[upbeat music] Welcome to the Oklahoma Memo podcast. My name is Ryan Welton, the founder and curator of Oklahoma Memo. It's a daily local news recap. It's a newsletter, but essentially what I do is, is that I go site to site, up and down the dial, from Miami to Altus, from Miami, from Miami to Altus, from Guymon to Idabel, across Oklahoma, looking for the best journalism in the state.
And today I'm joined by who I think is probably the best investigative journalist in Oklahoma, and that's J.C. Holman with Oklahoma Watch. And I followed... The first time I saw you, J.C., it was a story about something that was happening up in Guymon, and I thought, "Man, we're getting some stories from the Panhandle." But this story has really caught- Guymon. You're right.
Has, has caught people's attention, State Farm, and it, it really emanated from a, a couple in Broken Arrow who had some issues with hail damage, and it turned out there are a lot of Oklahoma families with issues with hail damage. And this family decided to sue State Farm, and now the attorney general is getting involved, trying to intervene and go after State Farm. And, and this is something that you've been following.
I think you've done three stories so far. So in the, the spirit of getting right into it, what is going on with this investigation, and why is the attorney general looking into State Farm? Well, it turns out, you know, and this is the most recent story I did, that, um, this is not the first time that State Farm has in- been investigated for racketeering.
You know, I, I dug deep into, uh, in my most recent story in- into a case, uh, out of Illinois involving, um, using aftermarket parts for car repairs that got State Farm in hot water, um, you know, 25 years ago. And, uh, and, and then, and then eventually as they were trying to get their way out of that, they, um, meddled in a Supreme Court election in Illinois, and then eventually were brought up on, on, um, on, on RICO charges for that.
They wound up paying $250 million to get out of that, but they were on the hook for about $8 billion. So what seems to be happening in Oklahoma is a kind of sequel to, you know, something that State Farm has done, got, got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, um, in the past, um, and, and they seem to be doing it again here in Oklahoma.
And what they're doing is pre-denying hail claims. [clears throat] Could you explain what that is? What do, what do you mean they pre-deny hail claims? Yeah. So I mean, all this started for me way back in May when I, when I wrote a story about, um, a claim that hail explained why Oklahoma has high, um, homeowners insurance rates. And I've written a variety of stories, um, you know, on, on different things, on the nature of competition, on, um, um...
I've got a story gonna be publishing soon about, in, in response to, um, uh, new legislation being proposed by the Oklahoma Insurance Department. Um, so I've been wr- writing about a bunch of different things, but then the State Farm thing came to me with an anonymous text back in, in August.
Somebody kind of out of the blue, in a very kind of cloak and daggery sort of way, reached out and said, "You gotta go to this, this hearing, um, in, in Oklahoma City." And, and I looked up the case that was referenced. I read all the filings on it. It was, took a whole weekend. Um, and then I attended this, um, this hearing, and the story began to emerge.
And, and what State Farm was alleged to have done was, um, essentially arbitrarily set out to reduce the amounts they were paying out on certain kinds of claims by 50%. And that meant there was just going to be this blanket policy of pre-denying, uh, claims of hail and wind damage. It's m- it's all more complicated than that because they weren't denying every claim.
There's probably some kind of, of algorithm that they use to, to, you know, simultaneously pay some and not pay some, but they still save billions of dollars in the long run. Um, all the details are not known because all of this was s- supposed to be happening in, in s- in secret. And, um, and so, but, but I started attending the hearings, um, and, and got to where I kind of understood what was happening.
And it, it had started out with, um, about 125 cases of this happening because this started happening in Oklahoma, and some of the people who were having their claims denied called lawyers. Those lawyers called other lawyers. The cases began to accumulate. They were all being, um, uh, litigated. Um, and then at a certain point in this first group of cases, um, what happened was that State Farm suddenly settled all of them, sometimes for really surprisingly high amounts of money.
A 20 or $30,000 claim could settle for as much as $3 million. And so it looked like they were trying to make these cases go away so they wouldn't have to reveal what was really happening. Hmm. Uh, and, and so I mean, it, it's all very complicated and it's hard to say exactly what, um, what's really going on because that fight over the documentation is still ongoing.
