What If The Insurance Company Is Running Around?
We're going to talk about: What should I do if the insurance company is running me around or being a jerk or won't call me back?
I had a guy call me who was in a car crash. He said,
"Look I've had car accidents before, I've had minor injuries before, I was able to handle it myself. I just didn't want to involve a lawyer. I think that just slows things down and everything becomes contentious and I just wanted to deal with this one on my own. It was my wasn't my fault, I got rear-ended. I just want them to pay my doctor bills and repair my car."
I talked to him for a little bit. I asked him who his insurance was and he has very good insurance. With a reputable company, high limits. And then I asked him what the insurance company was that he called and it was one of the usual suspects. It's what we call a substandard insurance company, there are a lot of them. You'll see them on TV or on radio and they promise like super low rates. Well, I'll give you three guesses why their rates are so low.
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Low Rates Means Garbage Service
Their rates are so low because generally their service is garbage. This one insurance company in particular has been around for a while, like literally you only get an answering machine. I don't know if they laid their staff off and they have two people working in the office now, but man you call them you can't get anybody on the phone. This guy was very frustrated. He eventually got a supervisor or claims vice president on the phone and the claims vice president was a complete jackass.
So the guy called me and asked what I could do. I told him
"Look, one of the main reasons why people hire me is, this experience with insurance companies, even the ones who call you back, will delay cases or try to get you to miss your deadlines or low ball you if they think they can."
That's kind of where we're at in the insurance industry and that's what lawyers are for. First of all, as soon as they see my name, they've seen my name on a million claims and a million lawsuits, they know that at my office, we will file a lawsuit if they don't call back.
Get A Decent Insurance Company
I give them three chances. It's the three strikes rule. If they stop calling me I just file a lawsuit or I call their supervisor and they're going to get in trouble. There's other things we can do as well. But at the end of the day, especially with property damage, a crappy insurance company is going to send your car to a crappy body shop and ask them to do cut rate repairs on your car. And virtually guaranteed, when you get the car back, there's going to be something wrong with it and they're going to refuse to do any additional repairs. Even scheduling that with one of those crummy insurance companies is a nightmare.
I mean do you want to make 20 phone calls and be talked to like you're a criminal by these people? Or would you rather deal with an insurance company that at least answers your call like a human being. So I always tell people to get a decent insurance company. Decent insurance companies rates are not that much more than these crummy little fly-by-night companies, and so I would really recommend that you get better insurance.
Getting Your Car Fixed
But if you're stuck with the insurance you've gotten, you really can't afford it, that's a different situation. Or if somebody runs into you and they have crummy insurance. As far as getting your car fixed, just call your own insurance, and say "look, I tried to get them to fix it, I called them 20 times getting nothing but a run around, I just want you to fix it. I'll pay my deductible".
Usually what happens after that is, your insurance company will make a claim against them and try and get your deductible back if they're able to they'll pay it back to you. You're always going to get your car fixed better if your insurance is a good insurance company. Always going to do much better that way. But what about bodily injury? Well this gentleman I was talking to said, "look I just wanted them to approve or pre-approve some therapy so I could get some therapy and feel a little better".
No Pre-Approving
I told him, in car accident or fall down cases, there is no pre-approving. The adjuster can say "okay go ahead and go get therapy", but they're not going to advance money ahead of time to the doctor or prepay for medical care. Nor should you want them to. You should not want them to prepay for medical care. That's because in these kinds of cases, you get paid at the end and the bigger the pot of gold at the end of the case, the more money you can end up putting in your pocket. If a lawyer or somebody who knows what they're doing is administering the settlement.
Dealing with crummy insurance companies stink. I don't like doing it, but it's my job.That's what you need to know about that topic. Hope that information helps you.
