This is the time of year when where we forgive all those who may have mistreated us. We hopefully begin the year clean of our sins, and trust that our friends will be there for us when life offers the most serious of challenges. Unfortunately, without warning and in the blink of an eye, a life can be taken or irretrievably altered as a result of an auto accident. Remarkably, most victims of auto accidents instantly call their own insurance company in this desperate time of need. After all, why not trust and call your insurance company after an accident to ask it for help? This would make sense after you have been paying high premiums year after year. The least your insurance company could do would be to ethically answer your questions, provide good, sound, professional advice, and most importantly, advise when it is in a direct conflict of interest with you.
Don’t trust your auto insurance company.
Believe it or not, when a serious accident happens that is not even your fault, you are often placed in an adversarial position against your own insurance company. Regrettably, your insurance company will rarely disclose any conflict it has in handling your claim.
The classic conflict a plaintiff has with his or her insurance company arises after an auto accident involving significant injuries. Because a defendant may carry a small auto liability policy ($15,000 is the minimum required coverage in New Jersey), the under-insured provision of the plaintiff’s own auto policy will frequently be triggered. This means that not only does the plaintiff’s insurer want to stop paying necessary medical bills and/or lost wages pursuant to its obligation via the no-fault/PIP (personal injury protection) provision of the plaintiff’s auto policy, but the insurer also wants to limit the amount of money it will ultimately be forced to pay the plaintiff pursuant to the under-insurance provision of the policy.
The plaintiff’s insurance company will attempt to achieve these goals in two ways. First, it will assign an adjuster to take a recorded statement of the plaintiff wherein the adjuster often encourages the plaintiff to make statements that are against the plaintiff’s own interest. This recorded statement is almost assured to resurface later on in litigation and be used against the plaintiff in various ways.
Second, now that the plaintiff’s insurer has to pay medical bills and lost wages, it will do its best to cut-off the plaintiff’s ability to continue to obtain necessary and essential medical treatment by requiring the plaintiff to attend what it calls an “IME” (Independent Medical Examination). However, what the plaintiff is really being forced to attend is an “Insurance” Medical Examination, wherein the doctor (who often performs hundreds, if not thousands, of exams for insurance companies), frequently generates a report that claims there’s nothing wrong with the plaintiff despite clear evidence of positive findings on objective testing (i.e., MRI’s, CT’s, X-rays). This sinister “exam” is used by the insurer to justify denying the plaintiff vital medical treatment, and to limit the plaintiff’s recovery in the under-insurance claim against the plaintiff’s own insurance company.
Although pursuant to all auto policies an insurer must be placed on notice of an accident, one should reconsider who to call first after an auto accident. Your insurance company is not your friend or lawyer. Call your lawyer.
Marc J. Rothenberg and Ross B. Rothenberg reside in Bergen County. They, along with four of their siblings and both parents, are partners and trial attorneys at The Rothenberg Law Firm LLP. They can be reached at Marc_InjuryLawyer.com and Ross_InjuryLawer.com or 800-257-4878.
By Marc J. Rothenberg, Esq.
