Is it easier money than the medical profession is \”raking in\”? In 2003, spending for health care reached $1.7 trillion or 15.3% of GDP. Out of pocket costs to patients reached $230 billion in 2003.
Is it easier money than the drug companies are \”raking in?\” In 2003, drug spending rose 11% to $180 billion.
Is it easier money than the insurance industry is raking in? Property and casualty insurance income increased 320% from the first three quarters in 2002 to the first three quarters in 2003, to at total of $320 billion.
This doesn\’t look like such \”easy\” money from the point of view of the people lawyers represent. Most people would prefer the company of a loved one who has died because of the negligence of a doctor or driver than a lot of money.
Most people would rather be healthy and active than crippled and in pain with a good lawsuit.
Most lawyers handle cases on behalf of people who could not afford to pay a lawyer and, therefore, could not litigate their claim against a negligent person or company. The lawyers don\’t get paid unless and until the client recovers money by way of settlement, verdict or arbitration award.
The insurance companies pay their lawyers by the hour and seem to encourage their attorneys to make cases as expensive and, thus, as risky as possible for the plaintiff and her attorney. Now, there\’s easy money.
Most plaintiffs\’ lawyers pay all of the costs of the litigation and lose that money unless the client is successful against the negligent tortfeasor. Litigation involves paying experts, court reporters, copy services, jury fees, and a whole host of other costs.
Please identify the source of the data identifying the \”$260 Billion costs\”.
Does the figure represent all tort court judgments and the cost of all premiums for all lines of related insurance? If so, were sums deducted for premium payments where no claims were paid?
Does the figure include settled case ammounts? Most settlement sums are unknown and have confidentiality clauses usually at the insistence of the insurer.To what extent were these figures included in thie $260 Billion\” cost? And how would one verify the accuracy of such statements that are based on non-disclosable private information?
It is unclear whether the article\’s claim of $260 Billion in tort costs\” is accurate.
It sounds as though the \”losses\” include \”reserves\” (amounts expected to be paid to third parties), which may never be paid to anyone. If so, these figures are misleading.
It would be interesting to know how insurance company profits have fared over the same periods of time.
The author of this incomplete report of tort costs does it\’s readers a disservice by not accurately and completely reporting the facts of its study. It appears to be yet another misguided half truth the insurance/business lobby has attempted to pass off as legitimate stats in support of tort deform movement.
If your goal was to misinform, mislead or
distort the truth then you have succeeded. However, in the end you will have more credibility among your target audience as well as those who oppose your interests if you just reported accurately and completely.
For example that soon to be former Senator from Pa.- Rick Santorum shows us why its important to have credibility, and truthfulness in dealing with the public. Leading up to the most recent election he was banging the med mal reform drum so hard and loud that he didn\’t hear his wife tell him \”Honey did you forget that I\’m suing for malpractice and for a sum in excess of the caps GWB is trying to jam down everybody\’s throats\”. BTW she subsequently got a verdict in excess of the recent failed med mal caps. I believe he will lose his reelection bid.
The funny thing as a trial esqs we fight this audience everyday and yet when your rights, liberty or property are taken away you have no problem asking for help (and we have no problem assisting you). For many esqs its not just about financial gain. If there ever was a group who didn\’t discriminate it would be trial esqs. We don\’t care who you are or where you came from just that you are a victim in need of help. Hell we believe in you so much you can pay us in 3-5-7 years from now (if you win) and we\’ll even forward all expenses.
Be wary of those who seek to eliminate or impair your right of recovery. If and when your time comes you may be denied the access to relief that you need to survive.
For 18 years I have represented people thru no fault of their own have been injured or killed. Sure there are fakers, frauds etc… However, the vast majority of people are normal everyday persons… friends, neighbors and relatives who wished they hadn\’t gotten out of bed that morning. Nobody wants to get hurt. Before you label them, deny them and push them away… remember they are in large part innocent victims.
Tony, the last comment on the movie was lame, just like the movie. If you remember, it was a comedy, although not
a very good one.
Anyway, I do admit there are some good lawyers, and I did once use one because The Hartford (Heartless) refused to return my calls about a claim. Of course, it took 2 years to settle so I really was just wasting my time.
Those of us who are P&C agents are not ashamed of trying to make a living selling a product and a service, either. We just resent the greedy lawyer crowd who all seem to think they are the ONLY ones who have a right to make any money and that everybody else is a crook. We resent that when we call the lawyers\’ hypocritic claims of being so humanitarian-driven out onto the carpet and exposing their hypocrisy, we are then labeled as \”ignorant and uneducated\” by the elitist money-grubbing lawyers. Most lawyers really aren\’t any more intelligent or talented than those of us \”ignorant\” peons with only a bachelors degree – rather the lawyers came from privileged families and were merely wealthy enough to be able to afford to go to expensive law schools right after undergraduate college. The reason property and casualty insurances are skyrocketing beyond consumer affordability is because the insurance carriers, even the reinsurers are not about to go bankrupt and fold for lack of profit- they are in a legitimate business of making money, and they have a right to limit their losses. But greedy lawyers would have the public at large believe that evil insurance companies, and evil commissions-only paid agents are not entitled to make a living for providing the services and products that we are in the business of providing – namely the indemnification products and services. Yet lawyers fall into that fee-paid or commissions-only paid sales group just out to get a fast buck, too. Lawyers must generate a minimum amount of \”billable hours\” in order to remain employed in a firm or be considered for hire by a firm. Billable hours translate to steep fees charged to clients like $150 for a 15 minute telephone call, $300 for forwarding some paperwork copies to the client, etc. Insurance agents don\’t charge outrageous fees for the time we must spend researching and comparing the best coverage for the best price for our potential clients, and how to coordinate the general liability policy w/ the workers comp policy w/ the commercial vehicle policy that has a built-in workers comp rider. Yet according to the elitist money-grubbing lawyer crowd, they would have the public at large believe that selling insurance is no more involved than selling Avon!
We have an over-litigious nation where people who spill hot coffee on themselves can become millionaires, costing businesses and insurance carriers millions of dollars – all because some lawyer uses his esq license to elicit entitlement attitudes and generate more lawsuit business to create a situation in which they can continuously rake in high fees. Why, you may ask, would lawyers do this? The answer: Because they can and they are just out to rake in big bucks by profiteering off someone else\’s misfortune and they think they\’re the only ones entitled to get paid for their \”sales job\” of selling paperwork for the tort business.
