You think you’re having a hard time with an insurance company. Getting the run-around? Think you’ve spent a lifetime paying for insurance only to find out the hard way that when you make an insurance claim your own insurance company, which is so nice when it wants you to pay your premiums, heads for the hills when you make your first injury/ insurance claim.
Don’t feel so bad.
Just the other day I had a nice chat with an old friend of mine, someone I respect, someone who, after serving our country admirably and courageously in Viet Nam, went to work in the insurance industry as a claims representative. He’s been doing it for many years, over 40 years in fact.
My friend, who must remain nameless due to the fact he still works for a very large and powerful insurance company handling personal injury and accident claims, was complaining about how things have changed in the insurance industry– and for the worst.
He remembered the day when management actually trained and trusted their own people to settle injury claims without a lot of micro-management. The adjusters were given sufficient and ample authority– permission– to work out injury settlements with victims and their lawyers. The goal was to settle good cases. Nobody should ever expect any insurance company to pay anything on a frivolous claim.
The saying was: ” The only good file is a closed file.” And so it was that, by and large, everyone was working toward the goal of reaching a fair settlement with the least amount of grief and aggravation to close the case. Good for the company; good for the injury victim.
Today my friend tells me things are different, and I know they are. Seems like the bureaucracy has gotten worse. Supervisors half his age, and without any measurable experience in claims or life, are hired to look over his shoulder at every move in an attempt to pinch pennies and, ultimately, short-change injury victims.
Now my friend is very good at his job, and has given a lot of his life to the company. To his credit, he also has a sense of honor and, I truly believe, is one of the adjusters who try to be fair to injury victims too ( there are some out there and they deserve recognition). It is on this point that he runs into deep trouble and problems with management, and they do what they can to reign him in.
His reward for loyal and good work for the insurance company? A strong sense that they want him out; that they can hire someone new for a lot less; and that they will make his final days, weeks or years behind the desk, pure hell.
So, how can we expect insurance companies to actually care about injury victims? The only thing it understands is a case well prepared, and that the injury lawyer on the other side means business.
The enemy I’ve come to learn is usually not the claims adjuster you end up dealing with. He or she is probably just as unhappy with the insurance company as you are and has probably been short-changed by the insurance company, too. In reality, the injury victim and the insurance claims adjuster have a lot in common.
I blame the big shots at the top who make the rules and set the corporate rules and policies that infect and poison the entire company. It’s really a form of economic extortion. They force good people to attempt to short-change injury victims to take less, or find a job somewhere else. It’s the new way of doing business, and it’s no good for anyone.
The same insurance company that tries to get you to settle for less than you deserve is treating its own people the exact same way. It has no conscience and only cares about one thing– corporate profit at any cost. Sound familiar? Didn’t that mentality just about run some of these companies into the ground?
I’ve been in the injury law business for over 25 years, and I’ve seen a lot. I can help you and your family make the very best of a difficult situation.
As for my good, old insurance friend, he just counts the days he has left, and looks forward to the day he can sit on the shores of Lake Michigan drinking a cool one and enjoying retirement. And with the way the insurance companies have been doing business, he hopes his pension checks will cash.
Keep your strength.
Charlie Donahue
Injury law/ accidents and personal injury, including medical malpractice and wrongful death claims.