More about Insurance companies, Grrrrrrrr.

[Lifesighs]

Two years ago my husband's grandson was in a serious accident. He was at a beach party when a few girls wanted to go to the store and get more snacks, Alex (grandson) and his friend volunteered to go help. He had never seen the girl before and had not really met her was just trying to be helpful, the girl was driving and on the way instead of going around a curve in the road went straight without braking and hit a brick wall. The result was the girl was unconscious, Alex had some injuries with a one day stay in the hospital and Alex's friend was killed.

The insurance company kept dragging it's feet and not paying for any of the hospital or ambulance bills, after a year Alex decided he needed an attorney to go to bat because his credit was being ruined. The insurance company still kept delaying and wanting more depositions etc. Finally about a month ago the insurance company wanted one more deposition, Alex was put through about 2 hours of attack as if the whole accident was his fault, he was yelled at, accused of utter nonsense asked many horrifying questions like "when your friend died did he make a sound?" "Can you describe the sound he made as he died?" Can you make that sound?

What the f^%j is going on with these companies? This was a major insurer either State Farm or Farmers (can't remember which). Alex lost his friend, he was in trauma over that for many months, the boy who died has a family that didn't want any insurance money, they thought it was blood money and wouldn't even speak to the girl's insurer. They were already getting off paying big money out for a loss of life. Still they tried to stiff this 21 year old kid. He will be 23 in May and just finally got his settlement so he can pay the hospital and ambulance and straighten out his credit.

Is this common now? Why aren't insurance companies paying the claims they know they owe? Is there an age group that insurers think won't persue the issue and delay on purpose?

It pisses me off to think about how this all ended. Alex will have this memory for many years to come.

[T2Friends]

Boy I can certainly understand why you are angry.  It is so wrong that he had to go through something like that.  You hear stories of people that scam insurance companies (the slip and fall guys or the rear ending whiplash specialists) which is I suppose, is the excuse that insurance companies use for being such a$$holes in many cases.  But this is so far from those cases, it makes it even more horrible that they treated him so badly.    

[frenchy]

i think ins. co's are the most evil necessity in existence .. they are plain and simple takin advantage of your misfortune .. thats what they do .. prey on your misfortune and then they will do everything they can not to pay claims .. and thats pretty much standard for the industry .. and they know that you need to have it .. and once you absolutely need it and its mandatory by law that you have it ?? thats when they raise the rates and laugh all the way to the bank .. i'd almost rather pay protection to the mob .. then if i got any money commin to me they'll cut thru all the red tape .. a few pairs of concrete shoes and a boat ride would take care of that .. 

[ProblemAgain]

that's their business. and they do try especially hard to stick it to the young ones since they don't know as much. the first rule of thumb for insurance is to deny all claims, then when pressed to offer a pitiful amount to settle the claim banking on the injured party or the party making the claim becoming desperate to have funds to pay bills, replace a wrecked car, repair a house or get medical care. and they do this on all aspects of insurance including healthcare policies in the hope that the party making the claim will settle. in the case of healthcare, it is even more scurrilous because they bank on the person being refused treatments getting even sicker and more desperate or even the big win of them all, the person dying without the company having to cough up money. oh and by the way, the most notorious company for refusing claims used to be Allstate. they even refused to pay for damages that their insured caused to my car in a rear end collision at a stoplight when the girl slammed the gas down cause the light had turned green. didn't matter there were four cars still stopped. that one took demand letters from an attorney and letters and phone calls to the insurance regulatory commission to have the damages and injuries covered...advice to your nephew...pursue damages for the credit rating and everything else...some of these guys need to be hanging from the same limbs as wall street brokers

[crestofwaves]

How sad that your son's friend died.

Insurance companies are paid NOT to pay big bills.  My daughter almost lost her arm due to an infection from an injury from a car accident, and we went through hell to have them cover her hospital costs.  Her arm is permanently disfigured, so we sued the other driver's insurance company, and again , had to take the whole thing to court, etc.

