Arkansas Insurance Commissioner Allen Kerr was serving in the Arkansas legislature when
Farmers Insurance Group terminated him for cause. Jay Bradford, who was insurance commissioner at the time, in 2011, allowed Kerr to keep his license.
It was a complicated case, and Farmers eventually agreed to pay a fine for mishandling the situation and accusing Kerr of understating risks when writing commercial policies. Even Governor Asa Hutchinson agreed that Kerr had done nothing wrong and appointed him to serve as insurance commissioner at the conclusion of Bradford’s term.
Still, today it becomes clear that glass houses can be uncomfortable places to live. Now, another former Arkansas insurance commissioner, Mike Pickens, has filed suit alleging that his client, Steve Cotroneo, had his own license revoked unfairly by Bradford just before the end of his term. Kerr refused to grant a rehearing and now is being accused of unfairness.
“Allen Kerr received unprecedented and highly unusual preferential treatment due to his position as a sitting legislator at the time Farmers terminated him for cause,” Pickens wrote in the court filing.
The cases are completely different—Cotroneo is accused of misappropriating funds—but at its heart this current litigation points to the importance of appearances. That a sitting commissioner once had his own license up for revocation, and kept it, gives anyone whose license is revoked the opportunity to question the process.
