The following is a harrowing experience which I have tried to be as concise as possible. A lot of time and money on everyone’s part has been wasted on trying to get Allianz Insurance and Blue Hawaiian Helicopters to do the legal and morally correct thing.
This is the summary of an example how a helicopter company and a big German insurance company deceived and tried to bully a small landowner.
On November 11th 2010 a Blue Hawaiian site seeing helicopter tour crashed and killed all souls aboard. The helicopter crashed in the middle of a jeep trail that is used by the owner and many locals to hike and hunt the area. After the crash the landowner waited for contact from the insurance company Allianz or Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Company to find out what the protocol on a matter like this was. No communication was ever received. The landowner realized that people had perished and knew that there must be certain procedures that must be followed and it was a devastating crash so he waited to be contacted. After not being contacted, the landowner contacted Dave Chevalier of Blue Hawaiian Helicopter Company. Dave Chavalier told the landowner to contact their insurance company - Allianz Insurance.
During this whole time, the landowner made numerous attempts to find out what the protocol was for a circumstance like this. He left messages for Timothy McSwain the Chief Claims Officer with Allianz Aviation at the head office in New York .The landowners’ attorney also called but received no call back.
The landowner contacted Allianz insurance company and was told that the property was clean and there was nothing else to do. The landowner disagreed and said that there was contamination and much debris still left on the property. The insurance company disagreed with the landowner and said he was wrong. The landowner had to take pictures of the crash site and send them to Allianz showing the remaining debris which included small helicopter parts, personal effects of the victims and parts of melted helicopter. Also at this time, the landowner requested to have soil tested. He was told by Allianz that all information would be given to him but when he called the soil testing company, he was stone walled. Later on in court, it came out that Allianz told the soil testing company not to give the landowner any information. They only tested for jet fuel and no other contaminants that appear after a helicopter crash. With the testing of the soil – one of the areas tested was above legal limits but the Hawaii Department of Health lead by Roger Brewer decided not to have Allianz clean it up. Does Mr. Brewer not know that when a helicopter crashes that there are heavy metals and other contaminants involved or did he just look the other way and not have them test for those. Not only was it polluted, but there were sharp pieces of metal and fiberglass sticking out of the ground as well as bones Mr. Brewer. The landowner had to do his own testing for the other contaminants and many other contaminants were found in the ground above legal limits. It is ironic that Roger Brewer writes testimonials for environmental firms.
After the presumed clean up a local doctor and his sons were walking up the jeep trail and found one of the victims leg bone with flesh still attached sticking out of the ground. This again was after Allianz Insurance told the landowner that the crash site area was cleaned up. The owner contacted the helicopter company again and the helicopter company said they would send someone to come and clean up. Don Cameron of Maui Helicopters was the person chosen by Allianz to clean up the area. After his first attempt, the landowner went up to the property and still there was debris everywhere. The landowner contacted the helicopter company again and Allianz sent Maui Helicopter up to clean up the site again. Once more, the landowner checked the crash site and there was still much debris. After the third time of Maui Helicopter going up to the site, the landowner hired another party to clean up. The parts that were found were sent to the NTSB with the coordinates of where the parts were found. The landowners’ cleanup crew was contact by the NTSB and asked where the parts came from since the clean up was the responsibility of the helicopter company and/or the insurance company. The NTSB said they had never heard of a landowner having to cleanup wreckage that should have been cleaned up by the Helicopter Company or Allianz. The landowner contacted the insurance company and asked about the fences that were torn down by people trying to access the crash site. The insurance company said they would fix the fencing. After almost a year of waiting, the insurance company told the landowner to fix the fence and send them a bill. The landowner had the fences repaired and sent the requested bill. As of today’s date, April 9th 2018 (over 7 years later) the bill remains unpaid by the insurance company.
The landowner contacted the insurance company again about the contamination. The response from the agent of the insurance company was that they were going to let it wash down the hill with his last word being “whatever” and hung up on the landowner. With his own time and money, the landowner reached out and got a bid for the property clean up which was $175,000.00. This was almost two years after the crash. There was a statute of limitations coming due and the landowner realized that if he had to sue the insurance company, the time and money it would take would be hundreds of thousands of dollars and a lot of time. The landowner offered a deal to the insurance company of $125,000.00 and he would pay the $50,000 difference to have the property remediated himself to avoid going to court. The insurance company refused to cleanup the property or pay any of the bills which forced the landowner take them to court. The insurance company thought at this point that the landowner did not have the resources to sue Allianz. After taking the insurance company to court, Allianz Insurance brought in their big guns. The law firm of Wilson Elser who touts on their website having nearly 800 attorneys was brought in to back up law firm Goodsill, Anderson, Quinn and Stife. The story continues of one person against this insurance conglomerate Allianz, Blue Hawaiian Helicopters and their numerous attorneys.
Now the story really gets interesting. After doing some research on the German insurance company Allianz, one of their well known moral dilemmas that they had and still have is insuring many Jewish people before World War II in Germany with life insurance. In World War II, many of these people that had life insurance perished in concentration camps. Allianz knew this but refused to pay stating a technicality. In Europe, they are also known to have bullied insured claimants by only paying a fraction of claims knowing that these people did not have the money to fight them and would have to settle. This is also the same company that does flight cancellation insurance – you can go on line and see the horror stories of those customers. So, Allianz, brings in their bug guns – our estimation is that they spent well over two million dollars fighting this case – wasting everyone’s time and money - including tax payers, jury members and the courts over a $125,000.00 case. At the beginning of the lawsuit, all parties were informed that the property owner filing the claim was misled and the actual crash site was on the adjoining property that was on the uphill side of the property of the plaintiff. So all the contaminants would wash down on the original plaintiffs property. Mr. William Katts tried to get the case dismissed on the grounds that they did not legally have to clean it up because it was on the neighboring property. Mr. William Katts and his big guns did not realize at the time that the property owner that sued Allianz was also part owner of the adjoining property.
The next excuse for not having to clean up the property was that the sales contract on the properties were not filled out correctly. Really? Really? Allianz wanted to get the case thrown out on a technicality (sound familiar).
After that trick did not work, Mr. William Katts asked, “ How do we know it’s our helicopter parts up there? One of their attorneys said it they might have been parts from a Jeep exhaust. – Again – Really? Mr. William Katts was also sanctioned for his bad behavior in this case. Among other things, off the record at a deposition with the landowner, William Katts told the landowner he did not like him. Mr. William Katts had never met the landowner nor spoken to the landowner prior to the deposition.
In court, the landowner testified that he spoke to the Allianz adjustor numerous times and the adjuster said that was not true. The landowner provided phone records and the adjuster then acknowledged that he was wrong. It was surprising that this Allianz adjustor provided no email exhibits but claimed that he could remember the events (but obviously not all the conversations).
The landowner tried to reach the Allianz Corporate Responsibilty team leader Sabia Schwarzer more than a dozen times with no response ever being received.
Blue Hawaiian, Air Methods and Allianz tout how much they care for the environment but everyone who has followed this case knows better. This is a fine example of Allianz throwing their insured under the bus.
Over seven years later there is still no resolution because it is being prolonged by Allianz Insurance Company in the courts. To help our fight - boycott Blue Hawaiian, Air Methods and Allianz Insurance.