Central to the goal of reducing payouts was preventing policyholders from hiring lawyers, she said, because “represented” clients on average got payouts multiple times bigger than claimants who didn’t hire legal help. “We were told that Allstate was going to change the way claims were handled so that claimants could not get lawyers,” Reed said. In other words, beat down the opposing counsel by fighting every motion in court, making it so time-consuming and expensive that lawyers would reconsider filing suit against Allstate. This was the “boxing gloves” part of the strategy. “More people
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