But it's very clear that there's a lot of money involved and that State Farm, just as they did with that earlier case, will go to almost any lengths, hundreds of millions of dollars, to try to not have to explain what's really happening. And this is where I would encourage viewers or listeners to go back and read your work at Oklahoma Watch because those earlier cases, I think, really inform this one. And you spoke of documentation just now.
Does this sort of inform why Gentner Drummond is getting involved?Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, it's a little bit more complicated than that 'cause, you know, even in what I was looking at, there were two sets of cases, right? There was the first 125 cases, and now there's maybe 60 or 70 more. And, um, what had happened is, is, is the, the law firm in Oklahoma City, Whitten Burrage, that won access to those documents and was deposing executives, um, in that first batch of cases.
They'd gotten to the point where they were seeing the materials, but then they had, like, a view and destroy order or something, you know, when... So when the cases settled, they didn't have access to them anymore. But now that there's another 60 or 70 cases popping up, and, and the most public-facing of those is this Tulsa police lieutenant named Billy Hirsch. Um, and, and so that case is, is sort of the figurehead for it all now, and there's a new fight over documents.
But the difference is, is, is that they're not fighting over documents that these lawyers have not already seen. So they're saying in open court what they saw in the documents, but they don't have access to the documents anymore. So it's a new fight over that. And of course, State Farm can fight tooth and nail, um, to try to prevent it from happening again.
Um, and that's partly why the attorney general stepped in, because he has greater subpoena powers than just a law firm that, that is, um, that is arguing a case. I mean, there's gonna be a fight over that as well. I wouldn't be at all surprised if that eventually moved its way up to the Oklahoma Supreme Court in the long run.
Um, but it is, um, you know, it's about proving something that we already know to be true, in a sense, um, because the documents were already seen, and the lawyers who are arguing these cases are talking about it in open court. Where this becomes really troublesome, like a movie, is when I read your report of what happened in Illinois with that judge being elected, and it felt like something was not right about that. Oh, yeah.
I mean, I th- I think that, that, you know, in that, in that case, you know, and there's some parallels here in Oklahoma that I'll be probably, like, pulling on some threads to find out about. But, but in that case, you know, a former FBI agent who I just spoke with the other day, he, he was brought in, um, and, and then a private investigator.
You know, and what they were able to show was that this relatively obscure judge from a rural county in Illinois suddenly decided to run for the supreme court and, and raised millions of dollars to do so. And, and it took them a while to show it, but they were eventually able to show that about $4 million of his campaign chest, which was a huge portion of, of what he was able to raise, had come directly from State Farm.
Uh, and then of course, he, he had won his election, and then one of the first things that he did as, as judge was go on su- to become the deciding vote that let State Farm out of about a billion dollars in, in jury verdict money. Uh, and you know, that guy's career, you know, he, he retired in 2020, but he went on to be the, uh, the chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court.
But it, but it sure seems like he started out, um, uh, as a, as a, as a judge that was bought and paid for by State Farm. Yeah, and that has to... I mean, that, that just makes your blood boil a little bit, you know, you, when you hear something like that. Um, now, they're at risk for State Farm, billions and billions of dollars, but when I hear RICO and racketeering, I think criminal charges. Are there criminal charge?
I mean, could somebody from State Farm go to prison over this? It's certainly been suggested that yeah, that, that, that could happen. I mean, RICO cases, RICO charges in civil cases is, is kind of a unique thing, you know. And, and I, I've seen it said that, um, that RICO charges in a civil case is the only time, like, a civil defendant is required to plead not guilty. [chuckles] You know? So, so it i- it's kind of middle territory.
Um, and, uh, um, I don't, I, you know, I'm not a lawyer. I'm not the attorney general, so I don't, I don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of that. But I, but I have been hearing people say, people who know better than I do, that, you know, that they, they think it's possible that someone could wind up going to jail for all of this someday. You know, I mean, I th- I think it's still gotta get bigger.
You know, since my story started to appear, um, my, my first story sort of suggested this was not Oklahoma, this program to pre- to pre-deny hail claims started in Texas and then moved into Oklahoma and a couple of other states, and then moved out to the rest of the country. So it's really a nationwide story. Um, and since my first story appeared, I've had, uh, people contacting me from all over, from, from Georgia and Indiana and Ohio and Arkansas and Texas and, you know...
