How do people who make bogus personal injury claims sleep at night???

Parent Cafe
21

I’ve also heard many stories about people who felt fine after an accident but issues manifested days or weeks later. Soft-tissue injuries can be tricky and can also take a very long time to recover from. You can also get back and neck issues that show up later and end up being long-lasting.

Regardless, I understand how upset OP must be but the best thing to do right now is relax and let the insurance company handle things. It’s premature to be worrying about losing personal assets. Insurance companies are pros at handling these things with minimal expenditure (they don’t want to lose their money any more than you want to lose yours) and they’re on your side. Well they’re technically on their own side, but it happens to align with yours.

22

This may, indeed, be a false claim but just because there was minimal property damage, it doesn’t mean that an injury can’t occur. I worked in a claims department handling bodily injury claims all through grad school and I can tell you that many of the most serious injuries to the neck and back were caused with minimal property damage. The effects of this type of injury don’t always appear immediately so it isn’t unusual for someone to claim that they are fine right after the crash.

If you have an adequate liability limit, there’s no reason to worry. If you live in one of the states that has ridiculously low minimum requirements, well, I don’t know why anyone would follow those recommendations.

As for the suggestion to hire a private investigator, ignore that. Your insurance company should be handling the investigation of the claim. It is in their hands now and you shouldn’t be interfering.

The best advice you can give your daughter is to learn from this, take responsibility, and be more careful when she’s driving.

23

I am too sorry that your D and you are going through this. From your description of events, it sounds like this should pass quickly. Good luck

Random thoughts.

People believe they’ve been injures/wronged. Over 100 years when people believed they were injured/wrong, they got out their 6 shooters to settle their perceived wrongs. Suing people for money instead of resorting to violence is considered a more civil way of settling disputes. However in today’s world of road rage, it could’ve been worse. (Is society reverting??)

I vaguely remember a TV ad back in 80s/90s. 3 scary looking Hell’s Angels on their motorcycles were waiting at a stoplight when some guy pulled up and barely bumped into one. All 3 Hell’s Angels got off their bikes and starting walking menacingly towards driver. Driver got out and began saying oh what are you going to do, beat me up? The bikers looked at each other and the one that was hit said, no, we’re going to sue you. I think the ad was for car insurance. (It was kinda funny)

Yes, there should be some correlation between actual damages and the claim. You just can’t pull some number out of hat. As to property damages, the other driver should get his car damages fixed up to blue book value and up to your policy’s limits. As to personal damages, there should be evidence of actual damages (eg hospital bills, MDs, documentation of lost wages, etc.) and you should be covered up to policy limits

I have a friend who is a chiropractor and was talking to him about a driver’s claims for personal injury (my wife had been in accident with this driver). My chiropractor friend said in his experience personal injury claims like this usually get settled for 3x actual damages (1/3 to pay actual bills, 1/3 to attorney, 1/3 to injured party)

This accident that involved my W was not a big accident. The guy visited the hospital (outpatient) a day or 2 after accident, had some minor medical bills (eg xrays, MD, etc). His claim also included multiple visits for massage therapy. My chiropractor friend and I had a chuckle wondering if the massages included drinks with umbrellas and happy endings. As the car my W was driving was in both our names, we were not only sued for 500K (our policy limit), the guy’s W sued us for loss of consortium for 500k as well. My W had to be deposed, very stressful for her. Our insurance company eventually settled all personal injury claims for 6k (guy’s W got 0).

IMO even if you don’t have a lot of assets, umbrella insurance is a must. In today’s world of medical bills, costs can escalate quickly

Insurance companies have a duty to defend you up to limits of your policy. Failure to do so could result in a claim for bad faith by you and could open an insurance company to punitive damages which can be very, very expensive for insurance company.

Take a step back, relax, and let your insurance company handle this. I can’t say don’t get involved, Insurance company should keep you informed of progress of case and what they might being agreeing to, and what, if any, liability you have after the settlement.

Again good luck.

24

Not quite the same as a car accident, but we were sued in a slip-and-fall case when a tenant slipped down the steps in a snowstorm on a property we own.

The insurance company’s lawyer said their policy is to never settle and take these cases all the way through trial, for two reasons - 1) the insurance company wins like 90% of the time; and 2) going for a quick settlement just trains lawyers that you can be plucked for a quick payday. When you make the opposing attorney actually work for their money, and face the prospect of years before they get paid as the case winds through the courts, they become much choosier about the cases they will accept, which cuts down on the number of lawsuits.

25

Slip and fall cases are VERY tough for injured parties to win–we settled most of the ones where we represented the injured party and were very picky about the cases we would accept.

26

This happened to me back in my teenage years. I was on an entrance ramp to the expressway with no acceleration lane. The car in front of me start to go, so I turned around to check coming traffic for my turn to go; when I saw an opening, I went. Unfortunately, the car in front of me ended up not merging into traffic, so I ran into the back of their car. They were stopped, I didn’t have any room to go, so maybe I was going 2 MPH?