If lawyers were really in it just for the justice principles, then explain why so many indigent people with no money to afford legal help to acess the justice system end up destitute, financially ruined, or incarcerated or on death row – only to be found innocent 20 years later. If lawyers aren\’t just a bunch of money-hungry commission hounds themselves, why should lawyers be entitled to grabbing up to 35% of some poor disabled person\’s SSI award, when it was the disabled SSI applicant\’s entitlement that he/she should NOT have had to get a lawyer in order to get it in the first place. Insurance agents are trying to make a living indemnifying people in the event of a loss, lawyers are raking in big bucks in the business of screwing other people.
This is not a study of the efficacy of the protections the civil justice system provides. It\’s a study of all the costs incurred by the entire insurance industry (including non tort items like big fat pay checks for the high powered execs.) to make their huge profits. $260 billion in costs in a trillion dollar industry. I\’m supposed to feel sorry for these big corporations and give up my rights. Hey, if they think the countries that limtit civil rights are so great, they can move there. Get real. Once again the insurance industry trots out its propaganda! Create a phony crisis, blame a particular group of people and then start taking people\’s civil rights. Where have I heard that before?
The so-called \”Lawyer who cares\” is full of –it. He gets 30-45% (sometimes more) of every lawsuit won. How is that fair to the poor and disenfranchised?
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.
I\’m not ashamed of being an attorney and even identify myself in these posts. I spent 17 years in small town private practice representing all type clients, insurance plaintiff and defendants.For the past five years I\’ve represented state government programs.
Knee jerk lawyer hating statements generally reflect fear and ignorance.
The anonymous lawyer hating vitrolic comments of bill , john , and LL reflect ignorance of the real forces underlying perpetual insurance industry premium increases . A deeper analysis of historical insurance rate escalation would focus on the role of the re-insurance industry dominated by Lloyd\’s, et al. Just because the re-insurers want greater and greater profits doesn\’t mean the \”greedy\” lawyers caused the problem.
And the \”poor agent\” selling those policies operates on the same profit motive: Get it as quick as you can for as long as you can.
If I wanted to be critical of insurance agents I\’d ask them how many times after a policy is sold and mailed to the insured , you know about 30- 45 days later, does the selling agent contact their customer to schedule an appointment to go over the exclusions from coverage?
Another observation based on my own experience of visiting marinas and consistently having the largest yachts pointed out as owned by salesmen of various stripes including insurance folks.
If you want another read on the insurance industry, I invite you to rent the 90\’s movie \”Weekend at Bernies\”.
Without lawyers and claims, people would have no use for your product or your services.
I pay high malpractice premiums, just like you do. During my career, I would guesstimate, I\’ve paid about a quarter million in premiums. I had one claim – settled for $5,000 after I paid my $5,000 deductible.
You, too, can get rich, Jacqueline. Just get hit by a drunk driver so that you end up in a wheelchair. It will be great. You\’ll get millions of dollars and not have to work as a peon anymore. Such a deal!
Your ignorance about the civil justice system and the way it works is rather stunning. With a little investigation, I think you will find that the biggest cost the carriers incur is in defending claims, not settling them.
fter Texas
30 days after Texas passed a Constitutional amendment capping non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases to bring insurance rates down for doctors, the largest med mal insurance carrier wrote the insurance commissioner indicating that it would be increasing premiums by 19%. In that letter, it conceded that capping damages would result in about a 1% savings to the company. Lots of people injured by preventable medical mistakes will be unable to be \”made whole\” as a result, the doctors got screwed and the only one who made out on the deal was the insurance companies.
Jacqueline, your post was so powerful that I am going to repost it on another site, with your permission. Not saying which site, otherwise the ultra-libs may try to hijack it!
Linda, it\’s a lot easier to pay the premiums when you make over $100k per year. My friend teaches pilates part time, and is required to get her own E & O policy! The premiums will be half of her take home pay! Don\’t blame the agents or all the carriers–my co. doesn\’t sell it!
If you know a cheaper place to get it, PLEASE let me know.
Johnson, You may repost what I have posted. I made my post with the intention that it could be read by the public at large. Also, don\’t you love it whenever anyone dares to challenge a lawyer, they are immediately castigated as \”ignorant\” and \”uneducated\”?
Perhaps we should give immunity to everyone. By the logic of the study, tort costs will be Zero. No one will ever suffer a lost from an accident, malpractice or etc. It will be a utopian society,
Great idea. If nobody is held responsible for their negligence or the injuries said negligence causes, we won\’t need insurance and a whole lot of lawyers will be out of work – those that represent plaintiffs AND those hired by the insurance companies, which would ceae to exist. Jacqueline would be out of a job, of course, but she would, at least, have the satisfaction that so are a whole lot of despicable trial lawyers. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
Since you lawyers calim to be so much more educated than the rest of us, perhaps you should read up on your history of the origins of insurance companies. There were insurance companies before there were modern tort lawyers. Insurance was a concept that began a long time before the British legal system evolved and the American Legal system evolved. Insurance was pooled monies collected by a group who wanted to protect their interests regarding the possible total loss of goods due to unforeseen disasters while enroute to their destination by ship.
I am sorry to disappoint all the lawyers who got their panties in a bunch over my posts, but with LESS lawyers and LESS frivolous lawsuits, we insurance agents and brokers would still have jobs – and our E & O would probably cost us a hell of alot less, too!
As to the \”evil\” insurance companies screwing over insureds and doctors, how about all the doctors, dentists and hospitals that exaggerate their billing codes to inflate their insurance claim payments? Let\’s talk about that!
Here in Erie, PA, a young mother with an unemployed husband (he was in technical school)went to work in a local hospital here after moving here from Ohio. At this hospital, surgeons and doctors pressure the medical coders into falsifying the codes in order to effect more payments from insurance carriers (especially for workers comp and health insurance carriers). When she refused to \”play the game\” because of the risk of her possibly getting busted for insurance fraud, which is a felony in PA – punnishable by revocation of professional licenses, steep fines and a prison sentence, this girl found herself fired. Now Erie is somewhat of a small city, where all the local doctors, lawyers, CEO\’s and bank presidents hob-knob at the same exclusive dining club and yacht club. The hospital doing this is one of the region\’s last large employers. When this woman went to seek justice for the unfair loss of her job for refusing to commit what amounted to insurance fraud, unlike the rest of her department of medical coders, she was told by a young and conscientious lawyer that although she had a very strong and win-able case – both for wrongful termination AND insurance fraud, he was not willing to go up against the region\’s largest employer because he was afraid it would jeopardize his future and his career as a local lawyer.
