Enter United Auto Insurance Co. Founded in 1989, the family-owned company is headed by patriarch Richard Parrillo Sr., who owns about 40 percent interest. Before coming to Florida, Parrillo had co-owned Safeway Insurance Co. in Chicago, which routinely fought claims in court. (Safeway was represented by brother Robert Parrillo's law firm, and plaintiff's attorneys complained then that the law firm lived by the motto, "Deny, delay, don't pay.")
Richard Parrillo brought the same philosophy to Florida when United Auto was founded 16 years ago. It's a lucrative business plan: In 2002, United Auto Insurance Co. made about $200 million in premiums on 142,560 policies, according to state records. The Parrillo family owns the $3.3 million headquarters in North Miami Beach.
Tom Gallagher knows about the problems with United Auto, so why hasn't the state's chief financial officer done anything about the company?
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The business has also been kind to Richard Parrillo personally. He owns a 5,000-square-foot brick mansion in Chicago -- complete with four fireplaces and four full baths -- valued at $1.1 million, as well as an $800,000 condo in Aventura.
United Auto owns or is affiliated with at least six other insurance-related companies and is licensed to sell insurance in Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Georgia. The combined companies rake in about $400 million in sales a year, according to Insurance Journal, a trade publication.
Parrillo initially agreed over the phone to an in-person interview with New Times but later canceled, requesting instead that the paper submit questions in writing. "Look, we're a legitimate company," Parrillo said on the phone. "What you're getting is sour grapes because we've finally stepped up to the plate and used principle over just paying these things."
Indeed, United carries out the business of insuring differently from other well-known companies. Unlike, say, State Farm or Allstate, UAI doesn't hang out a shingle. Instead, the coverage is sold mostly by storefront brokers who offer cut-rate policies and who market to low-income drivers.
That's how Regina Jordan, a 45-year-old woman who lives in Lauderhill, ended up with United in the late 1990s. "I went into an agency to purchase insurance," says Jordan, a tiny woman who wears her hair swept up tight atop her head. A teacher's assistant in Broward County, she lives with a roommate in a modest townhouse apartment.
"I didn't have a whole lot of money, so I couldn't afford State Farm or Geico," she says. "I went into an agency... and they put me with United. They didn't give me an option. They looked at their screen and just told me what my deposit would be. That was that."
United Auto worked great for Jordan -- that is, until she actually had an accident.
Headed home from work on a midafternoon in February 2001, Jordan was traveling south on Highway 441, just south of Oakland Park Boulevard. Suddenly, a full-sized pickup crashed into the rear bumper of her 1996 Olds Aurora, setting off a chain reaction. She launched forward into her seat belt, but the car's defective airbag failed to inflate. Her car then slammed into the vehicle in front of her: a police squad car. Jordan snapped back into her seat.
"I was in a lot of pain," she recalls. Paramedics took her and other injured parties to Plantation General Hospital, where she was released a few hours later because she didn't have any broken bones. "The whole side of my face was swollen, and my neck -- I guess from the jerk." She holds out her tiny right hand, which is curved like a catcher's mitt. "I drive with my hand under the steering wheel," she explains, indicating she cradled the wheel between her thumb and index fingers. "When it hit, well, I don't know what all was hurt at that time, but this hand don't lay down anymore. It don't open all the way up, and it don't close all the way."
So what did United do for her?
"Nothing but give me problems," she sighs, recalling the three months of work she missed, using up all her sick time. "I needed to get money. I sent United everything they asked me for. I was waiting for a check from them, but it never came."
In the meantime, Jordan hired an attorney, who eventually negotiated a settlement with the pickup driver's insurance company. She received $50,000 --an indication that at least one insurance company acknowledged that she suffered true injuries. United, however, wouldn't pay any bills under Jordan's PIP coverage. Jordan's attorney filed suit against United in February 2003. The case was settled this year with Jordan receiving $3,000 -- more than four years after the accident. o one denies that fraud exists in the no-fault insurance system. A Florida statewide grand jury in 2000 found that the $10,000 PIP coverage was easily exploited by unscrupulous medical providers.
For example, in 2003, the owner of Yosuni Medical Center Corp. in Miami conspired with four others to stage a triple-car accident to collect PIP claims. In other cases, fraudulent medical clinics hired "runners" to comb through police accident reports, then solicit drivers as patients, sometimes offering them kickbacks. Many states have done away with the once-popular no-fault coverage because of such practices.
United Auto, however, has taken the battle against fraud to absurd heights, claiming that 95 percent of all PIP claims filed are bogus. From that mindset has risen a huge backlog of unpaid claims. The tsunami of consumer complaints became so immense a few years ago that Florida's Office of Insurance Regulation looked into the company's practices, issuing a report in March 2004.
