Wendler & Zinzilieta, P.C.

01/28/2026

08/01/2025

🔥 The Great Insurance Excuse: Inflation 🔥

State Farm wants you to believe your crushing premiums are all thanks to inflation and rising repair costs.

But the U.S. Treasury just blew the lid off that story:

💰 Homeowners premiums jumped 8.7% faster than inflation from 2018–2022.
🚨 If your neighborhood gets hit by storms, your odds of losing coverage are 80% higher.
🐍 Insurers are pulling back, raising rates, and pocketing the float.

Here’s the part they’ll never tell you: They knew inflation was coming. They set rates with projections baked in.

They profit on inflation. Your premium sits in their investment accounts earning interest while they cry poor.

They’re not going broke, but they’re bailing. When risk rises, they leave you holding the bag.

And when the cost of shingles or lumber drops? Do you get a discount?
Nope.

This is the one-way street of corporate insurance: Your rates only go up.

💥 The bottom line: Insurance companies don’t exist to protect you. They exist to protect themselves.

💬 Have you been hit with higher rates, lost coverage, or felt abandoned when you needed your insurer most? Drop a comment. Y our story matters and the more we speak up, the louder the truth gets.



SOURCE: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy2791 #:~:text=Homeowners%20insurance%20costs%20are%20rising,costly%20for%20insurers%20to%20operate.

07/11/2025

🚨 GOVERNOR PRITZKER JUST CALLED OUT STATE FARM 🚨

And if you’ve dealt with their claim denials lately, you know exactly why.

At Wendler & Zinzilieta, P.C., we’re currently handling multiple cases where State Farm flat-out refuses to pay for clear storm damage. One of the most ridiculous?

⚠️ A roof where the caps and chimney flashing were damaged by hail. . . but somehow the shingles weren’t.

According to State Farm, the hail apparently had magical aim, targeting metal only and gracefully skipping over every shingle.

Give us a break.

Insurance companies love to hide behind policy language, but the truth is:

The decision is usually based on internal playbooks, not actual physics, common sense, or fairness.

And now they want to raise your premiums by 27%?

Pritzker said he’s “deeply concerned by State Farm’s unfair and arbitrary insurance rate hike” and that the company’s actions are “antithetical to the core principles that the Illinois business community is built on.”

If you’ve been delayed, denied, or lowballed on a storm claim, call us. We don’t back down. We expose the games and fight for what’s owed.

Because when State Farm pulls the curtain, we make sure a jury sees what’s behind it.

📍 Based in Maryville. Representing real people across Illinois and Missouri.


https://www.wsiu.org/state-of-illinois/2025-07-10/pritzker-attacks-state-farm-over-27-homeowners-insurance-rate-increase

07/09/2025

We weren’t born into boardrooms. We earned our seat at the table.

We’re proud to share that our own Angie Zinzilieta has been named to The National Trial Lawyers – Civil Plaintiff – Top 40 Under 40 list.

For us, awards aren’t the goal, but they’re just proof that fighting the good fight still gets noticed. Angie started her career by showing up for families when corporations tried to play games. No fancy connections. No shortcuts. Just grit, late nights, and a refusal to back down when the odds were stacked.

So when honors like this come around, we take a second to recognize what it really means: that underdogs can win, and when they do, it sends a message to every big corporation betting you’ll just roll over.

Back to work. We’ve got more fights to win.

07/04/2025

🇺🇸 This Fourth of July, We’re Celebrating the Most American Right You’ve Never Been Taught to Appreciate: The Civil Jury 🇺🇸

Forget fireworks for a second.
Let’s talk about something truly explosive.
Twelve regular people standing up to the biggest corporations in the world.

That’s the power of the American civil jury.
And guess what?
No other country does it like we do.

In most nations, justice is handed down by elites behind closed doors. But here?
We put our trust in everyday people, teachers, welders, nurses, farmers, retirees.
Because justice should never belong only to those with power, money, or influence.
It should belong to all of us.

At Wendler & Zinzilieta, we believe in the jury system because it’s the only thing standing between corporate giants and unchecked power.

It’s the only place left where truth matters more than spin, and people matter more than profits.

