whitten said in a statement. She said the internal documents shed light on tactics used to get adjusters to approve fewer full roof replacements and to approve more limited repairs instead.

"These filings are part of a much larger legal fight playing out across Oklahoma, where homeowners and the state Attorney General have raised similar concerns about how major insurers handle wind and hail claims after severe storms. For the families involved in these cases, the newly public documents may offer the clearest evidence yet of how their claims were decided — and why," Whitten said.

In a statement released to the media, State Farm defended its record on claim payouts.

"Over the past two years alone, State Farm has paid more than $1 billion to Oklahoma customers for wind and hail damage," it said. "By contrast, the number of bad-faith lawsuits currently pending in Oklahoma is equivalent to approximately 1% of the roughly 30,000 residential and commercial claims State Farm has responded to each year, on average, over the past five years."

The company said the allegations raised in the Hursh case and others are serious, "but (they) are only that, allegations, and should be addressed through the legal process," it said.

There was no indication in Palumbo's order about when Farney might be scheduled to sit for a deposition.

Previously, the judge criticized attorneys in court over the slow progress made so far in a case that she said has been characterized by repeated, dueling motions concerning, among other things, whether certain internal documents should remain under seal and whether several State Farm executives should appear for depositions.

The judge also said that State Farm had "dumped" thousands of documents, including scores of blank pages or blank pages marked only as "confidential," supposedly as its response to a previous discovery order. She threatened the company with legal sanctions and ordered a previously scheduled trial to remain on the books for Dec. 7.