Yep. Insurance companies do their job very well of finding reasons not to pay, however I just had a flood in the basement, and the insurance company was wonderful.  Their payout wasn't  much--the cost of the disaster company cleaning and drying it and some minimal contents, but they were prompt and good. But I know my premium will go up to pay for what they paid me.

[frenchy]

you bet your sweet ass your premium is gonna go up cresty .. in the next 5 years you'll pay back what they paid you 3 times over .. and then some .. the sad truth is that ins co.s run this country .. before hurricaine charley my house ins. down here in florida was 475 dollars a year .. after charley it went to 1200 . and now its over 2 grand a year .. now considerin that i live in a pretty good spot in florida .. the last time the ft myers area was hit with a hurricaine was in 1960 by hurricaine donna before charley in 2004 .. livin in florida you see how hurricaines move and if you're smart you pay attention .. cause every now and then things won't go as usual .. but generally hurricaines come off the sahara desert as a heat wave that hits the warm water in the summer and are fueled by the water temps .. the warmer the water the better the chance for a bigger hurricaine .. and the general trajectory is that hurricaines move northwest .. sometimes they can get caught up in a trouth and go more north and pretty much just be a fish storm .. or they can go up the coast and hit anywhere .. more like sandy did .. or any number of storms in the last 30 years .. way longer than that actually .. but for a storm to go into the gulf and then make a right turn as far south as ft myers is pretty unusual .. if it does it's usually because a cold front came down and pushed it to the east like wilma did . but thats usually pretty late in the year .. i think wilma was the end of october .. so my point to all this ( and i do have one ) is knowin all this and that the chances of ft myers gettin hit again are pretty slim why have my rates more than quadrupled in less than 10 years ?? i mean if i know this i'm sure they know it too .. and yeah i had some damage from charley but not all that much .. and charley was a pretty strong storm.. there's a school not too far from me that had a wind gauge on the roof and it recorded winds of 139 mph .. till it completely blew off the roof .. so they're not sure how high the winds really were , but my neighbor had a tree fall down and bounce off my shop .. i had a few trees come down and take out my fence in a few places .. i had a really big light on a pole in my side yard about the size of a street light , ( ever see how big a street light really is up close ?? them things are huge ) come down and it took the pole with it .. but for the most part most of the damage wasn't all that expensive to fix .. and most people were similar or even less than me .. and man did them ins. co's cry .. now considerin that they been collectin house ins from all the houses for the last 44 years before charley with no incidents you'd think they woulda been at least ready wouldn't ya ?? oh hell no .. i've paid them back for charley 20 times over already .. they didn't lose one thin dime on me .. and just playin the odds it will be another 30 years before they might have to pay anything again .. but when and if it happens and if i'm still alive you can bet your sweet ass they'll find some way to screw me and tell me i haven't paid em enough for the last 40 years .. and then go cryin to the state to bail em out ( which they probably will cause ins. co's pay big bucks to the gubment to get em to vote the way they want em to so in the end we'll pay for it that way too ) and the ins. co's will just skip away free to screw you some more .. did i mention how much i hate ins. co's ???     

[Snagg]

I may have told this story before, but it still holds:

My dad was not a good person; You couldn't comment that it was a nice day without him turning it into a fistfight. I had absolutely no respect for him, and the world is a better place without him.

That said...He also fought in WW II, on Tarawa and Iwo Jima, and saw some horrible shit. He spent ten years doing door-to-door sales for various insurance companies, all the big ones in the 60's - Prudential, Rockford, the Franklin, and he knew the ins, the outs, the bullshit and the realities - And he once told me, apropos of nothing, that insurance companies are the biggest sons-of-bitches on the planet. He talked a LOT of shit, but that particular phrase was one that he used rarely, and only when he really meant it...

[Lifesighs]

I think he was right Snagg. It's so discouraging. 

[frenchy]

you're damm right he was right.. even a blind squirll will find a nut every now and then .. he may not have been right about a lot of other things and as snag said not the peachiest guy ..but he obviously knew insurance ..