Also, since this woman refused to \”play the game\”, she also found herself unoficially black-balled from any other comparable employment, except for maybe a crappy minimum wage job at Wal-Mart\’s. This lawyer confirmed this for her and it was affirmed by other lawyers in the area, none of whom would take her case and help her get some justice. So much for lawyers being out for the disenfranchised. This poor working mother nearly ended up homeless as a result of the loss of her job and being unable to get another job to support herself and her family. She and her infant son and husband (who had to drop school when they moved) had to try to start all over with no money in another state where she finally could get another job, all because of the lack of acess to justice afforded to this woman (and lack of justice afforded to the insurance carriers who were overbilled) – and a good ole boy network of greedy doctors, lawyers and a powerful and rich hospital executive. Meanwhile, insurance costs for individuals, groups and workers comp policies as a whole are higher than they would have to be if not for those seeking to get unjustly enriched by \”playing the game\” of insurance fraud. It happens more often than you think.
Second case: A local dentist is, and has been, getting away with false insurance claims for work (not) done on Medicaid patients, for several YEARS. I have it on reliable authority that he has submitted copies of his treatment plans to one of the local residential facilities for mentally handicapped residents, all who are on Medicaid and SSI. Yet, when several of the people who work at this facility checked some of their residents who were still complaining of toothaches, they found that this dentist had not drilled and filed the teeth as he claimed he did, both in his claims filed to Medicaid and also stated in the individual residents\’ treatment plans which this home keeps a record of. This dentist drives an $85K Hum-V and lives in a $500K home w/ an acre of lakefront property w/ private beach access. Since these types of cases would be morally right and just in pursuing, you would think that at least one lawyer would be ready to jump all over that hospital and the dentist, for the economic harm and medical harm they have caused respectively to the people involved. However, because these types of cases don\’t bring in big bucks in billable hours, and the lawyers hob-knob with the perpetrators of the aforementioned injustices, the aggrieved in each case were denied access to the legal system – justice had been denied. Now who do we blame for that – Milton Berle?
Jacqueline: I don\’t claim to be better educated or smarter than anyone else. In fact, I know lots of people who I think are a lot smarter than I am. If I was so bright, I wouldn\’t be handling medical negligence cases 31 years after the $250,000 MICRA cap was enacted by the State Legislature at the behest of the insurance industry and medical associations. Clearly, $250,000 in 1975 was worth a whole lot more then than it is now. In fact, it would have been possible to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills for that amount back then; it wouldn\’t purchase a median-priced home anywhere in the City today. Since 1975, the costs associated with litigation have skyrocketed, so it doesn\’t make a whole lot of financial sense to be representing people who have been injured by preventable medical mistakes – at least in California.
So, I\’m not claiming to be smarter than you are. I\’m just suggesting that, perhaps, attorneys are not the root of all evil, as you seem to suggest.
Certainly, there are people who take advantage of insurance – or try to. Anyone who defrauds an insurance company, should be held accountable for that. We can certainly agree on that.
If you don\’t think some insurance companies sometimes take advantage of their position of power to the economic disadvantage of their insureds, then we shall have to agree to disagree on that.
Not all lawyers are rich and/or greedy. Many of us do the work we do because it is enormously satisfying to help someone who is almost invariably at a disadvantage in the legal system. Helping others is what I do in my work and is why I also have been active in community service organizations for almost 20 years.
Wow, was this article linked on triallawyers.com? Were all of you rallied to comment?
The simple fact is this:
-Tort costs are skyrocketing.
-Legal defence costs are skyrocketing.
-Insurance companies are prohibited by insurance depts. from increasing their premiums to compensate.
Take a look at Med Mal. If it was such a profitable venture, where are all the players? Market exodus seems to be the story of the industry. The number of players has gone down substantially from even 7 years ago. Why? There simply are no profits!
If it truly was an issue of compensating victims, then why do plaintiff attornies go after parties not directly involved? Take the Rhode Island Night club fire? Who is being sued? Home Depot, among others. Why? They have the deeper pockets. This, in turn, increases insurer defence costs, because each named defendant has to spend defence money, even if they are not even remotely responsible.
Please, lawyers, don\’t tell me this is a victims\’ rights issue. It may not be a pure money grab like others say. But it surely is a lot worse than the trial lawyers lobby makes it out to be.
I am curious to know if the lawyers who make a living at the expense of the rest us working Americans can justify the costs we bear to subsidize their living standards. These run away defense costs are forcing our jobs out of the US,making us less competitive, and will result in a lower standard of living for our future generations.
This is my last comment. I am willing to concede that insurance defense costs are probably going up. The cost of everything goes up over time. And, insurance companies are litigating cases that previously would have been resolved at an earlier point in time by settlement than occurs now, which invariably means that there will be greater defense costs.
Frankly, I can\’t figure out why med mal insurance isn\’t profitable. It certainly should be, at least in California. There has been a $250,000 cap on non-ecoomic damages for 30 years. Economic losses track the increase in wages and health care. In addition to this cap, carriers which used to write medical malpractice policies for $5 and $10 million rarely offer more than $1 million in coverage. With the median-priced home in Los Angeles County now valued at almost a half million, the liability limit is ridiculously low.
So if, for example, if I represent a child who was severely brain damaged because the obstetrician who was called in by the hospital to perform an emergency C-section because the fetal monitor strip showed the baby was in trouble didn\’t arrive at the hospital for more than three hours because he was at dinner, the cost of care to that child over his or her lifetime will likely be in excess of $10 million.
The doctor only has a million dollars in coverage. Unless the doctor is also independently wealthy, most lawyers will make a policy limits demand to the defendant. That means the case will settle for the $1 million, if the doctor and the carrier agree to pay it. If they do not and the case goes to trial, the carrier will be on the hook for the entire verdict.
It is generally only when the insurance companies decide to roll the dice on a case with damages in excess of the insurance policy limit that it can get tagged for more than $1 million – at least in this state.
Furthermore, the number of medical negligence cases is falling – not, unfortunately, because there is less medical malpractice, but because the economics of these cases make less and less sense as time further erodes the value of the $250,000 cap. If a child dies because a nurse mistakenly gives him 100 times the dosage of medication ordered by a doctor, the most the family can recover is $250,000 – since that child has little or no economic \”value.\” Today, the costs paid to experts, court reporters, the filing fees and other costs associated with such a case can easily exceed $50k before trial and twice that amount if the case goes to trial. It\’s hard to justify putting $100,000 at risk when the most you can cover on behalf of the client is $250,000 – an amount, by the way, the carrier will never pay in settlement, since that\’s the most they could possibly lose at trial.
