A prominent businessman in Illinois disagreed with the payout from his son’s auto policy and retaliated in a unique way.
In retaliation for what an Illinois businessman felt was not a fair outcome in an auto payout following the death of his son, he is making insurance news by paying a portion of the final settlement using thousands upon thousands of pounds of quarters.
This, according to one of the attorneys who was involved in the auto payout case.
The attorney, Douglas Dorris, provided confirmation that when Roger Herrin came to the law firm to pay for a portion of the settlement, he was armed with 75 bags, each of which contained 4,000 quarters. Each bag weighed 48 pounds and totaled $75,000 and 3,600 pounds total. In order to haul the load away, the firm was required to hire a Brinks truck, upon which point the coins all needed to be counted.
Herrin made this insurance news making move in protest of the settlement that required him to pay.
Herrin is a retired podiatrist who is 76 years old. His company owns three nursing homes in Illinois and he remains a member of the Southern Illinois University board of trustees. He has also previously served on other state government boards. Among them was the Illinois Finance Authority.
This insurance news followed a case in which Herrin’s adolescent son, Michael, was killed in a car accident in June 2001. Michael had been a passenger in a Jeep Cherokee, when a truck ran a stop sign and struck the vehicle in which he was riding, according to the court’s records. Michael was killed when he was thrown from the vehicle. Two other teens in the Jeep – Ross Duncan and Jared Head – were also injured, as was Duncan’s mother, who was the driver at the time.
Court records also showed that there were a number of different types of coverage in Michael Herrin’s estate, totaling about $5.5 million. The insurance news started when a settlement offer of $1.65 million was accepted by Roger Herrin on behalf of the estate. Another $800,000 in coverage came from the Jeep owner’s policy, and the truck’s policy added another $100,000 in coverage, of which Herrin was awarded $677,851 by a judge.
However, the insurance news escalated when an appellate court determined that Herrin’s estate was not entitled to money from the Jeep owners’ coverage under Illinois law because it had already received a much larger payout. A settlement was then reached in which Herrin was required to pay back money to the other victims in the accident.
