Posted On: March 15, 2006, 5:23 pm CST

Posted By: Jacqueline

Please spare me about how poor and overworked lawyers representing the disenfranchised are. As a conscientious independent property & casualty agent, I must pay unaffordable E & O costs and fidelity bond fees just in order to be able to work, we have to know almost as much as a lawyer and we are more vulnerable to lawsuits and censures by the regulatory authorities than lawyers. We have more responsibility and bear more risk of losing our shirts and we don't make anywhere near what lawyers get nor do we get the respect and prestige, yet we can be sued on a moments notice by some greedy ambulance chaser representing a client who feels they have a right to get rich at the expense of someone else because some money-grubbing lawyer got them pumped.

You can't turn on a TV, or drive down an Interstate or open a phonebook without seeing some greedy, money-grubbing lawyer add like " Burned by your broker/insurance agent/realtor/butcher/bajer/candlestick-maker? Call us at Dewey, Screwum, & How. We'll fight for YOU and get YOU the money you DESERVE!".

Lawyers don't get paid unless clients get money and their all just so altruistic, right? Well guess what, P & C agents don't get paid unless we sell and write policies that provide the service of indemnification. Now the principle of indemnification is not to be confused with the principle of enrichment. Insurance is to make you whole (or as close to "whole" as reasonably possible) in the event of a loss - NOT make you rich or get you a profit of having more than you had prior to your loss. Insurance companies are not government-funded non-profits benefitting from grants, tax exempt status and public donations. They are in business to make money for providing the service of indemnification! Money-hungry lawyers claiming they care about the disenfranchised don't care if driving up the cost of business hurts those little guys who are self-employed trying to make a living because they can't afford the higher costs of doing business, namely formidable E & O costs! So someone who might have otherwise been able to provide a living for their family by working as a P & C agent may not be able to afford to work - thanks to a bunch of greedy lawyers driving up the costs with frivolous lawsuits just so they can rake in big bucks.