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I am adding a new blog to my list of must reads. David Brannen, an attorney in Canada, has a great personal injury blog. You can find it here. I cannot find any other personal injury blogs coming from Canada. This is a great resources, especially for those of you who read this from Canada (and yes, our audience is international). Check it out and let David know what you think of his blog.
There is a great opinion piece out of Austin, TX from the Austin Bar Association president, Randy Howry. A little background: the President of the Round Rock Express baseball team wrote to the Austin Statesman and complained about the number of lawsuits that resulted in large payouts by team owners. One problem.......the team has not been sued. OOPS!
The problem with tort reform is that the reformers just make stuff up. You read about lawsuit abuse, but they don't have the statistics, data or any information that supports their nonsense. They don't talk about the current laws that protect them from lawsuits or how the contingency fee system actually protects them from frivolous lawsuits. They don't talk about the record profits of the insurance companies or about the large number of lawsuits that businesses file against one another and individuals.
They don't talk about any of these issues. Why? Because when you start talking about these issues they lose the debate. The facts show that there is no lawsuit abuse issue. So, the next time you hear someone advocating for tort reform, ask them for facts.
After an auto accident, I have had more pain than I had prior to the accident. I believe the accident aggravated it, or increased the injury. Is the other person responsible?
The other person is responsible for all damages that they cause. Because you had a pre-existing problem, they are still responsible for the injury that you received after the accident. This is called the egg-shell plaintiff rule. The defendant is responsible for all injuries that they cause.
As an aside, sometimes your doctor will tell you that the other person is not responsible for this. Just as I do not practice medicine, your doctor should not practice law. If you have an increase in pain or other symptoms, talk to an attorney about your rights.
My car was hit. Am I entitled to collect the estimated cost of repairs, even if I do not intend to repair the damage?
You are entitled to collect the reasonable cost of repairs. Get an estimate from a reputable body shop. Also, remember that you are entitled to loss of use, or what would be rental expense if you fix the car, for a reasonable amount of time. Generally, this is $20 per day times the number of days it would take to repair the car. Ask the body shop who gives you the estimate how many days they think the repairs will take.
It is not often that I give insurance companies "props," so to speak. I am critical of a lot of what they do, although I do tell you when I come across something good.
Well, here is another good thing. Esurance has a great program to quote you. In about 3 minutes, I received a quote from them online and quotes from three of their competitors. Not bad. 3 minutes of my life and could have saved, well, nothing in this case. They were about $300 more per year than I am currently paying. However, it is well worth three minutes of your time to see how much you can save.
Caveat: I recommend you click on the apples to apples comparison instead of the other options. This lets you compare your current policy to their policy. If you do not have a policy, than you should read through the options and click on "standard."
Caveat 2: There is "agent" to help you and I don't always trust the people who are at a 24 hour call center, so it is best to call around as well.
According to the Boston Globe, Massachussets dog owners are mad at insurance companies. Why? Because the insurance companies are cancelling policies based on dog breed. Here is the argument.
Insurance companies say that certain breeds are dangerous. Why are they dangerous? Because they bite people. These dog bites cost the insurance companies money. So, they refuse to insure people who own these types of dogs. At this level, it makes some sense.
Dog owners say that this is unfair because they are all being lumped together. A person who owns and shows Mastiffs is being lumped in with the guy who buys a Mastiff to prove he is masculine. The first person probably provides great training to their dog and the second person may not provide any training. (I know these are generalities.) This makes sense as well.
Here is the problem. The insurance companies cannot, or will not, evaluate each person individually. This would be very expensive and ruin the economies of scale that they use to keep premiums lower and profits high. So, they have to come up with some guidelines. At the same time, it is not fair to take the person who shows his/her dog and deny them coverage.
My proposed solution: people who own dogs who are on the list (By the way, there is no one "list" but rather a list from each insurance company. Some of the dogs on some of the lists are ridiculous, like Pomeranians.) become insurable if they can show proof of providing training for their dog. This allows the insurance company some level of assurance that the pet owner is responsible and it allows the responsible pet owner to get insurance.
For more on this, read Massachusetts attorney Christopher Earley's blog about this same story.
I received a press release today that you can read here. Quite nice press release and the website for the firm is excellent. I would like to see a little more meat in the release, but really, if that is my biggest complaint, it is not that big of a deal.
But, then it got me thinking. How many of you understand why insurers outsource things like this? (For the record, most states require an insurance company to maintain a SIU, or Special Investigations Unit, to combat fraud.) Insurance companies outsource SIU, legal bill review, medical bill review and other functions. Ever think about why?
The basic reason is to save money. All businesses that are intent on making a profit will outsource. So, I can't complain about that. But, and here is where my problem comes in, if you have a claim, the insurance company may refer you to SIU. It may even be your own insurance company. If you are referred to SIU, and SIU is outsourced, they (SIU, not this particular company) may have an incentive to try to prove fraud. Why? Because they have to justify their costs.
And it is not just SIU. If your medical bills are sent out under your med pay coverage, the billing service has to reduce the bills by some amount to justify their cost. That could leave you in a position where you still owe your doctor money, despite having med pay coverage.
Just something to think about. When you hear from an adjuster or an investigator, ask them who their employer is and whether it is your insurance company or an outside company.
Okay, by itself many of you who read this article probably do not care. After all, most of my readers are in California, and even those in Ohio should know that there is twice as much premium for small aircraft than for earthquake exposures. So, Allstate pulling out is not a huge deal.
But, and you knew there had to be a but, this part of the story kills me. Allstate's spokeswoman said "The current insurance model is not well-suited for handling losses from low-frequency, high-severity, mega-catastrophic events." Huh?
Let me explain in English. Low frequency means you do not see a lot of claims. High severity means each claim is expensive. So, she is saying that insurance is not suited for handling something that does not happen very often, but is expensive when it happens. Isn't that what insurance is for?
After all, if you have high frequency and low severity, they cancel you, right? So, you are in a position where Allstate will cancel you for filing a lot of claims but they cannot handle the rare, but expensive claim? This makes absolutley no sense. Just more double-talk from the insurance companies.
State Farm is being sued - AGAIN. This time, again, according to the Washington Post, whose coverage of this has been excellent, it is related to Hurricane Katrina losses. In this case, there is an interesting twist. The couple who is suing has two reports from the engineering firm that State Farm hired. The first report says the damage was wind related, a covered cause of loss, and the second one says the damage was flood related, which is not covered. State Farm, using the second report, denied the claim. State Farm says it only received one report and that they never asked the engineer to change the report, but their spokesman said "State Farm contacted Forensic once it was determined this claim could more accurately be evaluated if we included an engineering review with our own claims analysis."
Apparently State Farm has a few issues here. Their insureds, the people suing, received the first report from their agent. So, someone at State Farm received that first report. Second, State Farm may not have said "Go change your report," but when you ask the engineer to re-evaluate the loss, you are asking for a change in the report. State Farm should at least admit that.
And third, and most importantly, when I was an adjuster there was a simple rule: if there is any doubt in coverage, you give the benefit to the insured. Here, there is clearly a doubt. State Farm's own expert says coverage and then no coverage. That seems like doubt. As in baseball when the tie goes to the runner, in insurance, the tie goes to the insured. State Farm needs to step up, pay the claim, and admit a mistake. That is the right thing to do.
We will now see if you really are in good hands.
