November 11, 2009 by Zale.

There are many things in this life that we can do on our own.  The problem is that often we miss details that a professional can pick up on.  It’s easy for individuals, who don’t know any better, to allow an insurance company, a district attorney, the Department of Children’s Services or any number of other individuals or agencies to take advantage of them.  Do all of those in power take advantage of the average person? No.  Do some of them? Absolutely.  How does the average individual know if they are getting the best deal or treatment? Hire an attorney.

When you hire an attorney, if nothing else, it keeps the other side honest.  It lets them know that you at least want someone looking out for your best interest.  It also gives you, the client, someone to help you understand what’s going on.  Often law is tricky.  So much so, that even attorneys can’t know it all.  At least with an attorney by your side, you have a much greater shot at getting treated fairly.

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January 3, 2009 by Zale.

The problem is lack of consistency.  In some instances, they will offer you money on cases that you never dreamed they would.  Those are good days.  In other instances, they make terrible offers or even denials on very viable cases.

They claim that this is due to every claim being different.  I think there are more subtle reasons like:

• How well the claims staff, including the manager and claims analyst, is trained. Many people would be amazed at how poorly and inconsistently claims operations are trained.
• How much the insurance company simply wants to close claims. Insurance company “sales” are a good thing for everyone.
• Whether or not the claimant or attorney has upset the adjuster. Don’t bite the hand that you want to feed you, if at all possible.  Sometimes its just unavoidable.
• The current trend of the company or industry regarding making fair offers or making a point.  Insurance companies watch and imitate each other.  Each one goes through trends of first, “look how much we are cutting claims costs” then “we need to reduce our number of claims”. Often, they never figure out that the two are related.
  
• Whether or not the company or adjuster is seeing every single claim as fraudulent.  Which was the culture at Allstate.  Everything to them seemed to be fraud.
• Or even matters as arbitrary as whether or not its the end of the month or the end of the year.  Often this is the best time to push for the closure of a claim, since insurance companies adjust their mandated reserves at the end of each month.

So what’s my point?  If you value your claim, you’ll talk to an attorney about it, before its too late.

Posted in Negotiations, Litigation, Injury Law, Insurance Practices, Insurance Law | No Comments »

September 26, 2008 by Zale.

Farmers Insurance just got hit for a $130M verdict, $80M of which was for bad faith and punitive damages. Wow!

In case you didn’t know Farmers is one of those companies that has created for themselves a reputation of being very hard to deal with when it comes to resolving claims.  I still don’t understand the logic behind a company making such a name for itself in the market place.  Wouldn’t it be better to have a reputation of being fair to the policyholder? Don’t kid yourself.  Someone on that jury knew of Farmers reputation.

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September 3, 2008 by Zale.

Recently I was asked to teach a graduate level class regarding Professional Negotiations.  Since so much of my career as a claims adjuster and as an attorney have revolved around day to day negotiations, I am looking forward to the class.

For those in the class, I have assigned the class a few Tennessee cases to read.  Those cases are:  Polk Co., Marion Co. and  Rutherford Co.  These cases are some examples of negotiations in Tennessee regarding the field of Education.

Posted in Negotiations, EDAD 6050/7050, General Law | No Comments »

July 25, 2008 by Zale.

I’ve handled fatality cases before, when I was an adjuster.  They are never easy.  The Tennessee Supreme Court just decided a case where the plaintiffs were awarded $18.4M in the fatality of an infant.

There are those that would say that we need tort reform and that $18.4M is excessive for this.  I say the founding fathers got it right.  The monetary value for the death of a child coupled with an auto manufacturer’s negligence should be determined on a case by case basis by a jury, not legislation.

You can read more on the case here.

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