Letter to R. Looyenga CEO of Auto Owners Insurance Company

Mr. Roger L. Looyenga
CEO Auto Owners Insurance Company
6101 Anacapri Blvd.
Lansing, MI 48917

August 15, 2006

Dear Mr. Looyenga:

On your web page under Core Values the number one value out of ten is Honesty. My experience with Auto Owners proves this is a lie. I suppose that is just window dressing but otherwise completely meaningless considering our almost seven year history.

Today for some reason I googled your name and came up with a lot of personal information about you and the things you are interested in.

Such as giving speeches to different insurance groups around the country. Your philanthropist work for sick children. Your career and educational history. I even had a chance to see a photo of you and it was good to put a face to a name. You really look like a normal man and not someone who would be capable of deliberately destroying another human being.

The lawyer that was hired to defend Auto Owners in the lawsuit on the other hand does appear to be a destructive person and takes personal satisfaction from looking at someone in the face and knowing he is about to ruin their life and in fact take someone’s life. I don’t know what he has against me but in mediation I was asked by my lawyer BT and the mediator Judge S I knew Bolster in the past and what was our connection. They observed his intensity when dealing with me and it appeared to all of us that this was highly personal; his action against me.

As for Monica Gardener, she looked lost and like she wished a hole would open up so she could drop into and disappear distancing herself from the devastation in the mediation.

So this brings me to the present. The time that I feared has come; I am letting go of my home. I can no longer care for it. It was a dream of mine for many years to own my own home. I worked for a few years to save up to buy a house and get my credit perfect. I was successful and the complete process from signing the contract to purchase and closing was about three weeks and this was in Dec. 1997. I have loved this home intensely. I have spent countless hours turning the yard into a cottage type garden complete with my favorite perennials. I now have three weeks from moving day to get my family to help me dig up as much as possible and transfer to containers. I cannot leave my irises, columbines, hundreds of lilies and purple cone flowers. The bulbs (about 5,000) will have to stay as I do not have the energy to concern myself with digging them up nor the time. So I will grieve for this garden and the ones I left behind.

I am also giving my last dog to the humane society and moving back to Atlanta to be near my children so they can care for me. Johannes sister and mother died not too long ago from an illness that was unknown to me and I could not afford to take them to the vet. Tonight when I let him inside for the night I started sobbing at my betrayal of this very sweet and kind dog. Do you know someone who might give him a good home?

Please help me place Johannes so he won’t be destroyed. I don’t think I could live with that. He really is wonderful considering he is a Rottweiler and they have a bad rep. He does not. He is not very smart but makes up for it by his gentle nature.

I just don’t know what to say to you Mr. Looyenga that I have not already said to convince you how wrong it was the things that your company and the lawyer you hired did to me. I don’t want to get into all that again. I have included passages of different letters I have sent to the following persons who work for your company.

Your company and your lawyer inflicted severe emotional and financial stress on me during the time before the day of mediation and that day as well. You set on me a snarling and rapid dog; your intention was to cause me financial ruin and the ruination of my health. Is that right?

Do you know what it feels like to have a heart attack? It hurts a great deal. But even worse than that it is scary. Well I had a heart attack on March 14 2006; it has been coming for a long time. The sedentary life I was forced to lead after I was hurt in that accident 12/31/1999 began with the damaged knee, the nerve damage and subsequent intractable pain and also hypertension, elevated cholesterol, elevated glucose levels which are very close to diabetes type 2. The heart attack left me with heart failure and an ejection fraction of 30 percent. In other words, my life has been jeopardized. I feel like you would not have wanted this to happen to anyone. Who would? But it did happen.

Your company did not cause the original accident. But the blame for everything else can be laid on your side. Your company took away the tools I needed to help me stay well and the stress inflicted caused irreversible damage to my heart. The actions of your company caused so much stress on me I can’t begin to describe it. It has harmed my family as well.

Your company also caused the end of two relationships I was involved in. The first one ended about four months after the accident; this person could not deal with what she observed happening to my body. The other one ended eight days after the heart attack. My then partner and best friend for over six years walked out on me telling my sister in the hospital that she could not stand by and watch me die. So I have had to go it alone through all the trials and tribulations of the car accident, the injuries, treatments and the losses. I am a strong woman but some things are just too much to bear or deal with over the long haul. Well I was a strong woman and by moving to be with my family perhaps I can gain something back. We hope so anyway.

My grandson M a few years ago (right after the mediation) began asking questions about the accident and what was happening with me. I explained what happened the best way I could. He asked me “Grandma Cookie, do you hate the lady who hit you and caused all this trouble?” I said, “No M, it was just an accident. That lady seemed to be nice and she would not be the kind of person who would wish these bad things on someone else. M, I do have bad feelings for the lawyer though. When you are older I will explain what happened. It is too much for you to deal with right now at your age.” He was 11 then. My grand-daughter A said she hated that woman and I explained the harm hating does to self and that the accident was just that an accident and not on purpose.

I think it is only right that I begin the process of suing your company for intention infliction of emotional distress. I have to find out first if I can file the lawsuit in Atlanta. I read that recently Auto Owners lost a case in Florida in a Bad Faith lawsuit and it cost your company $7 million dollars. I have got to try and recuperate the losses inflicted on me by your company and Jeff Bolster. If this happened to you or someone in your family; wouldn’t you think it was only right and far to sue that company?

My credit is in shambles when before it was excellent. I will probably never be able to buy another home or vehicle. I will voluntarily have to surrender this house. The house is not in the best of neighborhoods and there are already 10 for sale signs here.

