One day, my running partner and I noticed a guy sitting in a car on our private road. He was still there when we returned from our run. I asked him what he was doing. He was upfront and told us he was observing our neighbor’s house, because they thought the man was faking his back injury! I didn’t know the family well, but from the little his wife told me, I think he really was hurt. It was just kind of strange to see that in a rural neighborhood.
I have served on juries in two civil cases, both times it was some one who has been rear-ended in fairly mild fender-bender type accidents and developed pain later. Both times it came out a the end of the trail that the injured party hadn’t even thought about going back on the driver until their health insurer demanded that they do so. So maybe it is not the injured party, but their insurance company coming for you. Just another cost of our messed up health care system.
@lololu, I have noticed that anytime someone in my family has seen a doctor for any type of injury, the insurance company has sent a questionnaire asking for the cause - and specifically asking if it was caused by an accident or in the workplace. They are looking to push the bill onto someone else for sure.
You are right - insurance companies MAKE people file suit all the time. It can be a condition of obtaining benefits. Sadly, the litigants are often not permitted to mention the existence of insurance at trial, so the assumption is that they are just litigious.
On the other side of this, I have been rear ended twice in the last four months. First time was by a drunk driver, hit and run, hit me very hard. Though I gave the police the license plate number and description of the vehicle, I have no idea if they followed up. Didn’t bother to notify insurance, because my car is a tank, and was lightly scratched. Slightly sore neck.
Two months ago, another rear end, this time by an uninsured driver (probably texting), my car is crunched, slightly sore neck. Had to file insurance to repair the car, and told them I was a little sore but no big deal, not going to follow it up. Months later, my neck is still sore, and I don’t know if it’s related. I have some compressed disks in my neck, the explanation is that it is common, often age related, but can be accelerated by car accidents.
So my doctor recommended physical therapy, but who pays? I just want my health insurance to pay, I’ll do the $20 copay, I don’t want to make a fuss. But the fact that I told my doctor about the accidents, now it could be a mess. What if the insurance company asks me if it’s related to an accident? I don’t know. There isn’t any money coming from the people who hit me to cover it. I just would like my neck to stop hurting.
And in the end, the offenders get to walk away. I have to pay the copays, the deductible for the accident that was in no way my fault. My neck still hurts, and they won’t even be asked to cover my expenses. If the insurance company goes after them, it will not be paid, it will just be creditors calling for them.
When you rear end someone, it is generally YOUR fault. You damage their car, sometimes you can cause lasting injury and pain, even if you don’t see it right away. Sure, it’s aggravating if someone seems to be unjustly suing you, but at least you should feel guilty for what you did to someone.
Busdriver, I agree with you. If you caused somebody even the slightest damage, you should be willing to pay for it. Even a very minor accident can result in lifelong physical consequences if the victim is susceptible. I don’t think we should expect people to just walk away from even small injuries or damage. Why should they bear the burden of paying anything at all instead of the person who caused it? What’s offensive is when people want big $$ for small matters.
^^Definitely agree with that!
@prospect1 - same here. The first time I went to see an ortho for some nagging hip pain, the insurance sent me the same request. I sent the form back, filled, stating that I had no accidents of any sort. They sent me a second one. I got really irritated and wrote in LARGE letters “I wish I could sue my old age!” or something like that and sent it back. Not a peep since then; all bills were timely processed.
Mr. was serving on a jury. The defendant was an insurance salesperson, and the cause of action was breach of duty to his client when the policy he sold did not cover underinsured motorists. The plaintiff was stuck with an astronomical hospital bill after a bad crash - the other driver had minimum coverage. It made us go through our own policy to make sure we have the appropriate coverage… including the umbrella. Check yours!
I once had my car insurance raised because I had been in 2 accidents in 2 years. Neither one was my fault, and both drivers had insurance and their insurance paid for damage to my car (pretty minor to totally minor).
But for the first accident I had some neck/shoulder pain a few days after and had a small medical claim. In my state, it’s your OWN car insurance that pays for that, up to $2000 or so. I think they held it against me.
Busdriver - since it’s been a few months I would check the box that says it wasn’t caused by an accident if I were you. It keeps things simple (as long as we have health insurance at all…)
The problem, of course, is that pain from whiplash and such injuries is only really known by the person involved, so bogus claims have a chance of being paid, while real claims are treated with heavy suspicion.
