HOUSTON – A video has recently surfaced of a Texas law firm boasting about involving a state representative in litigation against the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association.
Channel 2 Investigates published the video on Nov. 27, which shows Rick Daly, a partner at the insurance litigation firm Daly & Black, discussing his connection with Rep. Todd Hunter, a Republican out of Corpus Christi, at a July presentation to the city of Ingleside.
"What we've done is team up with Todd Hunter, who, you know, the representative that lives in Corpus and another law firm, we are handling the hurricane claims that seem to be pretty predominant in this area," Daly says in the video.
Hunter
“And that is part of the reason that we got him and Todd Hunter involved. Because we knew that there was going to be a political aspect to all this and in order to get everybody made whole and to get the cities back up and running, you got to have a combination of people who know the law, and people who have political connections and people have money and people who can do the work, and that is why we put this team together.”
According to TWIA, more than 300 lawsuits have been brought against it since Hurricane Harvey made landfall – 231 of which are being handled by Daly & Black.
Hunter, a lawyer, has been openly critical of TWIA the past year, promising to try and reform the quasi-governmental entity when the legislature meets in January.
Before being elected in 2008, Hunter worked as a lobbyist for TWIA.
Texans for Lawsuit Reform credited Hunter as leader in the fight to stop storm-chasing lawyers.
Hunter told Channel 2 that he hasn’t “profited much” on his collaboration with Daly & Black.
The connection between Hunter and the firm stretches back before the hurricane.
On May 31, 2016, Daly & Black contributed $10,000 to Hunter’s campaign, campaign finance reports show.
Daly & Black claims to have recovered “billions of dollars” in its representation of “thousands of clients” in insurance litigation.