Triple-A has been American drivers’ friend almost since U.S. roads linked the nation together. It has rescued families from flat tires and worse. It has planned millions of family vacations and sold well-regarded auto insurance. It has always skewed toward older drivers and welcomed their devoted renewal of memberships. Its employees got good benefits and stayed with the organization.

For all those reasons, it’s a shock to hear that-at least in Northern California-AAA is dumping senior employees like so much excess baggage, according to a lawsuit filed by 10 of them. At AAA’s California State Auto Club branch, successful veteran insurance agents report being fired or forced out and replaced with younger, cheaper hires and call center employees.

Drivers who have kept up their AAA memberships for decades should be steamed about this on principle. But there are practical reasons to be angry, especially for drivers with AAA auto, home or boat insurance.

The laid-off AAA insurance agents are the people you would have called if you had a policy question or problem with a claim. Or if you wanted to add your child to a policy. Or maybe just for advice-for instance about whether a rental car is covered or whether your auto insurance is good in Canada.

Where are you going to get that help now? Who you gonna call?

Your file would likely become a “house account,” often with no agent assigned. Maybe the call center kid can find your file, put you on hold and hunt for a manager to help him figure it out. The hourly workers answering the phone won’t know you from Adam.

If the same thing is going on at other AAA chapters, it’s not likely the public will know unless more lawsuits emerge.

The “why” of these dismissals is not complicated. Insurance agents get bonuses when they sell new policies and smaller yearly payments from the insurance company as policies are renewed. The agents are expected to earn your loyalty and keep you in the fold.

The senior agents service up to thousands of policies built up by sales over the years. This takes time, so they may sell fewer new policies.

By dismissing the agents, CSAA gets to keep their yearly servicing payment.

CSAA’s bet is that you won’t care enough to endure the thrash of taking your business elsewhere. The fact that anyone laid off at age 50 is unlikely to ever find a comparably paying job? Not AAA’s problem.

Layoffs off of older, higher-paid employees are nothing new in modern corporate culture. But this is a case when the fallout also harms the customer in a direct way. It’s worth thinking about before you dial the number on the AAA insurance brochure you got in the mail.

Posted by Judy Dugan, Research Director Emeritus for Consumer Watchdog

Dan Shea’s Aunt Kay was 83, vibrant and healthy in 2011, when she suffered terrible injuries in a head-on accident. Kay spent five months in the hospital rehabilitating and being repaired with so many metal parts that the family dubbed her “Iron Kay.”

Then the real fight began-one that changed Dan, a San Diego civic booster and Republican notable, into an implacable foe of insurance company tactics. He’s told Kay’s story in a short, even charming, video, “The Iron Lady,” that calmly exposes corporations trying to outwait Kay’s lifespan to preserve their profits.

Farmers and two affiliates of Nationwide have been resisting a settlement for more than two years and counting. It’s costing the corporations a bundle, but if Kay dies before their legal options run out, they’ll save a bundle. It’s a perfectly legal tactic, which Dan is determined to change. The fight is Kay’s reason for living through her pain.

Kay will never be the same: She can’t drive and can barely walk. She’s living with family and dependent on them. But she’s fully determined to get as far back to normal as possible.

Kay expected to at least recover financial independence, even after $800,000 in hospital bills. Both Kay and family of the 17-year-old boy in the truck were very well-insured by major companies. The boy was at fault, but there was no rancor between the families.

Then they encountered the insurance lawyers. It ultimately dawned on them that the insurance companies would benefit by delaying until Kay died, to make most of their liability disappear.

Kay originally did not want to sue, so Dan asked for mediation. Farmers Insurance, the boy’s insurer, agreed but stalled for months. Then the insurers offered a ridiculously low settlement–barely over half of the medical bills, much less her ongoing medical costs. Then they stalled some more and tried intimidating Kay with a long deposition about her life since adolescence.

When the case got to court in October of last year, within a few days a jury spurned the insurers’ argument that they really owed little, and awarded Kay $2.1 million dollars.

