Publicizing an Insurance Injustice
In September 2022, John and April Santangelo’s New Jersey home of nearly two decades burned down. Even though the Santangelo’s had religiously paid their homeowners insurance for nineteen years, the insurance giant State Farm refused to fully reimburse them the $500,000 needed to rebuild.
To negotiate with State Farm, the Santangelo’s hired the insurance adjuster agency United Public Adjusters.
After State Farm refused to increase its original settlement offer, United Public Adjusters asked Activist PR to contact the media.
Screenshot of our PR pitch (pinch to zoom)
Using details from a short YouTube documentary United Public Adjusters made about the Santangelo’s fight against State Farm, we wrote a PR pitch in the voice of John Santangelo. We distributed the pitch to over a thousand journalists in the New York City metro area.
A producer from ABC 7 Eyewitness News responded to our pitch. Days later, the award winning investigative journalist Nina Pineda interviewed the Santangelo’s at their burned down New Jersey home. Pineda then tweeted a photo of the Santangelo’s with a plea to State Farm to increase their policy payout.
The tweet worked! State Farm re-examined their original offer, discovered mistakes in their calculation, and increased their reimbursement by $89,000.
Eyewitness News subseqeuntly aired a segment about the Santangelo’s battle with State Farm with the happy ending. You can read an article about it here.