I tend to think insurance companies are making a profit in med mal. Most got into trouble because they were vying for market share during the \’90\’s, when their stock portfolios were performing so well. Prices were kept artificially low during that decade. When the stock market tanked, the insurers had to boost earnings and realized that this product was not priced appropriately. So, instead of raising rates 3-7% per year during the \’90\’s, the carriers raised rates 50-100% and declared a medical malpractice insurance crisis. We\’ve seen this all before – every time the stock market takes a dive.
Overall, insurance profits are up dramatically. I don\’t think we have to worry too much about the carriers or the agents who sell their products.
John said: \”Once again the insurance industry trots out its propaganda! Create a phony crisis, blame a particular group of people and then start taking people\’s civil rights. Where have I heard that before?\”
Today\’s headline: \”Jury Awards $6.5M to Panic Disorder Patient March 20, 2006
A health care case worker in Santa Rosa, Calif., who said he was denied a promotion because a panic disorder prevented him from meeting clients won $6.5 million in an employment discrimination lawsuit.\”
What happens is that trial lawyers write bad laws that they can profit from, like the ADA. Politicos on the take vote for these laws, then morons like this guy sue under them. Please tell us what this has to do with \”civil rights.\”
I think that when plaintiffs lose a lawsuit they should have to reimburse the defendants, and contingency fees should be illegal.
Insurance companies are not out to bilk the consumers. They simply try to figure out the expected amount of losses, add on enough to cover expenses and hopefully make a reasonable profit, like any other company on the planet.
Whenever you hear of insurers getting big rate increases, remember that insurance departments are continually fighting insurance companies to justify these rate changes. Sometimes insurers are denied the rate increases, and they have little recourse but to continue asking for them.
As for the whole tort litigation concept, while the lawyers are certainly doing their part to make a buck, don\’t forget behind each of these claims there is always an insured that either has a legitimate claim or is trying to bilk the system as well.
My my, aren\’t we all touchy? Perhaps we should all step back here and look at this unemotionally.
I have been in the insurance busienss for almost 32 years. I have seen crooked lawyers. Here in NY, the state even has a fund to compensate those who have been robbed by their attorneys. But crooked lawyers are not the issue.
I have seen crooked insurance brokers, but that again is not the issue.
The true issue is our civil justice system that enables, no ENCOURAGES, out of control litigation. Sometimes insurance covers this litigation, sometimes not. Perhaps one way to address this issue would be to change the system so that if a civil action were to fail, the losing plaintiff would then have to pay the cost\’s of the defendants. Then let\’s see how many people sue because they were burned by hot coffee (imagine the nerve, not to mention the negligence, of an eating establishment that serves hot coffee … HOT!).
Here in NY, the trial lawyers\’ lobby has a lot of power, probably more than the insurance industry\’s. NY has the so-called scaffold laws (201, 241) that are quite ridiculous . When you ask state legislators about them, they respond that the trial lawyers keep them in place, despite how crazy they are.
Most insurance agents (as well as many other professionals) have to practice defensive business methods to protect themselves from lawsuits, many of which are frivolous. A lot of the cost of medicine is related to extra, perhaps unecessay tests that are ordered for defensive reasons.
I got so frustrated over the years by what I considered to be lawyer driven frivolous law suits that I decided to join them, instead of fighting them. So, a number of years ago I began to specialize in insuring attorneys and law firms. I make money from insuring lawyers aainst lawsuits by OTHER attorneys. And you should should hear when lawyers get sued! They scream like stuck pigs. It\’s so gratifying.
Linda: Apparently you forgot your earlier insinuating claim of being more educated and denigrating those who disagree w/ you as ignorant. Here is what you posted in an earlier post:
\”You, too, can get rich, Jacqueline. Just get hit by a drunk driver so that you end up in a wheelchair. It will be great. You\’ll get millions of dollars and not have to work as a peon anymore. Such a deal!
Your ignorance about the civil justice system and the way it works is rather stunning. With a little investigation, I think you will find that the biggest cost the carriers incur is in defending claims, not settling them.\”
I know very well how the civil litigation process works…..having been hit by an uninsured driver and left crippled as a result when I was 24 years old back in 1991. I went from earning a middle-class living as a union plasterer to being unable to earn anything, ending up destitute after my savings ran out.
Adding insult to injury, I was denied SSI after being left permanently disabled. In order to get a $500/mo SSI pittance from social security as someone who became suddenly disabled at a young age, I was told I would have to pay steep lawyer fees out of the proceeds. A lawyer who was NOT economically disadvantaged due to losing his/her ability to make a living and who did NOT suffer, would be entitled to over a third of any eventual SSI award I may get. It was unaffordable for me to try to fight for the crappy $500/mo SSI I was entitled to that you really can\’t live on. $500 and change a month is hardly a king\’s ransom. I would have had a hell of alot less than that after a lawyer finished grabbing up a significant chunk of that back-due award, not including unaffordable up-front filing fees, so I didn\’t bother because I just couldn\’t afford to access the justice system. Getting a million dollars would have been a blessing because I got NOTHING. So spare me the stupid sarcasm that I too could get rich if I was hit by a drunk driver and ended up in a wheelchair. Been there – done that. The deal I got was a hell of alot worse than your sarcastic innuendo – I got nothing because the party who hit me had no insurance and my lawyer didn\’t see fit to fight for me to make sure that any future earnings or assets the guilty party may acquire be garnished to pay me for causing me to lose the ability to work and support myself when she ran a red light and was driving illegally without insurance.
I struggled overcoming the poverty resulting from becoming disabled and overcame the disability itself in getting a B.S./B.A. degree in Math/IT. Then some lawyers-turned-politicians sold this country out w/ things like NAFTA, Gatt, and now CAFTA making off-shoring any and all American jobs, I found myself without any job opportunities as a 30-something year old disabled woman for getting a good job in the field I \”re-trained\” for – IT. Obviously, I am not in the IT field now – I am an independent P & C agent/broker, and I am far from rich – not even close to upper-middle-class, considering I had to create my own \”job\” when no one would hire a disabled woman approaching middle-age. Where were the altruistic lawyers then? Wasn\’t disability and age discrimination in being denied jobs a violation of my civil rights? There are laws on the books that deal with that, but no way to access any justice if lawyers feel a legitimate case of job discrimination simply isn\’t as glamorous to take up as a case of some nitwit spilling her coffee on her lap, then suing MacDonalds for her own stupidity, or some thin-skinned highly-paid Texaco executives getting offended at being called \”jelly beans\” by other executives and turning it into a multi-million dollar race discrimination suit while so many poor and disenfranchised blacks, women, disabled people, and people over age 40 can\’t even get jobs that would lift them out of poverty, never mind put them into the wealthy top percent!