So today, as we celebrate America’s independence,
we’re also celebrating the everyday citizens who show up for jury duty,
listen with open minds,
and have the courage to say:
You don’t get to hurt people and walk away from it. Not here. Not on our watch.

Here’s to the power of the people.
Here’s to juries.
Here’s to justice.

06/27/2025

Where's Jake when you need him? Meet Jake the Flake™—State Farm’s boyfriend who ghosts you.

He says he’s there 24/7, but the moment you file a legitimate claim?
📞 Voicemail.
📧 Crickets.
🚪 Exit stage left with your premiums in hand.

At Wendler & Zinzilieta, we’ve seen it all—insurers who make promises in ads, then disappear when families need them most. Our clients deserve better than corporate gaslighting and radio silence.

So if your insurance company is acting more like Jake the Flake than a good neighbor, call us. We don’t ghost. We go to trial.

06/06/2025

Let’s talk about the greatest shell game in insurance.

As first-party policyholders, our clients are given the policy. That’s the contract. The playbook. The “rules.”

But guess what adjusters use to actually make decisions? Not the policy. Not the four corners of the document.

They use something else entirely:
-OGs (Operating Guidelines)
-Best Practices
-SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)

These internal documents dictate how the claim is handled, what the adjuster is allowed to do, how coverage is interpreted, and often, how to minimize payout.

Want to know the wildest part? They won’t let you see them. Not even in litigation, at least not without a subpoena, a motion to compel, and a battle to the death in chambers. And yet, you’ll hear adjusters say things like:

“I’m just doing what the OGs tell me to do.”

As if those hidden documents come with a cape and a sword.

So let me get this straight:
You sell a policy to a consumer.
That consumer pays their premiums, month after month, year after year. Then when the worst happens, the adjuster gets to follow a completely different, secret set of rules they’ll never show the insured?

That’s not just bad faith.
That’s institutionalized opacity.
That’s a rigged system dressed up in a logo and a customer service script.

It’s time for legislation.

If OGs, SOPs, and internal adjusting procedures are used to govern how a first-party claim is handled, then policyholders deserve access. This is not proprietary, this is accountability.

Policyholders built State Farm’s high-rises.
They fund Allstate’s dividends.
They deserve more than a black box behind the denial.

Let’s bring transparency to the documents that actually govern claims. Let’s make OG access a right, not a fight.

05/16/2025

Today, our very own Angie Zinzilieta took the stage at the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association’s “Justice Achieved” seminar in Chicago, presenting on one of the toughest parts of trial work: dismantling defense experts. Her topic? How to flip Rule 213(f)(3) into a strategic weapon.

This work matters. Not just in courtrooms, but for real people—our clients—who are up against deep pockets and delay tactics. And we’re proud to fight for them. Let's keep showing them how it’s done.

04/13/2025

When Your Insurance Company Screws It Up—Even When You Admitted You Screwed Up

Let’s say you rear-end someone. You admit fault. You expect your insurance company to pay the injured person’s medical bills and resolve it. Case closed, right?

Not if your insurer is State Farm (or one of their copycats).

We’re seeing more and more cases where liability is undisputed—and yet the insurance company still lowballs the injured person with offers that don’t even cover basic medical bills. Why? Because they’re betting the injured person will give up before trial.

And guess who gets dragged along for the ride?

You.
The insured defendant.
The person who tried to do the right thing.

Instead of closing the file, your carrier forces litigation—meaning you sit for depositions, you get dragged into court, and your name ends up on a public docket. All because the insurance company decided the bottom line was more important than doing the right thing.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: insurance is supposed to be a shield, not a sword. But when profits come first, everyone loses—plaintiffs, policyholders, and the public.

If you’re stuck in that mess, we’re the team you call.

03/21/2025

Zero dollars offered. Four days in trial. One jury verdict.

A federal jury in St. Louis just sent a loud and clear message: insurance promises aren’t negotiable—they’re obligations.

This week, after a four-day battle in federal court, we proved what our clients had known all along—when an insurance company acts in bad faith, they should be held accountable. The defense? They offered NOTHING before trial, banking on their usual tactics to get away with it. The jury saw right through it.

These cases aren’t just about money. They’re about trust, accountability, and refusing to let powerful corporations ignore their obligations to the very people who pay their premiums. It’s about standing up for the underdog when no one else will.

And today, justice won.