Kay hasn’t gotten a penny. The insurance companies stalled again, and on January 7 they demanded a new trial. When it’s denied, they can file for an appeal. That could string out for a year or two.

Dan Shea found that having plenty of insurance, no matter how much it costs in premiums, doesn’t mean the company will protect you when you need it. And that everything the insurers have done is within the law.

Dan and his family have the determination and resources to keep fighting, and Dan is calling on state legislators to fix these interminable delays.

The fix shouldn’t stop at auto and property insurance. There are also horrible insurance company incentives embedded in state medical malpractice law. For instance, if an infant is severely disabled by medical negligence, insurers for the doctor and hospital could have to pay millions for a lifetime of expert care.

If the baby somehow dies, its economic value dies, too. The law in California restricts dead-child lawsuits to such a low payout that grieving parents usually can’t even get a lawyer to take their case. So what incentive does an at-fault hospital or doctor have to keep that baby alive?

The same is true if the wronged patient suffers a terminal illness-why pay now if you can stall until the problem literally goes away?

We need more people with Dan’s determination to change this.

Posted by Judy Dugan, Research Director Emeritus for Consumer Watchdog.

TransCanada, the company that would build and own the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada’s tar sand fields to the U.S. Gulf Coast, has dialed up its lobbying in Congress after a U.S. State Department report that favored the pipeline. The giant oil pipeline is perfectly clean and safe, say the lobbyists. TransCanada will be using the best, newest technology, monitoring and materials. The citizens of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska and points south need not worry their little heads.

Then, BOOM! A TransCanada natural gas pipeline in Manitoba, Canada blew up in a spectacular fireball on January 25, reaching hundreds of feet into the air. It burned for 12 hours and only its rural location prevented a human catastrophe. (A nearly identical gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno, California killed eight people and burned a neighborhood in 2010). A TransCanada pipeline in Ontario exploded in a nearly identical manner in 2011. Another TransCanada pipe in Ontario blew up in 2009 as well.

A week after the Manitoba blast, TransCanada still didn’t know what caused it, or wouldn’t say.

Oil pipelines may fail without fireballs, but are no less dangerous to neighbors and the environment. No matter what a pipeline carries, maintenance and vigilance matter. But keeping a pipeline from exploding-or gushing a lake of flammable, toxic crude oil into local water supplies-isn’t a profit center. (What would pour out of Keystone XL is actually a slurry of corrosive tar and chemical-laced, highly flammable thinners.) To a corporation, safety spending is a dead loss. Only the lip service is free.

Ronald Reagan famously said of negotiating with the Soviet Union, “Trust, but verify.” The same goes for the promises of TransCanada, yet U.S. pipeline regulators are too strapped for staff and money to verify even existing pipeline safety, according to a New York Times story.

Another TransCanada pipeline explosion in 2009, in Ontario’s northern wilderness, was blamed on “95% corrosion” of the pipe. A Canadian government report said TransCanada’s inspection tools “failed to accurately assess” the level of corrosion.

The real question about the Keystone XL pipeline is why the United States should bear all of these risks, for no reward. A Consumer Watchdog study last year found that the pipeline, by sending Canadian oil overseas from the Gulf Coast, would actually raise gasoline prices in the U.S. The number of permanent jobs created would be paltry. Domestic oil production is rising and U.S. consumption is falling, so there is no economic rationale for more tar sands oil.

The XL pipeline, with all its attendant risks of spills, pollution–even deliberate vandalism or terrorism–is being built through America but not for America.

Canadians who understand the danger are turning down proposals for oil pipelines to their own Pacific coast.

Oh, and the U.S.State Department report that TransCanada’s lobbyists are waving so proudly? It was drafted by a subcontractor with financial ties to TransCanada. Chalk up one more reason why the U.S. should decline to be TransCanada’s beast of burden.

Posted by Judy Dugan, Research Director Emeritus of Consumer Watchdog.