If I could have gotten a chance for a good job like some executive position, do you think I would have sued over some stupid sexist or able-ist remarks? Hell, I would have been damn grateful just to get the chance for a decent job like that in the first place!
I created my own \”job\” as an independent P & C agent on a shoestring budget with absolutely NO money or access to credit or capital, just my licenses, knowleedge and the computer I have had since college 8 years ago.
I will never again be able to compete in a martial arts tournament. I missed out on the best years of my life because of ending up disabled 2 weeks prior to my 24th birthday. When most of my friends were moving up in their careers, getting married, buying their first homes and having children, I was struggling with the physical, emotional and financial impact of having a disability and being marginalized by society because of it. Being disabled also did not exactly make me a desirable potential mate, since I was physically limited and most guys just don\’t find themselves attracted to women who must use braces and a walker just to get around, and whose poverty might make them wholly economically dependent on their potential mate. So spare me the insinuation that I don\’t understand what it means to suffer from being disabled.
I lost out on 11 prime earning years of my life where I was destitute, going through college on Pell Grants and student loans, eating Ramen noodles cooked in a microwave, and suffering from lack of ability to afford and get dental care while I scraped to survive on student aid stipends in my endeavor to \”re-train\” for a new career that someone with a physical disability could do.
So there is not a whole hell of alot you can tell me about the justice system, litigation, what someone who becomes disabled goes through, and how humanitarian most lawyers are because I have lived it. The ONLY help I got was my Comprehensive First Party Benefits on my own auto insurance policy from one of those \”terrible insurance companies out to take advantage of customers\”, which was a hell of alot more than the absolute nothing I got from the justice system, and lazy lawyers who don\’t want to actually have to work to fight the good fight for a client.
Ms. Rice said \”the cost of care to that child over his or her lifetime will likely be in excess of $10 million\”. Says whom? That\’s only if they build in enough to profit the lawyers taking care of the case!
Jaqueline, your story nearly brought me to tears. There are many people in similar circumstnces who have all but stopped living, but you hung in there and made what you could of the cards you were dealt, and that is truly inspirational. I cannot say that I would have done as well had the same thing happened to me at twenty-three.
Aside from being my morning inspiration you also provide corraboration of my point: that lawyers write the laws to suit themselves, find servile congressmen and senators to approve them, then milk the system for all it\’s worth. To actually NEED an attorney just to get $500/month SSI benefits is proof that at least a significant and influential portion of the bar is engaged in what amounts to a protection racket. The practice of law has gone far from justice and protecting rights, and become a means of defrauding and robbing people in particular, and society at large. It is truly pathetic.
Proverbs 3:3-8, \”Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: so shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.\”
Easy money being what?
Is it easier money than the medical profession is \”raking in\”? In 2003, spending for health care reached $1.7 trillion or 15.3% of GDP. Out of pocket costs to patients reached $230 billion in 2003.
Is it easier money than the drug companies are \”raking in?\” In 2003, drug spending rose 11% to $180 billion.
Is it easier money than the insurance industry is raking in? Property and casualty insurance income increased 320% from the first three quarters in 2002 to the first three quarters in 2003, to at total of $320 billion.
This doesn\’t look like such \”easy\” money from the point of view of the people lawyers represent. Most people would prefer the company of a loved one who has died because of the negligence of a doctor or driver than a lot of money.
Most people would rather be healthy and active than crippled and in pain with a good lawsuit.
Most lawyers handle cases on behalf of people who could not afford to pay a lawyer and, therefore, could not litigate their claim against a negligent person or company. The lawyers don\’t get paid unless and until the client recovers money by way of settlement, verdict or arbitration award.
The insurance companies pay their lawyers by the hour and seem to encourage their attorneys to make cases as expensive and, thus, as risky as possible for the plaintiff and her attorney. Now, there\’s easy money.
Most plaintiffs\’ lawyers pay all of the costs of the litigation and lose that money unless the client is successful against the negligent tortfeasor. Litigation involves paying experts, court reporters, copy services, jury fees, and a whole host of other costs.
Easy money? I don\’t think so, LL.
Please identify the source of the data identifying the \”$260 Billion costs\”.
Does the figure represent all tort court judgments and the cost of all premiums for all lines of related insurance? If so, were sums deducted for premium payments where no claims were paid?
Does the figure include settled case ammounts? Most settlement sums are unknown and have confidentiality clauses usually at the insistence of the insurer.To what extent were these figures included in thie $260 Billion\” cost? And how would one verify the accuracy of such statements that are based on non-disclosable private information?
It is unclear whether the article\’s claim of $260 Billion in tort costs\” is accurate.
It sounds as though the \”losses\” include \”reserves\” (amounts expected to be paid to third parties), which may never be paid to anyone. If so, these figures are misleading.
It would be interesting to know how insurance company profits have fared over the same periods of time.
Any way you look at it, lawyers are raking it in.
The author of this incomplete report of tort costs does it\’s readers a disservice by not accurately and completely reporting the facts of its study. It appears to be yet another misguided half truth the insurance/business lobby has attempted to pass off as legitimate stats in support of tort deform movement.
If your goal was to misinform, mislead or
distort the truth then you have succeeded. However, in the end you will have more credibility among your target audience as well as those who oppose your interests if you just reported accurately and completely.
For example that soon to be former Senator from Pa.- Rick Santorum shows us why its important to have credibility, and truthfulness in dealing with the public. Leading up to the most recent election he was banging the med mal reform drum so hard and loud that he didn\’t hear his wife tell him \”Honey did you forget that I\’m suing for malpractice and for a sum in excess of the caps GWB is trying to jam down everybody\’s throats\”. BTW she subsequently got a verdict in excess of the recent failed med mal caps. I believe he will lose his reelection bid.
The funny thing as a trial esqs we fight this audience everyday and yet when your rights, liberty or property are taken away you have no problem asking for help (and we have no problem assisting you). For many esqs its not just about financial gain. If there ever was a group who didn\’t discriminate it would be trial esqs. We don\’t care who you are or where you came from just that you are a victim in need of help. Hell we believe in you so much you can pay us in 3-5-7 years from now (if you win) and we\’ll even forward all expenses.
Be wary of those who seek to eliminate or impair your right of recovery. If and when your time comes you may be denied the access to relief that you need to survive.
For 18 years I have represented people thru no fault of their own have been injured or killed. Sure there are fakers, frauds etc… However, the vast majority of people are normal everyday persons… friends, neighbors and relatives who wished they hadn\’t gotten out of bed that morning. Nobody wants to get hurt. Before you label them, deny them and push them away… remember they are in large part innocent victims.
Fighting the good fight for all.
