Insurance Companies

August 8, 2008

Settlement of Personal Injury Cases: The New York Times Article

There is an article in the New York Times today that concludes that it is best to settle most accident, malpractice, and breach of contract claims based on a recent study.

The basis for the conclusion is a study suggesting that defendants made the wrong decision by proceeding to trial, based on the offer and the outcome, in 24 percent of cases, and plaintiffs were wrong in 61 percent of cases.

Setting aside that these numbers do not even resemble the numbers of our lawyers – and probably 90% of the personal injury lawyers reading this – these numbers are hardly persuasive in reaching that conclusion. The reason is simple: if you bet on a horse that is a 50-1 shot and the horse has a 10% chance of winning the race; you will lose more often than you win but you are still better off making the bet (i.e., trying the case) than you are not making the bet (i.e. setting the case).

July 16, 2008

Montana Supreme Court Reverses Itself in Car-Pedestrian Accident Case

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Click to enlarge

The Supreme Court of Montana rendered an interesting decision last week for an emotional injury claim in Allstate Ins. Co. v. Wagner-Ellsworth.

The case involves a car-pedestrian collision. Two brothers were crossing the street in front of their elementary school and one was seriously injured. Allstate settled this claim for the per-person policy limit of $50,000.

April 9, 2008

Allstate Relents and Produces Internal Claims Documents

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Back in January, I wrote about Allstate’s ongoing war with the state of Florida (and Missouri) in which it arrogantly racked up more than $4 million in fines for refusing to turn over documents they received orders to produce and which the insurance commission requested in Florida. On Friday, Allstate not only produced 150,000 pages of responsive documents it had protected as proprietary, but it made the documents available on Allstate’s website.

In defending some documents, a company spokesperson said that many lawyers misinterpreted the documents that refer to how Allstate deals with claims from other parties, not from policyholders. The Allstate spokesperson said many of the documents, the plaintiff’s personal injury lawyers picked apart, refer to claims-handling practices for car accident claims that have been incorrectly assumed to apply to homeowners’ policies.

If this is true, I see Allstate’s point. Accident lawyers whine about Allstate’s poor offers in third party cases. In Maryland car accident cases, I don’t think GEICO, Progressive, Nationwide, MAIF, or State Farm are making offers that are any different from Allstate’s. But that is not my point. The insurance companies have no obligation in third party cases to make fair offers. Insurance companies can do whatever they want. Therefore, we have lawsuits.

March 24, 2008

Compelling the Defendant’s Address in Auto Accident Cases

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

Last week, I received a call from an insurance company (Progressive) asking how many occupants were in our clients’ vehicle in a car accident case our lawyers are handling. Sadly, it appears someone saw our clients get in what was a serious accident, noted the vehicle information, and then pretended that they were involved in the accident. Progressive called me and asked if I can get an affidavit from my clients stating that this person was not in the vehicle. I appreciated where the adjuster/investigator was coming from because he wanted to close his file, but I did not see how it helped my client to provide an affidavit, and I could conjure up scenarios where it would not be helpful to me to help them.

I felt knocked off balance for a second after denying Progressive’s request, losing my moral high ground. But then I quickly asked the adjuster if Progressive will accept service sometimes as I was getting ready to file or if they would require me to spend needless money and jump through the hoops of hiring a process server to serve the defendants individually. Instantly, the order of the moral universe was restored. Wherever you are at this moment, you probably felt a jolt of unknown origin. The lesson, as always: if your game plan is never getting a quarter, don’t ask for one.

Another needless hoop insurance companies make you jump through in an auto accident case in Maryland is getting accurate identifying information for the defendant driver. Once settlement negotiations have failed, the next step is to file a Complaint. But to effectuate service of process, you need the defendant’s address. It is not uncommon for our only information regarding the defendant driver to be a name and insurance information. If his name is Joe Brown or Steve Smith, it can be difficult in car accidents where there is no filed police report, the defendant has moved since the accident or the defendant gave a false address.

February 13, 2008

New Maryland Court of Appeals Opinion

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided the Titan v. Advance case yesterday. Titan is a case where the Plaintiff alleged negligent repair of a roof that led to the clogging of a roof drain, which then resulted in the Plaintiff’s premises to flood. It is located on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, at Crown Industrial Park. After a three-day trial, the jury found in favor of the Defendants.

As you might have expected, the amount of rain after the job was completed was relevant. Defendants introduced, over objection, a certified copy of the U.S. Department of Commerce’s weather reports from Baltimore-Washington Airport, which reported rain patterns at the airport between the day the roofing work was completed and the date of the flooding off the roof. Plaintiff objected that the weather at Baltimore Washington Airport on that day was not relevant because it was 10 miles from the site.

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals, in an opinion by Judge Arrie W. Davis, found that the documents were relevant because the parties disputed the amount of rainfall. The court further found that despite the length of the documents, the jury could reasonably interpret the recorded rainfall amounts and the court needed no expert opinion to explain the documents. As to the 10 miles between the Baltimore-Washington Airport and the site of the property, the court concluded this went to the weight of the evidence as opposed to admissibility.