And so, um, uh, it, it is, it is still growing. The story's getting bigger. Um, and, you know, um, I wouldn't be at all surprised if we wound up with similar batches of cases over this kind of thing in, in, in other states as, you know, your big, uh, you know, um, uh, uh, you know, petition lawyers in, in, in other states who specialize in this kind of litigation if they catch wind of what has been working in Oklahoma.
A couple of questions come to mind. Have you given thought as to who's going to play you in the movie? Because it feels like we're headed that way. [laughs] But the other thing is, is, uh, is that, uh, hail damage, that's what we're talking about here, but are there other instances of claims that are getting pre-denied that you've heard of?
I mean, f- wildfire, for example. I don't know. Um, you know, there, there are some other cases that, that areMaking their way through the courts, you know, specifically for water leaks. Mm-hmm. Um, and that, that I've, I've seen, I've seen some things about that. Um, and, you know, and certainly people have contacted me and say, you know, "This, this is the same thing that's happening in auto insurance."
Um, that original State Farm case from twenty-five years ago was, was an auto insurance case, you know, that they were using aftermarket parts for repairs to save money. Um, so I think that, that, um, uh, it's, it's, it's not just a, it's not just a one-off. You know, I think that the question of hail in Oklahoma had, had become... was, was always a little strange.
You know, hail is, is getting worse, you know, because of, because of climate change. It's not as though the hai- hail doesn't exist as a phenomenon. Um, and there is damage that is being done, and it could be that, that, you know, I don't know, maybe State Farm thought they could get away with something and, um, uh, that it would, that it would fly under the radar.
Um, but, but it didn't. And, um, what's, what's strange is, is that getting caught does not seem to have inspired them to change their ways. [chuckles] Right. Uh, so I think, I think at this point, even though we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars, it hasn't been enough of a, of enough of a dent in State Farm for them to really, um, take notice of it, which just goes to show you how much money they must be making.
I'm talking with J.C. Hallman of Oklahoma Watch, an investigative journalist looking into, uh, what's happened in Oklahoma with regard to hail claims and State Farm, and the attorney general's now getting involved. Let me ask you this. The, the wheels of justice can turn slowly sometimes. How quick do you expect this to move? Is this a years-long thing that's going to be going on?
Uh, I think State Farm will do everything they can to, um, you know, to make it move as, as slowly as possible. You know, that, um, the cases I'm looking at, the specific group of cases started in twenty-twenty. The alleged scheme is supposed to have started then.
Um, but I've, I've encountered, um, you know, hail cases, uh, you know, involving State Farm in the, the law firm that I'm, that I'm looking at now, which, Whitten, Burds, Way, from, from years before that, and then other cases that date back twenty, twenty-five years. You know, so, so, um, it's incredibly slow. That first racketeering story from State Farm, it started in nineteen ninety-seven, and it finally resolved in twenty eighteen.
So th- this can take not years to resolve, but generations. And, you know, and then they hope that, that it'll go away in, in the meantime, or that, you know, as was the case in, in with that, that big settlement over the Supreme Court judges. They settled for two hundred and fifty million dollars. That sounds like a lot of money. Mm-hmm. But they could've lost eight billion.
So in a, in a, in a sense, that, that they, they got off with a sweetheart deal on that one. So I th- so I think they play the long game, right? And, you know, that, that works well for the corporate person who, who doesn't actually age, [chuckles] because corporations are not people, right?
So, but, you know, I, I think that, that, um, uh, you know, I, as, as in the case with any Supreme Court, um, proceeding, if the attorney general's motion to intervene is granted, and, and I believe the, the date for, for the next filing from, from State Farm about that is today, that they have to respond to that by today.
Uh, and I think there's gonna be a hearing on December thirtieth in Oklahoma City, and, and if that motion to intervene is granted, then I assume that State Farm will, will appeal that, try to take it to the Supreme Court. That process could easily take months. And if we get to November twenty twenty-six, I mean, we're, we're gonna have a new attorney general. Will, would this... I mean, so Genner Drummond requests to intervene.
What if the next attorney general says, "Nah, I, I don't want anything to do with this"? Well, you know, I've been interviewing some of the candidates for, for, um, you know, that are, that are looking to replace, uh, Glenn Mulvey, who is term in- term limited and can't run again. And, um, uh, you know, I've spoken or I've communicated with two of the four who have, who have announced their candidacies, and, um, uh, and that doesn't seem to be the narrative, right?