The reality is that the vast majority of bodily injury claims are settled amicably and fairly by the insurance companies and the claimants. It’s the cases like the one cited by zoosermom that everyone hears about and complains about phony claims. Keep in mind that cases where there are huge awards are cases that almost always have gone to trial and the ridiculous awards are granted by juries who want to punish insurance companies. They deserve a lot of the blame in rising insurance costs, not just plaintiffs who may be exaggerating their injuries.
Thanks for the advice, @greenwitch. I really don’t know if the accidents contributed to it, or just accelerated it. I don’t want to be involved in a mess, I just want the pain to disappear. It will just be a few physical therapy visits, no doubt. And it sure wouldn’t be fair if my insurance rates went up, too!
Only scanned posts. The thread title got me- “bogus” claims. People who do that of course can sleep at night, just as any criminal who steals, injures, kills can. However, the person may actually feel pain.
Physician here. Rear ended by a 16 year old while stopped for a school bus in light April snow close to home. The bus driver called it in. Turns out the bumper damage was well over the reportable dollar amount- so much in bumpers even over twenty years ago. Five year old son was fine. I ached a lot the next day and called a neurosurgeon friend who ordered the C-spine x-rays for me without a visit. Paid for by their insurance- I could have cost them a lot more with office visits! They showed no injury, fortunately, so I could relax about it while getting through the pain. Did learn about some age related degenerative changes. Consequence - driver’s parents had the same insurance company who gave me zero responsibility but cancelled my policy of decades duration because I had had some previous claims for minor incidents (slippery conditions, our cars only minor damage)! Angry about that.
The thread title does not match the first post. It can take months to fully recover, file insurance claims, have them denied and resort to lawyers. Or a person can try to milk the system. The parents of the teen driver who hit me (and did not even have her license/insurance papers with her) are lucky physicians avoid the legal system when possible. We ended up with a local/regional instead of national insurance company who did well by us the rest of our time in Wisconsin.
The case I referred to was not a case against another person or insurance company - the plaintiff was a city of New York employee who sued the City of New York. The City settled as it usually does for various reasons, and the settlement terms were made public as they always are in cases like that. So it doesn’t relate to most of what was discussed here. However, I do think this person should have trouble sleeping at night because he was open about it being bogus.
@zoosermom, I was referencing claims against insurance companies and the exorbitant and ridiculous awards that are decided by juries. The ones that you see on tv ads for personal injury lawyers. Whomever insures NYC may, indeed, settle a case like you referenced with a million dollar award but it is very unlikely for an insurance company to do that with a claim on an auto or h/o policy. I have to wonder why the case you referenced wasn’t a workmen’s comp type case, especially in a union job. Any idea?
There are dishonest people out there, I agree. I remember one claim I handled where the party insured with the company I worked for was involved in a crash with a city bus. There were five passengers on the bus at the time but people came out of the woodwork in an attempt to make an injury claim. It wasn’t difficult to disprove.
In this specific case, he sued for negligence because he claimed some of the equipment was unsafe as he used it - which was against the rules. It really was about the pension which, as you know, is a huge area of law here. The reality is that, (my firm handles these cases as pro bono trial work for young associates) the city of New York settles almost everything, which is why we pay so many tens of millions in settlements a year. Even when it’s clearly fraud, the city almost always settles.
As I understand it, depending on state, there can be exceptions with workers comp claims where a claim can end up outside workers comp arena and in front of jury (eg employer intentionally hurts an employee (punches employee??))
When insurance companies can be shown to act in bad faith, they may be open to punitive damages. This is where you see a jury award someone say 250k for not paying their valid claim of medical bills, lost wages, etc, and then the jury also awards say 5 million in punitive damages to punish insurance company for acting in bad faith for not paying valid claim and hopefully send a message to other insurance companies. Whether other insurance companies get a jury’s message is wishful thinking as premiums probably are simply raised to cover the punitive damages paid out.
I had jury duty many years ago and made my statement about suing the big pockets when questioned- not picked and when I spoke with one of the lawyers afterwards (knew his physician like me father, mid sized city) I found my statements could have caused a mistrial if spoken during it. But- fair game in jury selection when all potential jurors heard me!
It can be much cheaper to settle than go to trial. Saves taxpayers money.