When a person is injured through no fault of their own, Georgia State Law and Federal Law provide that there should be a remedy against the at-fault party. One of the more confusing things for clients to understand is that in the eyes of the law, determining who is responsible is not always a slam dunk.
In order to recover money damages to compensate you for your medical bills, lost wages and suffering, there are three hurdles that must be cleared.
Duty
For those of you that never read this article by CNN exposing State Farm and Allstate for adopting a combative strategy of deny, delay defend with regard to handling their claims, I strongly recommend it. You can draw your own conclusions from the research, but I can tell you that from my experience litigating both as an insurance defense attorney and as a plaintiff’s attorney, they are spot on.The article highlights evidence that came to light in a series of lawsuits against Allstate and State Farm by plaintiffs that had been low-balled and the juries saw the truth. The portion of the article dealing with the consulting firm’s recommendations is stunning. The strategy of deny, delay and defend is put into practice across the board by these carriers and others and I am finding that I am taking more and more of my cases all the way to jury trial in order to obtain fair compensation.
The problems in this industry lie at both ends of the spectrum. Insurance companies are turning a blind eye on legitimate injury cases and some plaintiffs lawyers are ignoring common sense and turning a blind eye when they know that they are putting up a less than legitimate case. The fact is that this industry would be better for the public as a whole if both sides would step back and take a realistic approach to handling injury cases.
In an amazing show of unity, the Senate passed the bill unanimously and the House only had one Nay. President Bush signed it into Law on May 22, 2008. The bill has been a long time coming and bars health insurers from asking for or using genetic information to make a decision about whether to cover a person or how high to set the premiums.
Although there were already some protections for insureds with group health insurance under existing federal law, those who are self-employed and buy their own coverage previously had no guarantees that their genetic information would not be used against them.
One component in particular is a big benefit because it keeps an insurer from raising premiums for a group insured as a small business just because one member has a genetic predisposition to a particular illness or malady.
One simple tip can help you save hundreds of dollars. Increase your deductible from $200.00 to $500.00 on the collision and comprehensive coverage and you can save up to 30% on those premiums. I personally have mine set at $1000.00 due to the savings. You protect yourself against the massive risk and you dont have to turn it in to the carrier on smaller issues.
These insurance coverages are frequently misunderstood in Georgia insurance policies. Collision coverage protects you against yourself when you cause a crash either with another vehicle or with an object. It will pay to repair damage to your own vehicle. It is required on cars that you finance or lease. You have a good deal of control over the rates as you can set a deductible. The idea is that if you crash your car and the repairs cost $5,000.00 then you pay the deductible and the company pays the rest.
Comprehensive insurance is a catch all coverage that protects you against a variety of dangers. If you have it, you are insured if the car is stolen, or keyed, flooded out, struck by hail, or a tree falls on it. If your car is more than 10 years old or not worth much for some other reason, I would not worry about getting it.
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to have Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage in Georgia. In 11 years of practicing as an injury lawyer, I have found that the people that cause the most devastating injuries in automobile collisions tend to be uninsured and underinsured drivers. Bad drivers tend to have a lot of speeding tickets and prior collisions and cannot afford decent coverage. As a result, the at fault driver did not have enough liability insurance to repay my clients for the medical bills they incurred and the injuries they sustained.
Most drivers in Georgia operate with the minimum mandatory limits of $25,000.00. That may seem like a lot of money but that’s only if you have not been to the hospital recently. For example, in Metro Atlanta, the typical ambulance ride costs $600.00, the Emergency room visit is at least $800, X-Rays cost around $250, an MRI is $1100, a CT scan can cost $2000 and so on. Even a modest trip to the emergency room usually costs around $2,000.00. Then there can be mountains of bills from physical therapy and medications. In short, even a simple auto accident case with sprained muscles that requires an ER visit and physical therapy can leave a person with over $5,000.00 in bills. If there are any broken bones, the value of the case in front of a jury quickly grows to over $25,000.00.
Now imagine you have been in an accident in Roswell, Georgia and a driver has totaled your car by negligently failed to leave enough following distance. You have gone to the hospital and learned that you have a herniated disc in your neck that is going to need surgery. The total cost for your medical expenses will be well over $45,000.00 which does not even include the amount of income you will lose for missing work during surgery and recovery. You make contact with the at-fault driver’s insurance company and learn that the driver only had $25,000.00 in coverage and is not a wealthy person. Reality is that there may be no recovery for you beyond the $25,000.00. As your grandmother told you, you cannot get blood from a stone.
If your agent cares about you or you are tuned in, you will put medical payments insurance on your Georgia car insurance policy. This is a coverage that directly benefits you and your passengers in the event that you or they are hurt in an accident. It pays regardless of who caused the accident and does not have to be repaid if you make a recovery later against an at fault party. This coverage is comparatively inexpensive and I highly recommend that you at least get $5,000.00 in coverage. Christopher Simon, a car accident lawyer in Atlanta, knows that it can make all the difference between getting collections phone calls and sleeping through the night.
The easiest way to find out if you have the coverage is to pick up the phone and call the number on your insurance card. Just ask them, do I have medical payments or medpay insurance and in what amount. They will then walk you through how to open a claim.
Granted I do only review Georgia car insurance policies for people when things have gone wrong but isn’t that the way you should approach your insurance purchasing? The most common thing I hear from people after they have been in a terrible accident is “I have full coverage.” What does that mean?
In the insurance industry, it can mean very little. Many insurance agents will tell you that you have “full coverage” and what that really means is you have liability insurance, collision coverage and comprehensive coverage. It has nothing to do with the amount of the these coverages. I have to break this news to people all too frequently.
So… First step is to get out your policy information. Every six months or so you should receive a declarations page. If you cannot find it, pull up your insurance account. Almost everyone has their policy documents available online these days.
When a car is damaged and repaired in a Georgia car accident, it is not “as good as new” when fixed. Diminution in value or diminished value generally applies only to cars that have not been in a wreck before. The idea is that in this day and age of Carfax and vehicle background checks everyone will know if the car was in a wreck when you try to sell it. No one will pay the same price for a used car when choosing between a previously repaired car and an undamaged one.
Well the legislature struck out on the important changes they were trying to implement but at least they did some good for the State. These bills will now go on to the Governor for signature and hopefully they will make it through.
ID Theft Protection: Georgia Credit Freeze Law.
Link to Legislation, Votes and Status: http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2007_08/sum/hb130.htm
Atlanta Injury Attorney Blog