You know, the, the, the, that the narrative is, is that people see that this is wrong. There's been a lot of outrage around the state for a long time. Um, and, and people want substantive things to be done about it, not, not just the State Farm case, but about skyrocketing homeowners insurance rates in general.
Um, so, so, um, you know, there, there's always the chance that, you know, lobbyists and, and State Farm itself will, you know, um, make its, its, um, its weight and its financial resources known. Um, you know, that, that, uh... But, but I would think that the story getting out, um, is gonna make it very difficult for anybody who wants to ascend to that position to risk taking State Farm money, um, and, and thinking, "Well, what would happen if I got [chuckles] caught," right?
You know, so, so, um, so I kinda sense... I mean, this is an example of, of, you know, putting the stories out there and, uh, and allowing, um, you know, that light to disinfect the situation. Mm-hmm. Uh, and, and maybe for both whoever becomes governor, um, and whoever becomes, um, next commissioner, um, there can be some insulation against, uh, having the insurance lobby or insurance companies having too much influence. When do you anticipate your next story?
Might it be after today once you find out what happens with State Farm, or might it be, uh, December thirtieth, whenever that hearing-Were to happen Um, both of those are possibilities. I have a, I have a different story just about the reactions to the proposed legislation, uh, that has been put forward, um, not directly about the State Farm stuff. Um, there are a few different angles that, that I'm continuing to, to, uh, to look at for what's gonna be, um, you know, a next State Farm story.
Um, probably one, one that, that focuses on a particular case in Oklahoma City, uh, that, um, that, that speaks about fortified roots, you know, which is the big thing that the, the commissioner's been talking about. Um, and, uh, and that in- that involves State Farm, but then it also, I think it'll let me touch on, on just how broad the response has been to the story.
You know, hearing, hearing stories about all these other things happening in, in other places, and I would expect that to be publishing, you know, sometime early in the new year. Well, it will be a story that will be in the Oklahoma Memo newsletter recap for sure.
And, and I'm working this, as I- I mentioned to you before we got on here, I like to, um, I wanna work these podcasts backwards and really get into the meat of the story at the beginning, but I also want to, uh, take a- an opportunity to help folks get to know you. I f- I find that as people, uh, get to know the journalists and who they are and their experience and their background, there is a trust that builds. So J.C., tell me, when did you start, uh, working with Oklahoma Watch?
What's your background? What would you want the people to know about you? Yeah, so I started working with Oklahoma Watch about a year ago now, and I came from a background of writing deeply researched nonfiction books. So I'm not trained as a traditional newspaper journalist.
Um, I went from, from writing books, I've done, uh, uh, a lot of deep dive magazine stuff, uh, for places like The New Republic and The Nation and, and Harper's Magazine, and I've kind of slowly worked backward to, to, to writing for, um, you know, for, for newspapers. Um, and I, you know, and, and Oklahoma Watch is an independent news source whose stories become available to newspapers. We, they publish on our, on our website, of course, Oklahoma Watch, you can easily Google that.
But- Mm-hmm... but, um, uh, you know, but the stories then get reprinted in newspapers across the state. So it's almost like a little miniature version of the Associated Press just for, for Oklahoma. And, um, and I've, I've, I found that to be, um, a, a really good use of my skill set. You know, it started out with me writing about some stuff in Guymon, um, and, and, you know, and you, you, you mentioned earlier the, the, the wheels of justice turning slowly.
I've been researching a story out there since last February. Mm-hmm. [laughs] And, and we're just on the brink of I, you know, I sued the state of Oklahoma to get access to some documents, and that's just now settling, and, um, I'm gonna be able to, to, to write that story, but it's almost a year later now. Um, and so, and so it's, it's, it's been... I've been able to really call on my experience writing, writing books, which are almost invariably years-long glossies. Mm-hmm.
Um, you know, and, and bringing that kind of a deep dive sensibility to writing about everything from criminal justice in the Panhandle, in Rowe, Oklahoma, and there might be more coming about that, um, with a longer project in the months to come, uh, or, or guardianships in Oklahoma or, you know, uh, as it turns out, with a lot of stories about insurance.
