A Florida mother was arrested for saying the phrase “Delay, Deny, Depose” — in an apparent reference to the targeted UnitedHealthcare CEO killing — on a call to a health insurance company over a denied claim.

Briana Boston, 42, was arrested at her Lakeland. Fla., home on Tuesday after allegedly making threats on a call to BlueCross BlueShield regarding the denial of a recent medical insurance claim, WFLA reported.

Boston ended the recorded conversation with the company rep by saying “Delay, deny, depose. You people are next,” Lakeland Police said, according to the local outlet.

Detectives with the Lakeland Police later showed up at Boston’s home and questioned her about the phone conversation with the insurance giant.

The mother of three then told cops that “healthcare companies played games and deserved karma from the world because they are evil.”

Boston does not own any firearms and claimed to cops that she “was not a danger to anyone,” WFLA reported.

But police said the angry mom intended to threaten the company by purposefully invoking a phrase strikingly similar to the one Luigi Mangione allegedly scrawled on bullets he’s accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson with.

Mangione, who is facing a murder charge in the slaying, allegedly wrote “Deny,” “Defend,” and “Depose” on ammunition recovered at the murder scene outside a Midtown Manhattan hotel.

The three words are a play on the title of the 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It” which criticizes the American healthcare system.

“Delay, Deny, Defend” — known as the “three d’s of insurance” — refers to companies’ alleged schemes to limit medical claims in order to drive up profits.

Boston faces charges of threats to conduct a mass shooting or an act of terrorism, according to an affidavit reviewed by WFLA.

“She’s been in this world long enough that she certainly should know better that you can’t make threats like that in the current environment that we live in and think that we’re not going to follow up and put you in jail,” Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor said, according to the outlet.

The judge set Boston’s bail at a steep $100,000, calling it “appropriate considering the status of our country at this point,” WFLA reported.

Gus Malzahn made an unusual move nearly two weeks ago, giving up a Power 4 head-coaching job to become an assistant again.

The 59-year-old Malzahn — Auburn’s head coach from 2013-20 — left Central Florida after four seasons to become offensive coordinator at Florida State under Mike Norvell. He told reporters in Tallahassee on Wednesday that the demands of the head-coaching job were different than when he first got into the game, and not in a good way.

“The job description of a head college football coach has changed dramatically in the last two years with everything — transfer portal to collectives to agents and everything that goes with that,” Malzahn said. “I’m just an old-school football coach.

“I love coaching football, and head coaches, it’s hard to do that a lot. So that had something to do with it. And then the opportunity and being familiar with Mike and having so much respect for this university, coached against this university in the national championship. I know what this place is capable of doing.”

Malzahn was fired in 2020 after eight seasons at Auburn, whom he coached to an SEC championship in 2013 and an SEC West title in 2017. He went 68-36 with the Tigers and 29-24 with the Knights, but just 4-8 this season.

Malzahn now joins the program that denied him a national title after the 2013 season, when the Seminoles beat Auburn 34-31 in the BCS national championship game. He gave up a $5 million salary at UCF to earn $1.5 million at Florida State and will try to turn around an offense that averaged a little more than 15 points per game as the Seminoles collapsed from 13-1 and ACC champions in 2023 to 2-10 this year.

“I’m a big believer you’ve got to run the football downhill,” Malzahn said. “It makes everything better as far as pass protection, better on the quarterback, everything. … And we’ll get that done.”

Malzahn made his name as an offensive coordinator, spending time at Arkansas and Tulsa before Gene Chizik hired him at Auburn in 2009. Along with quarterback Cam Newton, he helped the Tigers to a 14-0 record and the BCS national championship in 2010.

Malzahn left Auburn after the 2011 season to become head coach at Arkansas State, whom he led to a 9-3 record in one season. After Chizik was fired after the 2012 season, Malzahn returned as head coach.

Throughout his tenures at Auburn and UCF, Malzahn struggled with the idea of whether or not he should be both the team’s head coach and primary play-caller. Norvell had similar issues last year at Florida State, and has turned play-calling responsibilities over to Malzahn.

“Our foundation on offense is from the same family,” Malzahn said. “He’s got his own wrinkles, and I’ve had my own wrinkles. But there is a lot more things that are in common. We still have the same terminology, the way we identify things like formations and player alignment, numbers.

“That’s why it’s a really, really easy transition. We’re going to play fast. I think that’s the No. 1 thing. We’re going to play fast.”

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

Guy Carpenter said it is starting a research project to explore the use of parametric insurance solutions in California and Florida for wildfire and hurricane risks.

The effort will focus on the use of a “community-based parametric reciprocal exchange,” the reinsurance broker said.

“Insurance plays a critical role in recovery from natural disasters, but many households and small businesses do not have sufficient coverage to fund repair and rebuilding due to affordability of products, limited risk awareness, or behavioral biases in decision making,” said Guillermo Franco, global head of cat risk research at Guy Carpenter, a part of Marsh McLennan. “Community-based catastrophe insurance programs like parametric reciprocal exchanges, may constitute an innovative way to help close this protection gap in the US and speed up payments to aid recovery, which will enhance the financial resilience of communities.”

The research will be conducted in collaboration with Guy Carpenter’s Parametric Advisory and Public Sector teams, the Institute of Environment at Florida International University, the Climate Adaptation Center in Sarasota, the Center for Coastal Climate Resilience at UC Santa Cruz, and the University of Michigan. The goal, according to Guy Carpenter, is to gauge the regulatory environment for parametric reciprocal exchanges, identify best practices in communicating the value of such a model, and engage with local communities to establish the foundations for larger scale research and pilot projects.

This research project dovetails with Guy Carpenter’s larger work in advocating for community-based catastrophe insurance (CBCI), a concept it developed in partnership with the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center and Marsh McLennan.

Source: Guy Carpenter

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