A simple country esq
Tony, the last comment on the movie was lame, just like the movie. If you remember, it was a comedy, although not
a very good one.
Anyway, I do admit there are some good lawyers, and I did once use one because The Hartford (Heartless) refused to return my calls about a claim. Of course, it took 2 years to settle so I really was just wasting my time.
Those of us who are P&C agents are not ashamed of trying to make a living selling a product and a service, either. We just resent the greedy lawyer crowd who all seem to think they are the ONLY ones who have a right to make any money and that everybody else is a crook. We resent that when we call the lawyers\’ hypocritic claims of being so humanitarian-driven out onto the carpet and exposing their hypocrisy, we are then labeled as \”ignorant and uneducated\” by the elitist money-grubbing lawyers. Most lawyers really aren\’t any more intelligent or talented than those of us \”ignorant\” peons with only a bachelors degree – rather the lawyers came from privileged families and were merely wealthy enough to be able to afford to go to expensive law schools right after undergraduate college. The reason property and casualty insurances are skyrocketing beyond consumer affordability is because the insurance carriers, even the reinsurers are not about to go bankrupt and fold for lack of profit- they are in a legitimate business of making money, and they have a right to limit their losses. But greedy lawyers would have the public at large believe that evil insurance companies, and evil commissions-only paid agents are not entitled to make a living for providing the services and products that we are in the business of providing – namely the indemnification products and services. Yet lawyers fall into that fee-paid or commissions-only paid sales group just out to get a fast buck, too. Lawyers must generate a minimum amount of \”billable hours\” in order to remain employed in a firm or be considered for hire by a firm. Billable hours translate to steep fees charged to clients like $150 for a 15 minute telephone call, $300 for forwarding some paperwork copies to the client, etc. Insurance agents don\’t charge outrageous fees for the time we must spend researching and comparing the best coverage for the best price for our potential clients, and how to coordinate the general liability policy w/ the workers comp policy w/ the commercial vehicle policy that has a built-in workers comp rider. Yet according to the elitist money-grubbing lawyer crowd, they would have the public at large believe that selling insurance is no more involved than selling Avon!
We have an over-litigious nation where people who spill hot coffee on themselves can become millionaires, costing businesses and insurance carriers millions of dollars – all because some lawyer uses his esq license to elicit entitlement attitudes and generate more lawsuit business to create a situation in which they can continuously rake in high fees. Why, you may ask, would lawyers do this? The answer: Because they can and they are just out to rake in big bucks by profiteering off someone else\’s misfortune and they think they\’re the only ones entitled to get paid for their \”sales job\” of selling paperwork for the tort business.
If lawyers were really in it just for the justice principles, then explain why so many indigent people with no money to afford legal help to acess the justice system end up destitute, financially ruined, or incarcerated or on death row – only to be found innocent 20 years later. If lawyers aren\’t just a bunch of money-hungry commission hounds themselves, why should lawyers be entitled to grabbing up to 35% of some poor disabled person\’s SSI award, when it was the disabled SSI applicant\’s entitlement that he/she should NOT have had to get a lawyer in order to get it in the first place. Insurance agents are trying to make a living indemnifying people in the event of a loss, lawyers are raking in big bucks in the business of screwing other people.
This is not a study of the efficacy of the protections the civil justice system provides. It\’s a study of all the costs incurred by the entire insurance industry (including non tort items like big fat pay checks for the high powered execs.) to make their huge profits. $260 billion in costs in a trillion dollar industry. I\’m supposed to feel sorry for these big corporations and give up my rights. Hey, if they think the countries that limtit civil rights are so great, they can move there. Get real. Once again the insurance industry trots out its propaganda! Create a phony crisis, blame a particular group of people and then start taking people\’s civil rights. Where have I heard that before?
The so-called \”Lawyer who cares\” is full of –it. He gets 30-45% (sometimes more) of every lawsuit won. How is that fair to the poor and disenfranchised?
Ms. Rice, most insurance cos. have a return on equity, not to mention ROA, far below that of other industries, incl. law firms!!
By the way, Tillinghast is a well-respected actuarial firm, so if you have better, more accurate numbers, please post them yourself so we can compare.
Just my 2 cents.
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.
I\’m not ashamed of being an attorney and even identify myself in these posts. I spent 17 years in small town private practice representing all type clients, insurance plaintiff and defendants.For the past five years I\’ve represented state government programs.
Knee jerk lawyer hating statements generally reflect fear and ignorance.
The anonymous lawyer hating vitrolic comments of bill , john , and LL reflect ignorance of the real forces underlying perpetual insurance industry premium increases . A deeper analysis of historical insurance rate escalation would focus on the role of the re-insurance industry dominated by Lloyd\’s, et al. Just because the re-insurers want greater and greater profits doesn\’t mean the \”greedy\” lawyers caused the problem.
And the \”poor agent\” selling those policies operates on the same profit motive: Get it as quick as you can for as long as you can.
If I wanted to be critical of insurance agents I\’d ask them how many times after a policy is sold and mailed to the insured , you know about 30- 45 days later, does the selling agent contact their customer to schedule an appointment to go over the exclusions from coverage?
Another observation based on my own experience of visiting marinas and consistently having the largest yachts pointed out as owned by salesmen of various stripes including insurance folks.
If you want another read on the insurance industry, I invite you to rent the 90\’s movie \”Weekend at Bernies\”.
Definitely, Jacqueline! Thanks.
Jacqueline:
Without lawyers and claims, people would have no use for your product or your services.
I pay high malpractice premiums, just like you do. During my career, I would guesstimate, I\’ve paid about a quarter million in premiums. I had one claim – settled for $5,000 after I paid my $5,000 deductible.
You, too, can get rich, Jacqueline. Just get hit by a drunk driver so that you end up in a wheelchair. It will be great. You\’ll get millions of dollars and not have to work as a peon anymore. Such a deal!
Your ignorance about the civil justice system and the way it works is rather stunning. With a little investigation, I think you will find that the biggest cost the carriers incur is in defending claims, not settling them.
fter Texas
oops.
30 days after Texas passed a Constitutional amendment capping non-economic damages in medical malpractice cases to bring insurance rates down for doctors, the largest med mal insurance carrier wrote the insurance commissioner indicating that it would be increasing premiums by 19%. In that letter, it conceded that capping damages would result in about a 1% savings to the company. Lots of people injured by preventable medical mistakes will be unable to be \”made whole\” as a result, the doctors got screwed and the only one who made out on the deal was the insurance companies.
Jacqueline, your post was so powerful that I am going to repost it on another site, with your permission. Not saying which site, otherwise the ultra-libs may try to hijack it!