K, the city where I live was hit with the worst lay off in North Carolina’s history; over 5,000 people lost their jobs at Pillow Tex less than two years ago. So the economy here is terrible and so is the housing market. There is no way with my poor health that I can continue to live in this house in hopes of the economy getting better so I can sell it and make some sort of profit to buy a place in Atlanta.

So I am forced into renting a one bedroom apartment and surrendering this house back to the Bank. How I hate the thought of renting and no longer having my own home and garden. I love my house despite the neighborhood. I spent many happy hours alone with my thoughts while my hands were in the dirt creating art in the form of a cottage garden. My garden changed the face of our neighborhood. You can see hundreds of butterflies here; so many types of birds especially the families of cardinals and yellow finches who have made a home here in my yard.

I remember one day when all three of my dogs were still alive. They were wandering around the large butterfly bush in the back yard. A huge monarch butterfly settled itself on Johannes’s head; opening and closing his wings while my dog was completely unaware of this butterfly sitting on his head.

Another time Midnight, my oldest cat escaped from the house. All three of my cats are indoor furr babies. He ran out the door and ran to the closet flower bed that was bursting with blooms and huge bumble bees. Midnight loves to stick his nose into the center of flowers so he was busy doing that and all of a sudden this bee caught his eye. He jerked his head back suddenly and you could almost hear him yelling “Whoa! What is that?”

I also caught him sniffing the orange lilies which were in a vase on my kitchen table. I walked into the kitchen and caught him in the act. He pulled his face away and looked at me like “what are you looking at?” He is a black cat and he was wearing an orange mask made of pollen!

I do apologize for the length of this letter but there are situations that you should be aware of; since your position is one of high importance your employees probably have not informed you of me and my situation with your company. I would love to think that you know nothing of what has transpired.

I am very ill presently with little hope of getting much better. I do feel living close to my children will be a very positive move and I pray it does have a positive affect on my health. I sleep between 12 and 16 hours at a time. It is a combination of many factors such as all the medications which many cause drowsiness; the incredible heat here in NC has had a negative affect, the heart failure from the heart attack makes patients feel tired and so does having an ejection fraction of 30 percent. The day before the heart attack I had a stress test and they used dobutaline to stimulate my heart like I had been exercising hard, they used this iv med because I cannot walk on the treadmill and there was no chance to get my heart up to the required rate.

Presently these are my medications:
Cymbalta 90 mg once a day
Oxycotin 20 mg three times a day
Valium 5mg and Celebrex 200mg as needed for pain and anxiety.
Crestor once a day
Plavix 75mg once a day
Aspirin 81 mg once a day
Wellbutrin once a day
Lopressor twice a day
Lisinopril 10 mg once a day

I once again loose Medicaid at the end of this month and have no idea how to pay for these medications.

In conclusion I am enclosing a time line for your attention. It makes it very clear the terrible things I have been forced to endure and the damage your company has inflicted upon me and my losses I have endured as well. How much do you think all these doctor appointments and surgical procedures cost? One hell of a lot more than the $21,000 that ya’ll settled on me you can be sure of this.

Mr. Looyenga, this letter has given you the opportunity to get to know me and that I am not some sort of flake or lawsuit bunny. I am a normal person and something bad happened to me that was not my fault. This was all further complicated by the events of the lawsuit my lawyer filed against your company. And all these events have led to tragic results. It is my intention to let you get to know my family as well. I have a lot of video tape I will share with you. I also have video tape of me walking, running, playing, planning a baby shower for my daughter B and me running around in high heels for a few hours being the hostess.

I am also going to introduce you to my grandchildren of whom there are now seven of them. M is the eldest at 12 and a brainy but sweet boy. B is 12 and she is my step-grand-daughter through the marriage of my daughter B. A is now 11 and she is B’s first child. Then there is S, sister of B another one of my step-grand-daughters; what a pretty teenager she is and very sweet. N is almost four and looks like a future line backer for the Atlanta Falcons and he loves dinosaurs and we play dinosaur games when I visit. He is the brother of B and S and he also calls me Grandma Cookie. Now comes Z who was adopted three years ago by my daughter B. Z birth parents are from Somalia and this precious child is incredibly beautiful, completely spoiled and so smart! She is going to be very tall and her birth mother looks like the famous model Imam. And last but not least is J who was born on Jan. 25th the second and last child of my daughter B and her husband J. His name is JT but we call him JT and he is such a sweet laid back baby. He can spend alone time just playing with his toes and be a perfectly happy cuddly baby which is what I love a nice dimply baby that loves to be held and cuddled. He rarely cries and that is only when he is hungry.

I should have written this letter two years ago and maybe the problems between us could have been resolved.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. I would love to hear back from you.
Sincerely,
nac

Excerpts from letters written to your employees, co-workers and lawyer. Only Mr. Froman has sent a letter back and it was a threat of a lawsuit against me if I didn’t stop telling people about this case. I told him to bring it on.


Claim #35-00120-00
The name of persons I have sent letters to.
Mr. Edwin R Skinner
Ms. Carolyn Gilgen
Mr. John W. Fisher
Mr. R. L. Looyenga
Mr. John W. Fisher
Mr. Greg L. Cornell
Mr. Ron Simon
Ms. Monica Gardner
Mr. Thomas Froman

I never did mail this letter. It wan't do any good because those people have feelings only for $$$$$$$$$$ and they must not be human.