Who Really Calls The Shot?
The question I want to answer for you right now is, who really runs the show in an injury case? Well on our end of it or on your end of it, YOU run the show, you are the decision maker, you're the one who got hurt. But on the other end of it, who runs the show? Is it the judge? Is it the defense lawyer? Is it the defendant? the guy who actually owns the property you got hurt on? or owns the car that you know you were in? or who caused the crash?
Well the answer is, none of those people are the boss of the defense side of the case. The boss of the defense side of the case is an insurance company. And here's how insurance companies work.
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Collecting Premiums
They work by collecting premiums from their insurance. Then when somebody makes a claim against the policy, the honorable thing to do would be to evaluate the claim and pay out on it. That's how insurance is supposed to work, but it doesn't work that way anymore. Even 20 years ago it used to work more like that. Probably 20-30 years ago or maybe even a little bit before that, these insurance companies got together and said "hey we can save a lot of money if we increase the number of people who are insured and then decrease our payouts".
We've also done studies that is, to delay payouts, a lot of these people abandon their claims and they missed their deadline to file a lawsuit.
"If they miss their deadline we don't have to pay anything. We're saving even more money that way."
Basically you're my year and it's never been worse than it is now. These insurance companies routinely deny claims or they'll offer you money that's like less than your medical bills. Or they'll offer you your medical bills and five hundred bucks. This kind of crap.
Negotiating Medical Bills
I'm not talking about like a little temporary injury. I'm talking about, in situations where there's a broken bone or somebody is a minor surgical procedure. They're going to offer you $1,000 plus the medical bills and the catch is, they want to negotiate the medical bills. Let's say your medical bills are ten grand, the insurance company says hey I'll negotiate the medical bills down I will take care of the medical bills and then we're going to give you $1,000 on top of that.
Well here's what they do behind the scenes. They contact the doctors who have 10 grand in medical bills and they offer the doctors three grand or four grand and pester them until they take it. So you think the insurance company settled your case, for example for 11 grand, 10 to the doctors and one to you. But they're really only paying five grand, four to the doctors and one to you. And they try and do it early on before you know whether your injury is permanent or not. That's what they do and that's what they try and get away with.
The truth is, they're not just going to pay your claim. Insurance companies are just not going to pay your claim and if they're nice to you on the telephone there's one reason for that. They're buttering you up, they're trying to get you to lower your guard, and at the end of a protracted dragged out claims process, they're going to tell you they can't offer any money. They don't think they're responsible, or they're going to offer your crap money.
Passing Deadlines
A lot of the time, they're hoping that your deadline passes. Though they'll call you, they'll talk to you, then suddenly they'll stop calling you. Well if they can delay you passing that deadline for filing a lawsuit, then your case is over and they don't pay anything. It would be nice to believe and I'm not talking about just the crummy insurance companies, I'm talking about like all the insurance companies do this now because it's an effective strategy for them to save money. Now is it honorable? Is that what you expect out of a company that you're paying money to? Hell no!
I see it over and over. I had a guy call me one time who told me that his adjuster said
"Oh the deadline doesn't matter, we'll take care of this".
Then immediately after the deadline, he calls the guy and says sorry your deadlines passed. This is an older guy, you know and he had some injuries and he didn't want to call a lawyer, he didn't want to make waves and he didn't want to sue anybody. But he made a mistake, he trusted the insurance company. It's like that movie Animal House, where one guy tells the other guy
"Hey man you screwed up! You trusted us."
Individual Insurance Adjusters
Whether insurance companies play good cop or bad cop, it does not matter, you can't trust them. The individual insurance adjusters you're talking to, get bonuses for not paying out on claims. They get bonuses for how low they can settle cases for. When it comes to insurance, you can't trust them. I know I'm pessimistic because I do this everyday, but if you if you're not involved in this business, you don't realize how bad it is out there.
Injury Lawyers Work Hard To Settle People's Cases
Like most people I talk to still think, when you make an injury claim, they offer you a bunch of money. And injury lawyers are all rich and they barely work because all they got to do is call an insurance company and they pay them a bunch of money. Not true. And the people who believe that the most, are the ones who get hurt and then they're shocked and outraged when they get hurt and their case can't settle. They get mad at their lawyer, they think something weird is going on.
It's unfortunate and that's why I try to spread the news. I know it's like "Oh of course the injury lawyer says cases are hard, and of course the injury lawyer says he has to work hard to settle people's cases". Well I'm really being honest with you. I hope that information helps you.
