Illinois Allstate & State Farm Homeowners Insurance Claims: Who’s Affected?

Are you a Black or Hispanic Allstate or State Farm homeowners’ insurance policyholder in Illinois who submitted a claim for coverage at some point in the last three years? If so, you may have a legal claim.

Allstate and State Farm may rely on claims processing policies and practices that lead to racial disparities in the treatment and outcomes of policyholders’ claims, which may result in a significant wealth transfer away from Black and Hispanic homeowners.

Homeowners have raised concerns that insurance companies like Allstate and State Farm have an incentive to pay policyholders as little as possible. These insurers are suspected of improperly denying, underpaying, or delaying the claims of Black and Hispanic policyholders in Illinois.

Wells Fargo is facing racial discrimination class action lawsuits over concerns that it has put Black Americans at a competitive disadvantage when applying for home mortgage loans and refinancing.

Attorneys are currently considering the possibility of taking legal action against Allstate and State Farm on behalf of Black and Hispanic policyholders who may have been subject to an unfair and discriminatory claims process.

State Farm Faces Scrutiny Over Potential Discrimination Against Black Homeowners

The New York Times has reported about several instances in which Black property owners claim State Farm failed to fully pay them for their claims. In one case, Darryl Williams of Chicago says a State Farm adjuster told him that there was “a lot of fraud in the area.” By the time State Farm paid a fraction of his claim to repair damage from a burst pipe, his expenses had allegedly snowballed to such an extent that he had to sell the building in order to pay his bills.

After a pipe burst in Deonne Burgess’s Inglewood, Calif. home in 2018, she filed a claim with State Farm. She says the State Farm claims adjuster tried to reduce the number of repairs the insurer would pay for. She suspects that State Farm treated her claim with skepticism because she is Black.

“It was right after the Malibu fires, and what I said was: ‘No one in Malibu would have to justify things like this,” she told The New York Times.

Although the homeowners could not prove that the insurance company was discriminating against them because they were Black, vendors hired by State Farm to repair the damage confirmed their suspicions and reportedly informed them that their claims were being handled differently than those of white policyholders.

Black State Farm Employee Describes Discrimination Against ‘Inner City’ Homeowners

Carla Campbell-Jackson had worked for State Farm for 28 years in Illinois and Michigan before she was fired for allegedly sharing confidential information, which she denies. Instead, she says she was retired in retaliation for raising concerns that State Farm discriminated against Black homeowners, using fraud as a pretext to deny their homeowners insurance claims.

Campbell-Jackson described State Farm meetings in which adjusters were encouraged to focus on claims from “inner city” neighborhoods because they were at “high risk for fraud” and therefore the claims were easier to deny. She says this policy was intended to deny millions of dollars in payments to minority populations.

Attorneys are currently investigating claims that State Farm and Allstate discriminated against Black and Hispanic homeowners in Illinois by wrongfully denying, underpaying, or delaying claims.

Join a Free Illinois Allstate and State Farm Homeowners Insurance Lawsuit Investigation

If you are Black or Hispanic and submitted an Allstate or State Farm homeowners’ insurance claim in Illinois in the last three years, you may qualify to participate in a racial discrimination lawsuit investigation. 

Fill out the form on this page for a FREE case evaluation.