A recovery management company hoping to force federal regulation of the insurance industry has created a database for personal injury lawyers to obtain information on liability cases where insurers are delaying payments to plaintiffs in settled cases at an “alarming rate.”

The Halpern Group, based in Springfield, N.J., launched IIEWS, saying a lack of federal oversight of insurance not only permits insurers to not make necessary payments to plaintiffs in suits the insurers lose, but also is hiding insurers’ efforts to avoid or delay paying plaintiffs in cases where a judge has approved a settlement.

“I believe that the insurance industry is in far worse condition than is being reported by the state insurance commissioners and the carriers themselves since we are seeing numerous insurance companies use unacceptable and alarming tactics to delay payments whenever and wherever possible,” said Richard Halpern, CEO of The Halpern Group, in a statement.

“Settlements are being delayed at an alarming rate, and this sorry situation affects many injured persons and their families; plus, it forces many of these plaintiffs to remain on taxpayer-funded entitlements until recoveries are paid,” he said.

The database was developed to “prove what we suspect is going on, is in fact going on and so that our elected officials can take the appropriate action before we have an onslaught of other insurance company bailouts that will cost the taxpayers additional hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Halpern suggested that the American International Group‘s bailout by the federal government, costing taxpayers at least $170 billion, is in part caused by poor state regulation of insurance.

“Lack of federal regulation of the insurance industry is not only leading to slow payment of plaintiff’s claims, but also wreaking havoc on the global economy as failures by companies like AIG force taxpayers to bail them out,” Halpern said.

Partnering with members of the Academy of Trial Advocacy and the American Association for Justice, The Halpern Group’s IIEWS database aggregates insurance company settlement information from individual attorneys. This information will then be provided to attorneys so that they can prove trends of behavioral aberrations and delinquencies to their members of Congress, the company said.

“This information, in turn, can help reverse the grip that the insurance industry has had on the political process by finally forcing federal regulation of the industry,” according to the statement.

Halpern said the database’s value is in “concretely showing the ongoing pattern of systematic misbehavior of insurance companies.” The database is “a very powerful tool for attorneys, and one that will be extremely useful in efforts to regulate the industry,” Halpern said. “It’s the hard evidence attorneys need to push officials to do the right thing, which we hope will ensure that more AIG-like situations can’t happen in the future.”

Even though state insurance commissioners continue to affirm that insurance companies are solvent and should, therefore, have no trouble paying claims, many insurers increasingly act as if they don’t have the funds needed to make payments, which leaves injured people, their families and even U.S. taxpayers in the balance, Halpern said.

“It’s apparent from our review of the IIEWS data that insurance companies have been needlessly postponing plaintiff’s payments long after cases have been settled,” Halpern said. “And the problem has only worsened since the recession began.”