Linda, it\’s a lot easier to pay the premiums when you make over $100k per year. My friend teaches pilates part time, and is required to get her own E & O policy! The premiums will be half of her take home pay! Don\’t blame the agents or all the carriers–my co. doesn\’t sell it!
If you know a cheaper place to get it, PLEASE let me know.
Johnson, You may repost what I have posted. I made my post with the intention that it could be read by the public at large. Also, don\’t you love it whenever anyone dares to challenge a lawyer, they are immediately castigated as \”ignorant\” and \”uneducated\”?
Perhaps we should give immunity to everyone. By the logic of the study, tort costs will be Zero. No one will ever suffer a lost from an accident, malpractice or etc. It will be a utopian society,
Great idea. If nobody is held responsible for their negligence or the injuries said negligence causes, we won\’t need insurance and a whole lot of lawyers will be out of work – those that represent plaintiffs AND those hired by the insurance companies, which would ceae to exist. Jacqueline would be out of a job, of course, but she would, at least, have the satisfaction that so are a whole lot of despicable trial lawyers. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.
To Nick Timko & Linda Fermoyle Rice:
Since you lawyers calim to be so much more educated than the rest of us, perhaps you should read up on your history of the origins of insurance companies. There were insurance companies before there were modern tort lawyers. Insurance was a concept that began a long time before the British legal system evolved and the American Legal system evolved. Insurance was pooled monies collected by a group who wanted to protect their interests regarding the possible total loss of goods due to unforeseen disasters while enroute to their destination by ship.
I am sorry to disappoint all the lawyers who got their panties in a bunch over my posts, but with LESS lawyers and LESS frivolous lawsuits, we insurance agents and brokers would still have jobs – and our E & O would probably cost us a hell of alot less, too!
As to the \”evil\” insurance companies screwing over insureds and doctors, how about all the doctors, dentists and hospitals that exaggerate their billing codes to inflate their insurance claim payments? Let\’s talk about that!
Here in Erie, PA, a young mother with an unemployed husband (he was in technical school)went to work in a local hospital here after moving here from Ohio. At this hospital, surgeons and doctors pressure the medical coders into falsifying the codes in order to effect more payments from insurance carriers (especially for workers comp and health insurance carriers). When she refused to \”play the game\” because of the risk of her possibly getting busted for insurance fraud, which is a felony in PA – punnishable by revocation of professional licenses, steep fines and a prison sentence, this girl found herself fired. Now Erie is somewhat of a small city, where all the local doctors, lawyers, CEO\’s and bank presidents hob-knob at the same exclusive dining club and yacht club. The hospital doing this is one of the region\’s last large employers. When this woman went to seek justice for the unfair loss of her job for refusing to commit what amounted to insurance fraud, unlike the rest of her department of medical coders, she was told by a young and conscientious lawyer that although she had a very strong and win-able case – both for wrongful termination AND insurance fraud, he was not willing to go up against the region\’s largest employer because he was afraid it would jeopardize his future and his career as a local lawyer.
Also, since this woman refused to \”play the game\”, she also found herself unoficially black-balled from any other comparable employment, except for maybe a crappy minimum wage job at Wal-Mart\’s. This lawyer confirmed this for her and it was affirmed by other lawyers in the area, none of whom would take her case and help her get some justice. So much for lawyers being out for the disenfranchised. This poor working mother nearly ended up homeless as a result of the loss of her job and being unable to get another job to support herself and her family. She and her infant son and husband (who had to drop school when they moved) had to try to start all over with no money in another state where she finally could get another job, all because of the lack of acess to justice afforded to this woman (and lack of justice afforded to the insurance carriers who were overbilled) – and a good ole boy network of greedy doctors, lawyers and a powerful and rich hospital executive. Meanwhile, insurance costs for individuals, groups and workers comp policies as a whole are higher than they would have to be if not for those seeking to get unjustly enriched by \”playing the game\” of insurance fraud. It happens more often than you think.
Second case: A local dentist is, and has been, getting away with false insurance claims for work (not) done on Medicaid patients, for several YEARS. I have it on reliable authority that he has submitted copies of his treatment plans to one of the local residential facilities for mentally handicapped residents, all who are on Medicaid and SSI. Yet, when several of the people who work at this facility checked some of their residents who were still complaining of toothaches, they found that this dentist had not drilled and filed the teeth as he claimed he did, both in his claims filed to Medicaid and also stated in the individual residents\’ treatment plans which this home keeps a record of. This dentist drives an $85K Hum-V and lives in a $500K home w/ an acre of lakefront property w/ private beach access. Since these types of cases would be morally right and just in pursuing, you would think that at least one lawyer would be ready to jump all over that hospital and the dentist, for the economic harm and medical harm they have caused respectively to the people involved. However, because these types of cases don\’t bring in big bucks in billable hours, and the lawyers hob-knob with the perpetrators of the aforementioned injustices, the aggrieved in each case were denied access to the legal system – justice had been denied. Now who do we blame for that – Milton Berle?
Jacqueline: I don\’t claim to be better educated or smarter than anyone else. In fact, I know lots of people who I think are a lot smarter than I am. If I was so bright, I wouldn\’t be handling medical negligence cases 31 years after the $250,000 MICRA cap was enacted by the State Legislature at the behest of the insurance industry and medical associations. Clearly, $250,000 in 1975 was worth a whole lot more then than it is now. In fact, it would have been possible to buy a mansion in Beverly Hills for that amount back then; it wouldn\’t purchase a median-priced home anywhere in the City today. Since 1975, the costs associated with litigation have skyrocketed, so it doesn\’t make a whole lot of financial sense to be representing people who have been injured by preventable medical mistakes – at least in California.
So, I\’m not claiming to be smarter than you are. I\’m just suggesting that, perhaps, attorneys are not the root of all evil, as you seem to suggest.
Certainly, there are people who take advantage of insurance – or try to. Anyone who defrauds an insurance company, should be held accountable for that. We can certainly agree on that.
If you don\’t think some insurance companies sometimes take advantage of their position of power to the economic disadvantage of their insureds, then we shall have to agree to disagree on that.
Not all lawyers are rich and/or greedy. Many of us do the work we do because it is enormously satisfying to help someone who is almost invariably at a disadvantage in the legal system. Helping others is what I do in my work and is why I also have been active in community service organizations for almost 20 years.
Wow, was this article linked on triallawyers.com? Were all of you rallied to comment?
The simple fact is this:
-Tort costs are skyrocketing.
-Legal defence costs are skyrocketing.
-Insurance companies are prohibited by insurance depts. from increasing their premiums to compensate.
