In the beginning of this BP oil disaster, I reported how BP initially tried to get fishermen to sign waivers when they joined the Vessels of Opportunity. I was able to get a copy of one of the waivers, which we showed the nation on MSNBC’s “Countdown.” BP later claimed the waiver was mistakenly included in the packets.
Then we heard that anyone who asked got a $5,000 check from BP as an advance on their future claims. Checks were supposedly freely given on the spot in May and again in June. Our investigations and a review of the claim numbers supplied by BP showed that the average check was under $3000 and we couldn’t find many locals that got $5K claim advances.
At his press conference at our EOC, BP VP of Resources Daryll “What you talkin’ about” Willis said that all claims were being processed within 48 hours. Willis was in newspapers across the Gulf repeating that lie. Many local business owners are on their fifth claim adjuster and have seen the claim rules change with each adjuster. Some have yet to be paid for their May losses. After being called out, Willis and BP have since stopped using that figure.
Yesterday I reported that BP has once again changed how losses will be calculated.
Now CNN Money is reporting that the $5K claim advances have been cut to $1K.
Here are the latest claim stats from BP:
* $157.6 million paid
* 51,000 checks written since May 3 (9 weeks) —RO note: average $3,090
* 118,500 calls received 6 second average call wait time—RO note: only 1768 per day, 74 per hour, but the number looks impressive
* 14,700 claims submitted online (as of June 29)—RO note: 257 per day
* 35 field offices, with translation capability at 9
* 100,700 total claims —-RO note: Small number for five-state disaster
* 1300 member claims team——RO Note: But how many claim adjusters?
* 5 day average time from “claim to paid” for individuals who have received checks
* 8 day average time from “claim to paid” for commercial entities who have received checks
* More than 45000 claims are awaiting documentation—RO note: 45% of total claims
* More than 12,800 claims have “contact difficulties”—-RO note: 13% of total
(All numbers are rounded)
The numbers don’t quite work
Total claims: 118,500
Less:
Claims awaiting document 45,000
Claims with contract difficulties: 12,800
Net: 57,800 claims that are okay, but only 51,000 checks have been written. And according to BP, some fishermen and businesses have received more than one check.
More fuzzy math from BP.