Of course I was totally at fault, but the people in the car seemed to be shaken up. The passenger was a 15 year old pregnant girl, and her mom was driving. If I remember correctly, the girl was 6-8 months pregnant, so she and her mom when to the hospital by ambulance. Fast forward to after the baby was delivered; as the baby was born with a birthmark, they decided to go after us as they stated the birthmark was due to the girl bumping her belly on the glovebox :open_mouth: My father tried to convince me not to worry, that the insurance company would settle, but I was disturbed that they would get money for something that had nothing to do with the accident. Being a teenager, I was livid and angry about this for a very long time. Of course as an adult, I know now they just wanted money, but I personally felt taken advantage of.

27

I’ll never forget, when I worked in a restaurant in the 70s, a woman sued when she “tripped over the flagpole,” yah, that 50’ flagpole is hard to notice! And she got $10k when the insurance company settled, nice to hear they are fighting it more these days. Though I have a friend who literally slipped and fell in the grocery store freezer section when a unit defrosted all over the floor, just before they brought out the wet floor sign, she broke her arm with permanent nerve damage and they fought her tooth and nail to pay medical bills for something that happened right then and there, not a later soft tissue ‘maybe she’s faking’ claim, she broke her arm. So, I guess it can go too far in either direction.

28

OP, don’t worry about your post. I seriously doubt anyone will track you down.

Son had his side mirror nipped by a reckless driver on a highway entrance ramp. No one hurt, other car not damaged. Yet, the other driver called a tow truck to take away his car (which he didn’t seem to know how to drive—like didn’t put car in park before he got out and car started to move away from him). A few days later a big injury claim despite police report and witnesses putting other driver at fault. Our insurance company also came down on that guy like a ton of bricks and snuffed out that claim.

I was t boned by a driver running a red light about a year ago. Saw her speeding toward me and thought “OMG! This is going to hurt.” Miraculously, even though both cars were destroyed, neither of us was hurt. I remember being so grateful. She admitted fault and apologized. Maybe she is worried I will come back with an injury claim? I won’t. And I assume she won’t either given all the evidence that she was at fault (texting).

Let insurance handle it.

29

Two stories:

Fender bender in school zone. Kid in front of me stopped real short and guys behind hit me. No biggie. No damage even that I remember. But I do remember the guys getting back in their car (the ones that hit me) after examining their car and just being a bit weird. . It was sort of a chain reaction accident at 5 mph…h
The police that showed up told me–watch those guys–take some pictures if possible. Write down what happened
and what they said or say. They will be claiming “whiplash” within 30 minutes at the emergency room.
Nothing came of it on my part but that was an eye opener.

Story two:
Right before a friend was moving across country she had the misfortune to hit a pedestrian. She was a nervous wreck.
"He wasn’t there! I swear! " “No idea how it happened!” “Can’t afford the law suit! What do I do?” “I feel AWFUL!”
Turned out to be a total scam that was growing in the area–the “pedestrian” had intentionally stepped in front of her car. Fortunately it was recognized as such (not by her but others) and thrown out of court.

And they sleep at night resting on other people’s money. Scum.

30

“Require the plaintiff to pay all costs if they lose would end all the frivolous lawsuits,”.

No, it doesn’t. Can’t get blood out of a turnip. The person who has nothing to lose doesn’t care if his “nothing to lose number” gets bigger. It’s still zero or less. Can’t lose anything if you don’t have anything.

31

Injuries can show up a day or two later, but if someone has already hired a personal injury lawyer it’s a bad sign.

I agree that you should let your insurance company handle it. But if it turns out to be one of those extreme cases, you may want to hire a detective or play one yourself and find out exactly how much the person “can’t work”. There are a lot of liars out there.

Here’s a story that may cheer you up: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-who-toppled-ancient-utah-boulder-had-filed-personal-injury-lawsuit/

He and the other man pled guilty and were sentenced only with probation. Too bad.

32

My D rear ended someone at a low speed her senior year in HS. Of course it was a brand new high end Mercedes just off the lot!! She called me and I was at the scene within 5 minutes. The other driver and his passenger were not nice and I spent a lot of time making sure they were OK and crawled all over his car to make sure it was OK

Insurance took care of it. Over 6 months later we started getting copies of a claim and lawsuit for injuries and lost wages from the passenger. He had just started getting lower back and whiplash issues and couldn’t work. I just let the insurance company take care of it but then it went into depositions and my D fell apart. She was a nervous mess and started throwing up in the law office. I was really pissed at that point, but it was out of my hands. The problem is that insurance lawyer has to send all the documents to us as defendants and I just couldn’t stand reading the guys claims and I was not happy about the constant requests to reveal all assets owned and insurance policies. I felt it was none of their business.

33

That’s awful. Does being in a “no fault” state protect you from that kind of BS scenario?

