Car Accident Insurance Claims in United States of America
If you've been injured in a car accident and it involves one or the insurance companies that you find on this list-- Geico is one of the biggest insurance companies in California. One of those companies that when you try to negotiate with them to settle a case, they initially take a hard stand and we may push them. And we either push them with the threat of litigation or actually in filing suit.
And my experience has been that in 35 years of practice. So it is one of the better insurance companies when it comes to, eventually, paying off. Access General is an insurance company that has been coming up more and more, and which I don't know how they get away with doing. But as we know will purchase policies from Access General. Access General. Is an out of state insurance company. The are more expensive.
And it's a benefit too, to people, to have affordable insurance coverage. But the problem is the facts of an accident or that an accident is even occurred when you're making a claim against them. So what happens, for example, exchange at the scene, and then the client will go to the doctor to treat his injuries or her injuries. and very often, almost always, I think, there's only been one case in the past presented. If they do everything by phone or they can't confirm that an accident has even occurred with one of their insureds.
And so they will take the position that we can't confirm an accident. The only thing you can do at that point is file a lawsuit against their insured. And at that point you can settle the case. If we're not able to serve them you have to get a lot of documentation for the court to approve that process. It's more expensive. But eventually you will settle the case. Because they don't want a judgment being taken against their insured. But sometimes they will say, well, their insured did not [INAUDIBLE] and claim if your client does have uninsured motorist.
If your client doesn't have uninsured motorist coverage you may be out of luck. Because Access--Because you might have a situation like Access General where they send out one or two letters or call a couple times and give up. I don't think that's fair to their insured. And it's, I think, genuinely not fair to your client by General or by their own insurance company.
30 years or so in California. They've gone through several permutations. When I first started practicing about 35 years ago they were a very [INAUDIBLE], and they had a particular law firm that they sent all their cases to in those days. And they called themselves the "fraud-busting attorneys." That firm's no longer in practice. Because are involved in accidents. They generally are injured. Fraud is a very, very minor part of the auto claims in California.
It's about 15 years or so ago that they made that transformation. And they were a pleasure to deal with. Unfortunately, 21st Century was one of those insurance companies that were affected by the AIG debacle. Where AIG was an owner of 21st century. And they had economic problems even though 21st Century was fine, AIG had to sell them off as an asset. That doesn't mean that we cannot settle the case for good money without going to court. But it does mean that we have to let them know that we're going to fight. We have to make sure that the client goes to reputable doctors. That they get the kind of treatment that they need. That there's documentation of their injuries.
And when we send a package of settlement demands to 21st century, or any insurance company, we make sure that it's a very, very credible and saleable item. And so we can try to settle our case prior to litigation. And we usually do still with 21st Century. But very often we have to file suit or demand the uninsured motorist arbitration if it's that kind of claim. And, eventually, we will get the client the fair recovery they're entitled to.
We're usually happy when we're dealing with the Automobile Club because they're one of the fewer insurance companies, now, that actually use an adjuster who's a human being and not put everything into a computer program and you deal with a different adjuster all the time.
An adjuster is assigned at the beginning of the case. They are usually the one who handles it to the very end through resolution. Even if you go to trial or you're headed towards trial. They're the adjuster who is the same person who takes your client's statement to try to find out what kind of witness they make. They are the adjuster that the defense attorney gives his summaries to.
So we don't have that many cases against the Automobile Club at the present time that are in litigation. And, hopefully, they stay that way because the number of insurance companies that are dealing fairly with clients and people are injured in car accidents is getting less and less. Most of them are getting worse, unfortunately. And if we have attorneys who do not stand up to these insurance companies, who do not fight them all the way if they have to, then it's only going to get worse. So that would be my recommendation. That you go with an attorney who is willing to take your case all the way if necessary.
Mercury Insurance is an up and coming insurance company in California. They insure approximately 25% of the drivers in California right now. The bad thing about Mercury Insurance is they're one of the worst insurance companies when it comes to evaluating and paying claims. What they do is they use an approach where no matter what the injuries are, they will offer $4,000 to $6,000. And once they make that offer they will, maybe, move up $500
It doesn't take individual pain and suffering into account. It doesn't take into account the type of impact you have. For example, we could have a 70-year-old person who has damage of only $1,500 to their car. But a 70-year-old person could be hurt a lot worse than a 20-year-old person who has $10,000 damage to their car. But they don't take that into consideration. They base a lot of what they evaluate on the damage to the vehicles not the individual. And the thing about Mercury is they're consistent. Even if you do not accept Mercury's low-ball settlement offer and you file a lawsuit and go to litigation, it doesn't make much difference to them and the case usually does not get settled before it goes to trial.
I had a case about three or four years ago where we had a minor damage to a car-- about $1,000 on the client's car. But the client had a predisposition, he had a preexisting problem with his lower back. He had a smaller disc protrusion. And when the accident happened this disc protrusion actually herniated and it came into contact with his nerve in his lower back-- one of his nerve roots. And he had to undergo surgery.
The insurance company, no matter what, felt that, well, the damage was so small that we're going to offer $8,000 and that's it. We went to a settlement conference. We went through depositions. We went all the way to trial and he never came out with the $8,000 offer. We ended up getting nearly $100,000 on the case.
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