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If you have been affected by the fires in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Riverside counties or anywhere in Southern California, Syngery Workplaces is offering free access to their virtual office space in Irvine and Laguna Nigel.
I have been combing my resources for more information for fire victims. I already posted my claim tips on the blog. Here you can find fire claim tips from the great people at United Policyholders.
But, the other issue you may run into is underinsurance. Underinsurance is a situation when your insurance company did not write the policy for a high enough limit to cover the damage to your house. If you think this might be your situation, you should read this from UP.
And, if you need anything else, let me know.
Consumer Attorneys of California issued a press release today. You can read it here. The gist: Consumer Attorneys have banded together to provide free legal help to the victims of Southern California's wildfires.
Some information from the press release:
Among the groups offering support are members of AAJ, CAOC, Consumer Attorneys of San Diego, Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and United Policyholders, a non-profit group that helps insurance consumers.
Please read it and pass it along.
Personal injury attorney and friend Reza Torkzadeh posted about the Southern California fires. In addition to all of the other great information on his blog, he has provided a list of evacuation centers.
This is a great resource. If you know someone in Southern California who has been evacuated, you may be able to find them and bring them some necessities of life so they can have as normal an experience as possible. If you are going to be evacuated, you now know where to go.
Thanks toReza for this great list.
For those of you in LA, San Diego, Orange County, Riverside County, San Bernardino County, you may be asking what to do if your house is burned. Let me give some pointers here that I know I have given before on the blog, but let's face it: you aren't going to be reading through my blog looking at this point. You need it here and now. So, here are some things to do:
Remember, there are resources out there to help you. United Policyholders is a great resource. In the meantime, I am trying to find other attorneys to offer their help to you. While I am doing that, feel free to call or email me. The help is at no charge to fire victims in Southern California.
As many of you know, Southern California is on fire. San Diego and Los Angeles are having tremendous wildfires. Homes are burning, memories are being lost and people are being displaced.
San Diego is the place I call my hometown. I went to high school there and my mom still lives down there. I have many fond memories. And the neighborhood where I lived has suffered major fire damage.
Insurance companies have responded with "CAT" adjusters. But there are concerns for the homeowners. Will claims be paid? Will policies be canceled? Is relief coming?
As much as we would all like to help, most of us are not trained in fire suppression. So, I am going to make an offer to the residents of San Diego: if you are a fire victim and you are not getting a response from your insurance company or they are low-balling you, call me. I will help you pro bono. (Yes, that means free.) Heck, if you just have a question and need a quick answer, call me or email me. I hope my fellow attorneys will step up to the plate as well.
Insurer cancellations are on the rise. This is probably not news to those living in hurricane prone areas such as Florida or Texas. But, insurers are also cancelling policies in NY and Connecticut. Huh?
Some legislators are calling it a crisis. The insurers say they are only being smart about business and avoiding future risks.
Insurers need to remain solvent, for sure. But they are recording record profits. So, they apparently are going to be solvent for some time. And if every insurer cancels policies in some locations, where are those people to get insurance? Sure, insurers have a reason to be cautious in places like New Orleans or Texas, where hurricane damage has caused millions in losses. But, what exactly are the concerns in NY or CT or NJ?
For now, consumers need to be cautious about who they are getting insured with. Once you get a nonrenewal, start shopping around - and make sure you use a good broker!
I admit that I don't ride a bike very often. And, even when I do, it is around the neighborhood, not on major streets. I sure don't commute via bike. So, I asked my friend and Oakland, CA trial lawyer Fred Goss for some safety information. Fred is an avid biker, as you will read. Here is what he told me:
It is my opinion that the majority of bike riders simply do not know how to ride safely. By way of back ground, I have been riding seriously for 25+ years. I commute daily, rain or shine, including riding to court. I have had several dozen injured cyclists as clients and have learned a lot from their accidents and my own cycling experience. As part of my initial client interview, I give them my safety lecture, which is sort of what follows below.
The biggest fear cyclists have is getting whacked from behind. To avoid this, they place themselves in more danger: riding close to parked cars, on sidewalks or against traffic. The biggest danger cyclists actually face is from what I call "cross traffic," which is anything which cuts across your path of travel: car doors opening; pedestrians or children stepping in front of you; cars turning; cars pulling out of side streets, drive ways or parking lots.
While some cyclists do get hit from behind, I have found this is the result of drivers thinking they have enough room to get by the cyclist who is doing everything to stay away from rear-coming traffic. The vast majority of injured cyclists are injured by "cross traffic."
So how do you ride safely? In two words: RIDE WIDE. As counter-intuitive as it seems at first, this means riding your bike just like you drive your car. Take your place in the road and keep it unless you need to take evasive action.
