Utah Law Talk

The 9-letter word insurance, as it turns out, is a four-letter word at trial. Attorneys are strictly prohibited from uttering it in front of a jury. Mistrials happen when the word accidentally slips out. The reason for this rule is simple: the legislature (fed and nourished by powerful insurance lobbyists) is afraid that if juries knew that there was actually an insurance company behind the scenes that would pay the jury’s verdict, they might actually include more money in their verdict for the injured person.

The fact is, lawyers almost never even file on a claim unless there is insurance company or unless the claim is against a large company. So if there is a trial going on, you can be 98% certain that the defendant in the case has insurance. For an attorney, it makes no sense to bring a case unless there is insurance or unless the company is large and “self-insured.” No lawyer will want to spend time and money to bring a case to trial if there is no money to pay the verdict. Garnishing wages and/or attaching assets after a verdict can be very unsatisfying. It could literally take decades to collect the verdict amount. And there is nothing to stop the defendant who has a judgment against him from filing for bankruptcy. I can tell you that in my last trial in May, that the jury we spoke with afterward didn’t think the defendant had insurance (even though we tried to
drop hints). To make matters worse, the original defended actually died of cancer before trial, leaving behind her widowed husband. Talk about an unfair advantage for the insurance company! Juries are supposed to make decisions on cases without resorting to sympathy, for one side or the other. Juries, however, are human. Even at an unconscious level, they will want to protect a defendant they feel sympathy for.

How much better it would be if would could be open with juries and let them know that the poor wrongdoer will not be saddled with the jury verdict?

Published by: Ron Kramer

It was late in the evening when I met with the family in the waiting room at LDS Hospital. I learned that my client’s wife had been returning home about a week earlier when a drunk driver ran a red light and t-boned her on the driver’s side door. She was still in a coma, with family holding vigil over her there in the ICU. The situation looked bleak. The husband told me the bills were already easily past $100,000 and they had no health insurance. Unfortunately, it turns out the other driver had no insurance at the time of the crash. And my client had only gotten the Utah minimum, which was $25,000. He also only carried $25,000 for un-insured motorists and under-insured motorists. We found out later that the person that struck his wife had no significant assets and was most likely “judgment proof.” The reality is that most people who drive around without insurance have no real assets. In the end, I had to turn this case down. My client’s insurance company was willing and anxious to pay the $25,000 for this claim. They didn’t need me. Sadly, I don’t think this amount would even cover the first day for her in the hospital.

What this man did not realize is how relatively cheap additional insurance coverage would have been. While many people opt to get minimum coverage because the premium is less, it really doesn’t cost that much extra to get a policy of at least $100,000. Even getting a $500,000 policy is a relative steal when you consider the peace of mind it gives you. It is like having a disability policy for you when you are injured while driving.

So take the lizard’s advice to heart: take 15 minutes and call your insurance agent. Make sure your policy includes healthy limits on uninsured coverage as well as “under-insured coverage.” This coverage is just as important as uninsured motorist coverage. It is used for those times when the other driver doesn’t have enough insurance to compensate for your injury claim. Returning to the story, while insurance limits of even half a million would not have been enough to compensate his wife for this kind of catastrophic head injury, it would have provided the family real relief from creditors and money for rehabilitation for his wife.

Published by: Ron Kramer

The 10 Worst:
1. Allstate
2. UNUM
3. AIG
4. State Farm
5. CONSECO
6. Wellpoint
7. Farmers
8. United Health
9. Torchmark
10. Liberty Mutual

A report released over the Summer named the top ten “worst” insurance companies in the nation. The report, complied by the American Association for Justice, or the AAJ, named Allstate Insurance as the number one worst insurance company. The report found a practice among the insurance companies of refusing to pay just compensation on claims, employing hardball tactics against policyholder, all while rewarding its executives with extravagant salaries, raising premiums and hoarding excessive profits.

The data reviewed for the report was compiled from court documents, state insurance department investigations and complaints, SEC and FBI records, newspaper stories, and the testimony of former insurance agents and adjusters.

The AAJ found that our nations insurance industry takes in premiums of more that $1 trillion annually and has $3.8 trillion in assets. This amount surpasses the Gross Domestic Products of all countries but the United States and Japan.

Top offenders include: (1) Allstate, (2) UNUM, (3) AIG, (4) State Farm and (5) CONSECO.

I can tell you that in our experience, that there is no question that Allstate is absolutely the worst insurance company to deal with. On cases where the collision is on the mild to moderate side, they consistently offer peanuts to settle the claim and will frequently tell us that their offers are take-it-or-leave-it. Some people who have Allstate Insurance might think that because a claim in a car wreck is against the other guy’s insurance that it doesn’t matter if they have Allstate or not. The fact is, however, that if the other guy is uninsured or carries only a minimum policy of $25,000, then you very well could be making a claim against Allstate and run into similar problems as the ones the study found.