Insurance Adjuster Lowballing crashed bus

[GreyCoyote]

We are a Texas-based litigation practice and deal with this all the time. The mantra of the insco's is "delay, deny, defend". Its an abhorrent tactic.

Have your attorney send them a demand letter (in Texas its called a Stowers demand). Certified, return receipt. He knows the drill. They will ignore you, and then you file suit.

Dont go the small claims route. Ever. EVER!

Get your partner in to see a doctor ASAP. Injuries are compensible, as are lost wages, medical care, pain/suffering, etc. Keep a journal, receipts, and pay stubs. Turn this into a medical claim case and ramp up the pucker factor for the insco.

They have a 2 million dollar policy? GOOD. Lots of exposure. Rattle the saber!

Dont be afraid to take this to trial. If you lose, so what? They pitched a whopping 1K to you. Screw them. Cost of defense will be upwards of 30 large for them, before experts, etc. Take the case to mediation just before trial and make that 30k your bottom line. They will generally settle if there is gut liability (as appears to be the case here). If not, juries will often do the right thing. They know that, but VENUE IS EVERYTHING, so listen to your lawyer.

Good luck

[CatSpy]

I would say that the only thing that saved Sunshine from salvage....and saved my partner's life, aside from his excellent driving skills...is the fact that we had a 'back porch' on the tail end of the bus, which was a 4 foot wooden deck surrounded by a heavy steel frame...the bus body was not hit directly, if that makes sense. The back porch took the brunt of the blow. The under-frame of the bus is bent, and most windows shattered, but to live in it, the interior is probably fixable with a lot of elbow grease and patience, at least enough to stay in it temporarily when we visit Northern California! We have to completely rebuild the cabinetry and bed, etc...it will be a blank slate when we start over. But we have experience in the construction and design industries and are up for the challenge!

[GreyCoyote]

Ask your lawyer to request the repair bill for the semi in discovery. He's entitled to it. Also, get the DOT logs and his last physical cert from the driver. Snag the GPS position/velocity data for the last 30 days for the truck. They'll sh*t their knickers when they see these demands.

One of the most compelling jury arguments is "so, explain this to me... your semi was damaged to the tune of $XX,XXX dollars, and it was repairable, right? And we have established your clients negligence, right? So please tell the jury how you InsCo determined $XXX dollars was a full, fair and reasonable TOTAL LOSS amount for my clients vehicle, lost wages, medical bills, and pain/suffering!"

I'd also think about bringing-in the vehicle owner under a negligent entrustment/failure to maintain theory. Then the driver can assert a "no brakes" defense. Talk about a powerful motive to settle with the plaintiff...

(Stepping down off my soapbox now. Hehehe)

[Tango]

Excellent advice and tactics! Go for the f---ing throat or walk away.

The "Art of War" might make for a good read right about now.

[CatSpy]

Wow, you all give such great info! I am taking notes, believe me. I appreciate it, since being prepared (aka: armed and dangerous!) is the best defense! Thanks!

[cowlitzcoach]

Our church's van-cutaway bus was rear ended by a driver who "didn't" see the bus.

I was concerned about how badly the frame was bent because the rear cap was totally messed up. Fortunately the only metal that got bent up was the exhaust pipe.

Their insurance company admitted fault--their driver was distracted at the time and really didn't see our bus. Their insurance company wanted to total the bus and started talking about a settlement of less than half of what it was going to cost to repair and about a third of what the bus was worth.

I made a search online for buses that were for sale that had the same passenger capacity and comparable mileage. The only buses that I could find that were comparable had asking prices well in excess of 4x of what it was going to cost to repair the bus.

Since their insurance company was not seeming to be at all reasonable I turned it all over to our insurance carrier. Our insurance paid for a rental replacement bus, all medical bills, and told me to go ahead and get our bus fixed.

The other insurance company finally paid up enough to cover all of the costs we incurred including the towing and our deductible. But it was almost a year after the fact before we ever saw a check.

If your bus does get totaled you have ever right to demand a replacement that is as good or better than what your old bus was at the time of the accident.

What drove the settlement for repair instead of totaling our bus was how much more they would have had to pay to replace rather than to repair our bus. What drove the value of our bus was the relatively low mileage of our bus. Since it was a church bus it had well under 100K miles at the time of the accident even though it was more than 15-years old at the time of the accident. The insurance company was basing their settlement on other buses of the same vintage and not on other buses of the same size or mileage. Which is where my time spent cruising the internet to find comparable buses of the same size and mileage was valuable time spent.

I e-mailed links to all of the comparable buses to our insurance company's adjuster and that is when he told us to just go ahead and get the bus fixed and send them the bill. And he would worry about getting the $$$ out of the other insurance company.

[DoubleO7]

Originally Posted by GreyCoyote

Ask your lawyer to request the repair bill for the semi in discovery. He's entitled to it. Also, get the DOT logs and his last physical cert from the driver. Snag the GPS position/velocity data for the last 30 days for the truck. They'll sh*t their knickers when they see these demands.

One of the most compelling jury arguments is "so, explain this to me... your semi was damaged to the tune of $XX,XXX dollars, and it was repairable, right? And we have established your clients negligence, right? So please tell the jury how you InsCo determined $XXX dollars was a full, fair and reasonable TOTAL LOSS amount for my clients vehicle, lost wages, medical bills, and pain/suffering!"

