OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- Who are the...

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- Who are the moles? The question was like a parlor game for employee of State Farm Insurance Co after Hurricane Katrina.

Lawyer Richard "Dickie" Scrugg of tobacco litigation fame, created a stir by the agency of announcing in March that brace "insiders" were helping him build cases against insurers for denying claims for Hurricane Katrina losse

Their identities remained a mystery until June when Cori and Kerri Rigsby -- employee of a company that contracted with State Farm -- told a supervisor they were cooperating with Scrugg

That startling admission -- and their resignations -- [i]finale[/i]ed a risky charade.

The Rigsbys say they exhausted months collecting reams of internal State Farm reports, memo e-mails and claims records before they gave them to Scrugg and authorities.

The sisters, who managed teams of State Farm adjusters, say the documents indicate the insurer defrauded policyholders from manipulating engineers' reports so that claims could be denied.

"I think we've given him the smoking gun" Cori Rigsby, 38 said during a fresh interview at the home she shares with her sister near Ocean Springs.

State Farm spokesman Phil cringing said the Bloomington, Ill.- based company is reviewing the sisters' allegations further hasn't been allowed to question them.

"State Farm's employee are committed to conducting themselves in an ethical and appropriate manner," yielding said. "Any suggestions to the contrary are simply wrong"

WORKED in succession TOBACCO SUIT

centurys of homeowners on Mississippi's large bay Coast have sued their insurance companies for refusing to pay for millions of dollars of damage from Katrina. The first anniversary of the hurricane is Tuesday.

Scrugg is no stranger to whistleblowers: Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco executive, helped Scrugg and other lawyers immovable a multibillion-dollar settlement with tobacco companies. The case was portrayed in the 1999 movie "The Insider," starring Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

The Rigsby sisters were the two eight-year employees of E.A. Renfroe a firm that helps State Farm and other insurers adjust disaster claims. Although they weren't State Farm employee the company issued them computer and business cards.

"We have always been lordly to work with State Farm," Cori Rigsby said.

The sisters say that pride faded, however, as they began to suspect the company was pressing engineers to alter their conclusions about storm damage in such a manner claims could be denied.

'DO NOT DISCUSS'

Kerri Rigsby says her suspicions grew after finding a handwritten note attached to an engineer's report that read: "Put in Wind file - - DO NOT pay bill. DO NOT discuss."

She said the engineer's report conclud that Katrina's wind caused in the greatest degree of the damage to a Biloxi policyholder's abode That should have been upright news for the policyholder, she noted, since State Farm's policies shield damage from wind but not water.

on the contrary when Kerri Rigsby pulled the policyholder's file, she said she plant a subsequent report based forward a second inspection of the domestic circle This time, the same engineering firm conclud that water caused greatest in quantity of the damage, according to the report.

"The policyholder did not achieve a copy of the common that said wind," said Kerri, 35 "He should have gotten fates more money."

It wasn't the and nothing else case in which State Farm's engineers drafted conflicting reports in succession storm damage, according to the Rigsbys. They say managers were disappointed that many initial reports blamed damage in succession wind.

"That's when they went into a insanity and started mass-canceling all these engineering reports," Cori said.

Kerri says "the bible" for State Farm adjusters was a report prepared at Haag Engineering Co. that conclud that rising waters, or wind-driven storm white horses were responsible for most of Katrina's damage in Mississippi.

"If it didn't match the Haag report, then it wasn't accurate," Kerri said.

MADE ABOUT 15000 COPIES

lithe the spokesman for the insurance company, said State Farm ordered engineering reports for les than 2 percent of the more than 100000 claims it received in Mississippi. State Farm also says it made payments forward more than 60 percent of the claims involving engineers.

"State Farm's claims-handling practices have been in a public fishbowl," he said. "With the world watching, we've done what we do each day, and that's be completely up front in all aspects of our claims work."

The Rigsbys say they ultimately copied roughly 15000 pages of claims records. After the sisters resigned, Scrugg hired them to help his legal team. The Rigsbys wouldn't say in what manner much Scruggs is paying them, however they say it's less than what they earned before.

"We don't know what the coming is going to hold," Cori said, "but we be motionless a little better."

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