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Lawsuits Cause Insurance Costs to Skyrocket, Especially When....

By Ben Glass

They are handled by the defense like one I'm in now.

I represent a woman who was rear-ended by a 18 wheeler loaded with concrete while she was sitting in stopped traffic in Washington's beltway. She has had three years of medical care totaling over $150,000 and underwent major neck surgery. She has a three level fusion.

There is no liability defense. The driver of the truck does not blame anyone else for his carelessness.

The insurance company for the driver send my client to an independant medical exam and asked the doctor to give an opinion as to whether the medical care the plaintiff has had was made necessary by the accident and was it reasonable.

The doctor hired by the insurance company says "yes," all of the care is necessary, well done, reasonable and was indeed made necessary by the accident.

Well, here we are a month from trial. There has been no offer made by the insurance company. Instead, they tried to get a continuance of the case, telling the judge "we are not ready for trial."

Now they are taking depositions of the plaintiff's doctors. One thing that happened is that she broke a tooth in the accident. This is a very minor part of the case. The cost to get the tooth repaired was perhaps $1,200.00.

So what does the insurance company do?

They sent two lawyers to depose the dentist. One drives two hours to come to the deposition. They pay the dentist for his time and they depose him for his time. They want to know all about "grades of fractures" and "is there anyone more experienced than you who could have fixed this fracture?"

All over a $1,200 dental bill.

In a case with over $150,000 in medical bills that their own expert says was all caused by the accident.

No defense on liability

No argument about the medical bills.

Lets just "run the bill" instead of making an offer.

The next time you hear someone tell you that personal injury lawyers increase the cost of insurance, send them back to this blog and ask yourself why the insurance compan would put up with spending more than this dentist's bill to depose this dentist to ask him questions?

Originally posted at InjuryBoard by Ben Glass

Full post as published by Northern Virginia Personal Injury Lawyer on January 13, 2009 (boomark / email).