November 19, 2007

Jury Trial with State Farm

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

I had a jury trial in an auto accident case in Anne Arundel County against State Farm last week. It was a soft tissue injury case with over a year of treatment. It was a case we inherited from another lawyer who retired last year.

The biggest weakness of the Plaintiff’s case is that he had few doctor visits before complaining of the soft tissue injury related to the claim. The Defendant’s biggest weakness was their liability defense never made any sense. The Defendant was, however, elderly and very sympathetic. Because the jury is never told insurance will pay the claim, expect this to be a factor in the recovery’s amount even if they suspect there is insurance behind the Defendant.

The jury found for the plaintiff but awarded only a little over $16,000. This thrilled State Farm, and I became depressed for a few days. They won, and I lost. That is how we both saw it and marked our scorecards accordingly.

October 18, 2007

Allstate Settles Bad Faith Claims in Washington

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that Allstate Insurance Co. will now fairly compensate thousands of Washington drivers for out-of-pocket medical expenses in a class action settlement.

In 2005, a driver sued Allstate for arbitrarily limiting PIP payments for car accident victims. Allstate used Colossus to determine the average pay rate for a procedure in the geographical area and then paid out only 85 percent of what it found to be the average amount. To be clear, they did not pay what they thought was fair; they paid 85% of what they thought was fair. In an unrelated story, Allstate takes 100% of the premiums from their insured. This practice underscores the insurance company’s motto of taking premiums and denying claims.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, I blogged last week about a former Allstate employee’s testimony that revealed Allstate’s alleged systematic bad faith in a first-party bad faith case in Kentucky.

September 17, 2007

New Maryland Law on Quick Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

One new bill that came out of Annapolis this year, and will become Maryland law on October 1, 2007, aimed at limiting one of the predatory insurance practices: the “don’t hire a lawyer and I’ll give you a quick settlement” tactic. Among the major auto insurance carriers in Maryland, I do not see GEICO, Allstate, or State Farm doing this aggressively or systematically; Nationwide does it a good bit, and Progressive does it with absolute zeal.

This bill will not limit the practice itself but it will give injury victims not represented by a Maryland lawyer the opportunity to void any release signed within 30 days of an accident within 60 days provided certain met conditions such as providing written notice and returning the proceeds.

To Progressive’s credit, it does not appear that they are nearly as aggressive in very serious injury cases, but it amazes me to hear from my personal injury clients the lengths to which Progressive will induce quick settlements in smaller cases. Progressive adjusters show up on the injury victims’ doorstep (apparently every adjuster is smiling and friendly) with a checkbook eager to “make this thing right.”

July 5, 2007

Dealing with MAIF Adjusters in Car Accident Settlements

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

As regular readers of this blog are aware, I have been a critic of the MAIF because of the speed with which it reviews cases, the offers it makes which almost invariably cause reasonable car accident lawyers to file suit because the client’s best interests demand a lawsuit and because it invariably makes its lawyers (and our lawyers) jump through discovery hoop after discovery hoop in large cases before offering its policy limits on the eve of trial when the policy limits should have offered from jump street. In 2015, MAIF changed their trade name to “Maryland Auto Insurance.” But they are still the same company with the same problem.

In this Baltimore Business Journal article, MAIF’s executive director since 2004, M. Kent Crabbe, talks about some challenges MAIF faces as an “insurance company” operating under a somewhat unique and complex regulatory scheme, including why it may be more difficult for MAIF to recruit and retain quality people. I put “insurance company” in quotes not derisively (well, kind of) but because technically under the Maryland Insurance Code, MAIF is not an insurance company. Really, I think the bigger problem at MAIF is not the people but its rigid approach to handling claims. They should give their adjusters more authority to pay the right value on the claims.

But rigid comes with the territory. Remember, MAIF operates as an independent agency of the state. So is government in every way that matters. The purpose of MAIF is to be the “insurer of last resort.” MAIF is required to only accept applications from Maryland residents who were either refused coverage by at least two private insurers or who have had their insurance policy canceled. So we are dealing with the worst drivers with the vast majority driving around with $30,000 per person insurance coverage limits. It is a template for disaster and our car accident attorneys have seen this meal regularly served. We have had death cases where all the insurance available was MAIF’s lousy $30,000.

May 21, 2007

Personal Injury Protection (PIP) Battle in Florida

by Ronald V. Miller, Jr.

The Daily Business Review last week wrote an unbelievable article about a battle between an insurance company and its policyholders. This has been the landscape since Chinese and Babylonian traders started issuing insurance about two thousand years ago. But, in this story, the insurance company has expanded its war to include Florida judges.

United Automobile Insurance Company’s lawyers are seeking to remove a Florida judge from all Personal Injury Protection (PIP) accident cases involving the insurance company, citing the judge’s alleged bias.

The Florida-based carrier’s attorneys have moved to disqualify Broward County Court Judge Jay from “any and all cases involving United Automobile Insurance Company as a litigant.” United alleges that Judge Spechler routinely displays “pre-disposition, prejudice and bias” against its attorneys. In an interview, Judge Spechler, who has served on the bench for 19 years, estimated that, incredibly, two-thirds of his cases are PIP disputes with this insurance company.