Three ProPublica projects are finalists for the 2023 Gerald Loeb Awards for Distinguished Business and Financial Journalism.
“Uncovered” and “The Ugly Truth: Inside the ‘We Buy Ugly Houses’ Company” were both named finalists in the personal finance and consumer reporting category.
In collaboration with The Capitol Forum, “Uncovered” exposed the inner workings of health insurers as they avoided paying for expensive care, revealing how Cigna built a system that allows its medical directors to instantly reject a claim without opening a patient’s file.
The series led to wide-ranging impact. In response to the Cigna story, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Department of Labor both launched inquiries into Cigna’s policies, while state insurance commissioners are also examining this program. And lawyers filed class-action suits against Cigna in California and Connecticut. The series also unearthed a recorded call in which UnitedHealthcare officials laughed when discussing a decision to reject a lifesaving treatment for a Penn State University student. Just days after the story ran, United settled a lawsuit brought by the student. The series also empowered readers to find out why their own care was denied, and many health plans wound up reversing course and approving treatment, including covering drugs needed for two babies with brain cancer.
“The Ugly Truth” revealed how HomeVestors of America, the nation’s largest homebuyer, trained its more than 1,100 franchises to look for signs of desperation and pounce on distressed sellers. They sometimes used deception and targeted the elderly, infirm and impoverished.
The series made an impact before it was even published. Within days of receiving questions from ProPublica, HomeVestors prohibited its franchises from using aggressive legal tactics to prevent homeowners from canceling sales and, before stepping down, HomeVestors CEO David Hicks said, “This is going to make us a better company.”
“Checked Out: LA’s Lost Residential Hotels,” in collaboration with Local Reporting Network partner Capital & Main, was named a finalist in the local category. The series examined the city’s failure to protect existing low-cost housing amid a homelessness crisis, focusing on Los Angeles landlords who rented rooms in residential hotels to tourists in apparent violation of a 2008 ordinance. The investigation found at least 21 residential hotels, totaling more than 800 dwelling units, that had been openly advertising nightly rates online — a staggering loss considering the city’s housing emergency.
One day after our reporting, Mayor Karen Bass directed the Housing Department to investigate whether residential hotels were complying with the 2008 law. The Housing Department in turn ordered the owners of most of the 21 buildings to stop renting rooms to tourists and proposed measures to increase enforcement.
See a list of all Loeb Award finalists.