The first part of RW is to ride at least 5-6 feet from parked cars and taking your rightful place on the road EVEN IF this puts you in front of rear-coming traffic. If cars can see you AND if they know where you are going, it is very unlikely they will hit you. By riding 5-6 feet out from parked cars, you avoid doors opening into you. Drivers who are parked along the road and are attempting to enter traffic will be looking for rear-coming vehicles, not bikes. But if you are safely away from parked cars, these drivers will be much more likely to see you. This position will also allow you to see brake lights, back up lights, front wheels turning and other indicators of a parked car moving.
This position will also allow you focus on the traffic in front of you – the "cross traffic" – where the real danger is. If a door suddenly flies open in front of you, especially if you are focusing on other potential dangers, you will be out of the way. You will not be forced to make a sudden turn into rear-coming traffic to avoid the door; you will not be knocked out into traffic if the door hits you.
One of the most important reasons for having this buffer zone is that it gives you another place to move to if you have to. If you are riding up against parked cars, you literally have no place to go.
The second part of RIDE WIDE is to ride in a straight line, even if there are many empty parking places along the street. If you pull over into these empty places, you give rear-coming traffic permission to go on by you. But at some point if there are cars parked ahead of you, you have to look behind you – and thereby taking your eyes off "cross traffic" – to make sure it is safe to pull back into the flow of traffic. If that parked car is just about to pull into traffic itself, or if its driver is about to open the door, you will very likely not be able to react because you are not looking ahead!
Riding in a straight line allows the drivers behind you to see you, to see where you are going, and to react accordingly. Even when you come to a stop line, keep your place in the road. If you pull over to the curb like so many cyclists do, you allow rear-coming traffic to take you place. Then as you proceed ahead, you are again faced with the problem of pulling back into rear-coming traffic and ignoring "cross traffic" just ahead of you.
I have found that RW works in most but not all situations. If I diverge from RW, I make a conscious choice to do so. If I am riding on a city street where the traffic is cruising at 50 mph, I might take an alternative route, even if it means riding on a sidewalk. But now that I have deviated from RW, I am aware of the dangers of riding on a side walk.
It takes practice to get the confidence to RW, but you will find riding a bike is really much more enjoyable when you control the space around you. Drivers will actually work with you when they can see you and know where you are headed. Even if a driver yells at you or blows his or her horn, you have time to make a choice about what to do because the driver has seen you! You can signal the driver to pull around you or you may want to pull into your buffer zone. I have found the vast majority of drivers to be courteous to me. Perhaps one out of a thousand drivers who pass me may blow his or her horn or yell at me. But they have seen me!! Which means the chances are very good they won't hit me. And bottom line, this is what we want.
Thanks for the great information, Fred!
I know. This is surprising. A former manager at Allstate testified in a trial in Kentucky that Allstate bullied people into taking low ball settlement offers. A summary:
A former casualty manager for Allstate Insurance Co. testified last Thursday that the insurer used strong-arm tactics to bully injury victims into taking reduced offers for pain and suffering. According to the former Allstate manger, a 1995 change in the way the company handled policies created a dehumanizing process with the sole aim of maximizing profits. Additionally the former manager accused Allstate of manipulating data to reduce the value of claims and punishing adjusters who paid too much to policyholders.
I know you are all stunned just like me. Allstate has hired a consulting group, McKinsey, to help them manage their claims better and reduce payments while profits soar. Allstate was one of the first to use Colossus, software that helps them evaluate claims, or in some cases, the only thing that evaluates claims. And Allstate bullied people?
Its amazing that this is news. It is similar to saying that the sky is blue, rain is wet, or the ocean has water. But, don't think that Allstate is alone in this phenomenon. Insurance companies want to pay you as little as possible so they can make as much money as possible. That is the business they are in, and you need professional assistance from a licensed attorney to make it through the land mines.
A Colorado Court of Appeal has ruled that State Farm cannot exclusively use a computer database to determine reimbursement of medical bills. In the case, State Farm unilaterally reduced the medical bills because its database said the charges were higher than other orthopedists in the area, even though there were not any.
The court said it was "not persuaded by State Farm's argument that Dr. Brucker's bills were unreasonable as a matter of law because, according to the database, they exceeded 90 percent of charges for similar procedures in the same geographic area. A question of fact exists as to whether the database accurately assessed the reasonableness of the bills."
This is an interesting case. Insurance companies routinely use databases to reduce the amount of medical bills. Now, at least in Colorado, this is going to be a problem for the insurance companies. They will have to take the doctor's bill at face value in most cases.
How does this affect you? If you have a med pay claim, you need to make sure your treating doctor, including a chiropractor, is being paid in full. If he or she is not, see if the insurance company is using a database and ask them for a detailed reason as to why the doctor is not being paid in full.
