Jury hits USAA for $3.5 million

[Los Spurs]

A San Diego, Calif. jury awarded a Marine $3.5 million in punitive damages from USAA stemming from a lawsuit over water damage.
Marine Capt. John Colombero won $50,000 damages for the emotional toll his fight with the insurance agency has taken. He was dealing with this stuff between deployments to Iraq. He's currently on his third tour of duty there.

The jury awarded $3.5 million for "malice, oppression and fraudulent conduct," according to Colombero's lawyer.

USAA plans to appeal.






This is my insurance carrier and I've never had any problems with them. I sure hope this doesn't affect our rates. :depressed

[mrsmaalox]

3.5 million is a drop in the bucket to USAA

[Trainwreck2100]

Looks like they'll need to hire more indians to cover losses.

[Mark in Austin]

The sad thing is that puntitive damages are supposed to be a deterrant, but when a company is as big as USAA, it is cheaper for them to act irresponsibly, fight in court, appeal the verdicts, and eventually pay the probably reduced fine than it is to act honorably in the first place.

...now if the award was 35 million, it might get their attention.

[Spurfect]

my sister has USAA's home insurance and she is the one that not so long ago was on the news because an SUV crashed into her house (after robbing the Sea Island). they gave her 8K i think for damages. I was like huh????? :wtf
thought they'd give a lot more. I mean a damn vehicle crashed into her house!!

[CubanMustGo]

The insurance of the SUV driver should have paid, not USAA. The $8K may have been loss-of-use coverage pending final payment from the other insurance company.

[Spurfect]

The insurance of the SUV driver should have paid, not USAA. The $8K may have been loss-of-use coverage pending final payment from the other insurance company.

that's gonna be a tough one to get. the SUV belonged to the manager of the Sea Island that the robbers stole from him