I'd also think about bringing-in the vehicle owner under a negligent entrustment/failure to maintain theory. Then the driver can assert a "no brakes" defense. Talk about a powerful motive to settle with the plaintiff...

(Stepping down off my soapbox now. Hehehe)

what about cell phone info?
he might have been texting.
or on the computer at the time of crash.

[GreyCoyote]

Originally Posted by DoubleO7

what about cell phone info?
he might have been texting.
or on the computer at the time of crash.

That's a really good strategy question to ask your lawyer. It may be a double-edged sword, depending on the policy, insurance company, local case law, and the underlying facts of the case. But you want to be careful. Every action in a lawsuit carries risk. Some of these risks may not be obvious to you.

Here is the deal: You want to get enough "stuff" on them that they look at a settlement as an easier "out" than trying the case. But you don't want to expose possible defenses to coverage when you do your discovery. Example: Lets say you find-out he was indeed texting his girlfriend at the time of the accident. Sounds good, right? Okay, now lets say he was cussing a blue streak in those texts. Even better, right? In fact, he was so pissed-off he was threatening his girlfriend and seemed to be in a murderous rage. Jackpot, right?

Not necessarily. You may have just blown coverage. If by your scorched-earth discovery the Insco realizes it can argue this was not merely negligence, but gross negligence... or maybe an act of malice (he was allegedly road-raging when he hit you), now you potentially have an intentional act... and this is likely excluded under the policy. In otherwords, the insurance company declines ANY coverage and may be on really firm contractual ground in doing so. Sure, you can chase the driver individually, but 9 times out of 10 that's going to be a dry hole. You can get a judgment for mega-millions, but it wont be worth the paper it's printed on if you never get paid on it. Blood. Turnip. Empty hand. Major suckage!

This is probably a good time to explain there are two distinct hoops you have to jump through as a plaintiff in order to get a favorable result. The first is establishing liability, and the second is proving-up your damages.

A wise salesman once told me "the single biggest error a salesman can make is to keep talking about the product once the buyer is convinced he wants it. Once you've got them on the hook, STOP TALKING. The only way for the deal to go from there is DOWN". Wise words. And they apply here.

You are the saleman. You want the Insco to buy your arguments and settle the claim. So you want to make it through the first hoop (liability), but there may not be a good business reason to smash it through so hard. Remember, you just need to get PAST that hurdle, and you don't want to blow coverage in the process. So rather than a smash, sometimes you just lob it through the first hoop to avoid the minefield, and then you smash the living hell out of it when you get to the damages, which is WHERE YOU GET PAID.

So definitely ask your lawyer. Toss it around, benchrace it a bit with him, and see where he wants to go with it. If he's already got gut liability nailed, he'll likely not want to spend the time and money to run that rabbit trail. But if he's short on liability, then it may make strategic sense to go there. Only your lawyer can advise you on this and help you make an informed decision.

Final comment: Your lawyer will likely ask you not to talk about the case, and this is really good advice. I'm here to tell you the Insco's have "researchers" and "backgrounders" whose job is all about finding-out what you have said/done/etc. They WILL find this forum, and they WILL read this thread and they WILL try to use it against you somehow. At the very least, it gives them data about how you think, what your fears are, and may reveal personality traits they could exploit during trial. So be careful.

Rant off.

[DoubleO7]

So with what you said above, would it not be the insco's SOP to say all accidents were done on purpose, deny coverage to all parties and walk away?

[bansil]

Originally Posted by DoubleO7

So if what you said above, would it not be the insco SOP to say all accidents were done on purpose, deny coverage to all parties and walk away?

Kind of like the figure 8 bus races?

[GreyCoyote]

One more post, then I'm going to leave it.

Short answer: Yes. They can do that. But not without a LOT of risk.

Long answer: In cases like that the plaintiff and defendant snuggle-up and cut a deal. The defendant gets an assurance the plaintiff wont attempt to collect on any judgment against him. In return the defendant driver bleeds all over the witness stand. "Totally my fault". And the uncontroverted testimony shows the defendant was simply distracted at the time of the accident, without gross neg or malice. Plaintiff wins big. Defendant sues his insco directly under a bad faith cause of action and slaughters them. Insco gets popped hard, for a judgment they WILL pay. Bad business and it was totally avoidable but for the failure of the insco to defend under a reservation of rights.

Thats why this scene doesnt play-out very often. Insco's are in business to make money. They have zero interest in being callous arsewholes IF its going to cost them or make bad case law for them. Usually it is far better to tender a defense than risk losing control of your (pissed-off) insured.

[bamudd]

Tag this thread in case I ever need to look it up for reference. Insurance claim adjuster sue court lawyer settle settlement case

[Tango]

GC --- Many thanks for the straight talk.

[Stu & Filo. T]

Originally Posted by bamudd

Tag this thread in case I ever need to look it up for reference. Insurance claim adjuster sue court lawyer settle settlement case

How do you tag a thread?

[Stu & Filo. T]

Any idea what the status is on this? I'm debating now if I should cut my losses before going on.

[snonut]

This is really good information. I wouldn't mind having something like this as a sticky so it would be easier to find in the future.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by snonut

This is really good information. I wouldn't mind having something like this as a sticky so it would be easier to find in the future.

This post went straight to a text doc, saved on my computer. Very insightful post from Danglebury, Tejas. Grassyass.