•1. Last Thursday I had the privilege of introducing the speaker for our monthly TTLA Advocates Luncheon. We were fortunate to have David J. Berardinelli, author of the book “From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves, The Dark Side of Insurance” come and discuss his epic battle with Allstate Insurance. From 2001 to 2006, Mr. Berardinelli waged war with one of the country’s largest insurance companies. The battle all stemmed over Allstate’s failure to produce documents that have become known as the “The McKinsey Slides.” The basic outline of the story is that Mr. Berardinelli’s clients were policy holders with Allstate for nearly 40 years when they were struck by an uninsured drunk driver. His clients made a claim on their own insurance which was denied on the basis they didn’t have coverage for uninsured motorists. Mr. Berardinelli’s clients insisted that the agents who sold them the policy promised that the coverage they had was the same as uninsured motorists coverage. During litigation, the agents admitted under oath in their depositions that they had mislead the clients and had actually been trained by Allstate to misrepresent the coverage they were being provided. As a result of this testimony, Mr. Beradinelli requested copies of the training documents used by Allstate. Allstate refused. After years of court battles, Allstate finally turned over the precious “McKinsey Slides.” After reading what’s in them, it’s clear why Allstate didn’t want to the public to see them. The story of the Jose and Olivia Pincheira, Allstate’s insureds, is one that can’t be told in this blog, but is one that everyone should read. I strongly recommend reading Mr. Beradinelli’s book so you can clearly appreciate what you as a consumer are up against when it comes to insurance.