As you mentioned before, this story has prompted people to reach out to you. I would imagine the more stories you do here in Oklahoma, the more popular you're going to become, and people will reach out to you. How do you discern what to pursue versus what not to pursue?
Uh, it's, it's, it's, it's really hard, you know, that, that there's so many stories, you know, and I, I'll, like, lie awake at [laughs] at night just staring at the ceiling and thinking about some really heartbreaking stories that, that I just can't pursue for, for one reason or another. Um, often it's a question of access, or it's a question of whether a story is a, is a one-off or, or represents a kind of trend. Um, you know, uh, sometimes it can be the mandate of, of Oklahoma Watch.
You know, the thing, we have, we have funders. They're looking for coverage of certain kinds of subjects and, and, um, uh, and, and that can play a role. So, you know, sometimes I'll take a story idea to my editor, and he'll just say, "No, no, we're not doing that." Um, you know, and so, um, you know, it, it's, it's mysterious.
You know, specifically with the insurance story, my, my, my editor first gave me the idea to be writing about insurance, um, maybe 11 months ago, and and I have to admit, you know, he said, "Why don't you write something about homeowners insurance?" And, and I, I, and I said, "Ted, you know, I'm, I've never even owned a home. [laughs] I'm the worst guy in the world." Um, you know, and I, and I really hedged and hogged 'cause I thought it would be dull, you know, and, and, um, uh...
And it, and it is hard to understand, but I didn't understand that it was gonna have this kind of cloak and dagger element, that it was gonna read like a, a kind of John Grisham thriller, kind of a corporate thriller story. And, and, um, uh, and but, but it was like that didn't come until after I started publishing stuff.
You know, like, the i- what he sent me as an idea, I didn't even really understand it when I first read it [laughs], you know, and, and then I went back and reread it a few times, and then, you know, I, I think I begged him to give it to somebody else, and he didn't. And, and then eventually it just kind of, kind of clicked how I might approach writing about it, and I started to look around, and I started to figure out an angle.
You know, I mean, that's what you're always looking for as a journalist. You know, you know that most of the subjects you take on are too big for you to try to write about the whole thing. So we use that term, the journalistic angle, because you're, you're really just talking about looking at a thing from one specific spot.And, and then trying to represent the whole from that particular angle.
And, and I think when, when I choose to write about something, it's when that idea of what the angle is kinda comes to me and sort of emerges out of my subconscious or whatever. Um, I can't explain how that happens, [laughs] um, but that probably does explain why I pick some stories over others. Well, I, I think Oklahoma Watch found the perfect person in you to do this, and the background of nonfiction to this, I think, is quite apropos.
In the, if you happen to be- Well, um, you've got a lot of great writers at Oklahoma Watch. Oh, abso- well, well, one of the things I've noticed, J.C., about doing this with Oklahoma Memo, I, you know, I'm a baseball fan, and I think in terms of baseball cards. I wish we had journalism baseball cards, 'cause I think of all the folks at Oklahoma Watch, Oklahoma Voice, KOSU, The Frontier. I mean, they're just...
I've, I've only met a handful of them, but I recognize their work immediately, and I'm like, "Oh, this person's really a rock star in what they do." And my goal is to, to shine light on the light that you're shining out there, so. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, it's, it's, it's been a big surprise to me. You know, I live in Tulsa, um, and, and, you know, what's happening in Tulsa right now, there's a number of, of different and new news outlets that, that are emerging.
It's, it's, it's really a kind of golden age for different kinds of, of journalism, um, in Oklahoma in general. There's, you know what I mean? There's, there's On Док, there's The Voice, there's The Flyer, there's The Pickup. You know, there's, there's all these different outlets, and, and they're all doing things that are slightly different.
You know, it's, it's... And you put them all together, and, and we just have this massive range of coverage, um, that is happening and available. Well, one of... Not, not all of those newsrooms can afford to have a, a digital person to help them amplify, so I'm hope that I can sort of fulfill that role. Uh, and in the YouTube video for this, viewer, if you're watching this, I will have the links to all of J.C.'s work on this story in the description.
If you're listening to this on audio, be sure and leave us a five-star review. That helps this get discovered by other folks. Uh, but I've been talking with J.C. Hallman about, uh, his series of stories in Oklahoma Watch with regard to State Farm. It's generated a ton of interest. And J.C., I thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. [upbeat music]