Wednesday, June 01, 2005

It's The Insurance Companies, Stupid

How is it that people trust insurance companies more than lawyers? I guess because insurance companies have more money & have bought more laws in their favor. Most people don't even know that it's generally ILLEGAL to mention the existence of insurance in a trial. Automatic mistrial, baby. Juries decide cases every day without knowing the true parties to the lawsuit.

They really think that when Grandson is suing Grandma because he fell at her house, he's suing Grandma! No he's not! He's suing Allstate (smallstate) or whoever her home insurer is. You pay premiums dutifully for years expecting that when you have a claim it will just get paid.....but NooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. That's not what happens.

I've interviewed jurors after verdicts & had them tell me that they thought insurance had already paid & the plaintiff was just looking for a little extra.

And then there's this phony medical malpractice insurance crisis. Lawsuits driving up the cost of medical care? Are you kidding me? Lawyers have abandoned medical malpractice cases in droves. Go ahead, try to bring a medical malpractice case where liability is clear, as in, you can prove definitively that the doctor did it, caused the injury, but the damages are less than $100,000. There's not one lawyer in their right mind who would take such a case. You can't put in the hours & pay the experts such a case requires & make any money, for the lawyer or the client. So many cases just don't get brought at all.

So the insurance industry, which has spent 15 years on TV & radio advertising to convince us that there's a "medical malpractice" crisis, has been making money hand over fist. Except for all their bad investments. So what have they done about them? Raised the medical malpractice rates they charge doctors!

Read all about it in the Boston Globe: Rising doctors' premiums not due to lawsuit awards: Study suggests insurers raise rates to make up for investment declines

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