34

I used to be skeptical about these sorts of “injuries” until I saw one firsthand with my wife. She was stopped at a red light, turning right. She started to go then a car turning left on the main road instead pulled a U-turn. DW stopped and the kid in the jacked-up Jeep behind her rear-ended her car. Obviously a low speed collision. Other than being startled and upset because we had just bought the car (a week before), she was fine. Her car had major damage because the jacked-up Jeep went over the bumper into the trunk, it was towed to the repair shop. We had a major anniversary trip scheduled in 48 hours so I told her to try to forget about it and try enjoy the vacation. Well, about 36 hours later, DW woke up with tremendous pain in her neck. It kept getting worse and I finally decided to take her to the ER to see what was wrong (she was almost in the fetal position at this point, sweating from the pain, etc.). I didn’t even connect it to the wreck until we were halfway to the hospital. The ER doc said, yep, this is the typical pattern, you’re fine and then 24-36 hours later your neck starts killing you. It took a week or so to get over the serious pain and a couple more weeks of PT to feel comfortable. There was no visible sign of injury and no real diagnostic evidence from the ER.

The kid’s insurance company was thrilled that we only wanted to be reimbursed for our personal expenses due to the wreck (cancelled flights, cancelled hotels, ER, PT, rental car for 28 days, etc.). It ended up being a drop in the bucket compared to the car repair, which was around $20K.

About four months later we were rear-ended AGAIN in the same car, this time in a traffic jam at low speed (we were stopped and the other driver’s foot “slipped off the brake pedal”). I was driving and we were all in the car. Much less damage because it was a minivan than hit us, so it was bumper-to-bumper. I watched my wife like a hawk for a few days afterwards and probably asked her how her neck was doing a thousand times. Nothing. None of us had the slightest bit of pain or anything. Repair bill was around $8K. The repair shop had to “stretch” something this time and the trunk has never been the same since.

Anyway, two similar wrecks within a short period of time but two completely different outcomes in terms of physical pain/injuries. The only thing I can think of is that DW’s head was turned slightly to the left in the first wreck and was straight ahead in the second one.

35

From my experience, no. On a quiet Sunday afternoon, a woman ran a red light and destroyed my friend’s car. We were near a hospital, and medics were at the light. The driver was given the bed in the ambulance, and I sat up. I was definitely hurting. Well, the driver, who was cited 100% at fault, hired a lawyer. She had the lowest allowed amount of insurance in a no fault state. My guy friend, whose lexus was totaled, hired a lawyer. The orthopedist I saw suggested I too hire someone.

The deposed me and my guy friend. It wasn’t pleastant, and my guy friend has appeared in court MANY times. While I didn’t ask for lost wages, but still had to supply 7 years of taxes. My guy friend’s lawyer was brutal, then followed by the lawyer from my insurance company. My friends insurance ended up paying for all my medical bills and .the costs didn’t go above that so my insurance company never had to pay. It felt so intrusive, to explain every surgery. I had never seen an orthopedist, never had PT, never had cortisone shots, in sum, a perfect candidate.

My complaint was that they couldn’t go after the woman at all. All the lawyers were concerned about was that some insurance company pay all the medical expenses. And yes, I was warned that they could have a PI watching me, so I should never be seen lifting heavy objects outside my house.

Coral rook, I feel so bad that your daughter had to go thru this. When my son was 17, he hit a cab driver. A man from our insurance talked to my son at home, and settled with this driver. Nothing traumatic.

36

Well, this thread is certainly chilling, considering my car was rearended by a driver doing 40 mph and injuries were involved.

37

Small business owner here with two current bogus claims against our company.
One was a fender bender that involed one of our drivers ( 16 foot box truck ) He took his foot off the brake at a red light and tapped the bumper of a Ford Explorer . The damage to the Ford was $350 , yet the front seat passenger is claiming that he sustained serious neck and back injuries. Our employee wasn’t charged , the damage was a very slight dent…clearly a BS claim. It has been pending for 4 years now.

The second one involved another employee who has filed a workman’s comp claim because he claimed he injured his foot on the job…he never complained to his work partner , the partner was alongside him all day and didn’t see or hear anything that indicated an injury …he never notified us about the alleged injury until his attorney notified us…I think this is retirement plan

38

Someone rear-ended us quite gently once, and the next morning I woke up with neck pain. But it only lasted for a day, and we had nothing but a little dent in the bumper, so we did nothing about it. On the other hand, I developed quite severe long-lasting pain starting the day after having to wrench myself to the side and slam on the brakes simultaneously to avoid hitting a person who turned to exit right directly in front of me from the left hand lane. I never even exchanged info with him, since I miraculously didn’t hit him. So it seems to me that such injuries may not manifest themselves immediately.

But there are also a lot of liars and cheats out there.

39

One of my kids (gently) rear-ended a woman while he was on his way to school. His car tapped hers as he didn’t notice his car was creeping forward ever so slightly, as they were both stopped at a red light.

He called me, asking what he should do, and said the woman was very kind and said it was no big deal. I told him to exchange information and take pictures of her bumper. He did. The pictures showed nothing.

Lo and behold, our insurance company called and said she was making an injury claim… not only for herself, but for the three children she had with her in the car. Son said hey- there wasn’t anybody else in the car!

Praise be, you could see from a few of the pictures he took that the car was empty. Insurance company told us they would deal with her. Nothing was ever paid.

40

One of my husband’s co-workers did this. He sued the city and got more than a million dollars plus a 75% disability pension, and lifetime medical/dental. We know him and his wife personally. Very active guy.