Take a look at Med Mal. If it was such a profitable venture, where are all the players? Market exodus seems to be the story of the industry. The number of players has gone down substantially from even 7 years ago. Why? There simply are no profits!
If it truly was an issue of compensating victims, then why do plaintiff attornies go after parties not directly involved? Take the Rhode Island Night club fire? Who is being sued? Home Depot, among others. Why? They have the deeper pockets. This, in turn, increases insurer defence costs, because each named defendant has to spend defence money, even if they are not even remotely responsible.
Please, lawyers, don\’t tell me this is a victims\’ rights issue. It may not be a pure money grab like others say. But it surely is a lot worse than the trial lawyers lobby makes it out to be.
I am curious to know if the lawyers who make a living at the expense of the rest us working Americans can justify the costs we bear to subsidize their living standards. These run away defense costs are forcing our jobs out of the US,making us less competitive, and will result in a lower standard of living for our future generations.
This is my last comment. I am willing to concede that insurance defense costs are probably going up. The cost of everything goes up over time. And, insurance companies are litigating cases that previously would have been resolved at an earlier point in time by settlement than occurs now, which invariably means that there will be greater defense costs.
Frankly, I can\’t figure out why med mal insurance isn\’t profitable. It certainly should be, at least in California. There has been a $250,000 cap on non-ecoomic damages for 30 years. Economic losses track the increase in wages and health care. In addition to this cap, carriers which used to write medical malpractice policies for $5 and $10 million rarely offer more than $1 million in coverage. With the median-priced home in Los Angeles County now valued at almost a half million, the liability limit is ridiculously low.
So if, for example, if I represent a child who was severely brain damaged because the obstetrician who was called in by the hospital to perform an emergency C-section because the fetal monitor strip showed the baby was in trouble didn\’t arrive at the hospital for more than three hours because he was at dinner, the cost of care to that child over his or her lifetime will likely be in excess of $10 million.
The doctor only has a million dollars in coverage. Unless the doctor is also independently wealthy, most lawyers will make a policy limits demand to the defendant. That means the case will settle for the $1 million, if the doctor and the carrier agree to pay it. If they do not and the case goes to trial, the carrier will be on the hook for the entire verdict.
It is generally only when the insurance companies decide to roll the dice on a case with damages in excess of the insurance policy limit that it can get tagged for more than $1 million – at least in this state.
Furthermore, the number of medical negligence cases is falling – not, unfortunately, because there is less medical malpractice, but because the economics of these cases make less and less sense as time further erodes the value of the $250,000 cap. If a child dies because a nurse mistakenly gives him 100 times the dosage of medication ordered by a doctor, the most the family can recover is $250,000 – since that child has little or no economic \”value.\” Today, the costs paid to experts, court reporters, the filing fees and other costs associated with such a case can easily exceed $50k before trial and twice that amount if the case goes to trial. It\’s hard to justify putting $100,000 at risk when the most you can cover on behalf of the client is $250,000 – an amount, by the way, the carrier will never pay in settlement, since that\’s the most they could possibly lose at trial.
I tend to think insurance companies are making a profit in med mal. Most got into trouble because they were vying for market share during the \’90\’s, when their stock portfolios were performing so well. Prices were kept artificially low during that decade. When the stock market tanked, the insurers had to boost earnings and realized that this product was not priced appropriately. So, instead of raising rates 3-7% per year during the \’90\’s, the carriers raised rates 50-100% and declared a medical malpractice insurance crisis. We\’ve seen this all before – every time the stock market takes a dive.
Overall, insurance profits are up dramatically. I don\’t think we have to worry too much about the carriers or the agents who sell their products.
John said: \”Once again the insurance industry trots out its propaganda! Create a phony crisis, blame a particular group of people and then start taking people\’s civil rights. Where have I heard that before?\”
Today\’s headline: \”Jury Awards $6.5M to Panic Disorder Patient March 20, 2006
A health care case worker in Santa Rosa, Calif., who said he was denied a promotion because a panic disorder prevented him from meeting clients won $6.5 million in an employment discrimination lawsuit.\”
What happens is that trial lawyers write bad laws that they can profit from, like the ADA. Politicos on the take vote for these laws, then morons like this guy sue under them. Please tell us what this has to do with \”civil rights.\”
I think that when plaintiffs lose a lawsuit they should have to reimburse the defendants, and contingency fees should be illegal.
Insurance companies are not out to bilk the consumers. They simply try to figure out the expected amount of losses, add on enough to cover expenses and hopefully make a reasonable profit, like any other company on the planet.
Whenever you hear of insurers getting big rate increases, remember that insurance departments are continually fighting insurance companies to justify these rate changes. Sometimes insurers are denied the rate increases, and they have little recourse but to continue asking for them.
As for the whole tort litigation concept, while the lawyers are certainly doing their part to make a buck, don\’t forget behind each of these claims there is always an insured that either has a legitimate claim or is trying to bilk the system as well.
My my, aren\’t we all touchy? Perhaps we should all step back here and look at this unemotionally.
I have been in the insurance busienss for almost 32 years. I have seen crooked lawyers. Here in NY, the state even has a fund to compensate those who have been robbed by their attorneys. But crooked lawyers are not the issue.
I have seen crooked insurance brokers, but that again is not the issue.
The true issue is our civil justice system that enables, no ENCOURAGES, out of control litigation. Sometimes insurance covers this litigation, sometimes not. Perhaps one way to address this issue would be to change the system so that if a civil action were to fail, the losing plaintiff would then have to pay the cost\’s of the defendants. Then let\’s see how many people sue because they were burned by hot coffee (imagine the nerve, not to mention the negligence, of an eating establishment that serves hot coffee … HOT!).
Here in NY, the trial lawyers\’ lobby has a lot of power, probably more than the insurance industry\’s. NY has the so-called scaffold laws (201, 241) that are quite ridiculous . When you ask state legislators about them, they respond that the trial lawyers keep them in place, despite how crazy they are.
Most insurance agents (as well as many other professionals) have to practice defensive business methods to protect themselves from lawsuits, many of which are frivolous. A lot of the cost of medicine is related to extra, perhaps unecessay tests that are ordered for defensive reasons.
I got so frustrated over the years by what I considered to be lawyer driven frivolous law suits that I decided to join them, instead of fighting them. So, a number of years ago I began to specialize in insuring attorneys and law firms. I make money from insuring lawyers aainst lawsuits by OTHER attorneys. And you should should hear when lawyers get sued! They scream like stuck pigs. It\’s so gratifying.
Linda: Apparently you forgot your earlier insinuating claim of being more educated and denigrating those who disagree w/ you as ignorant. Here is what you posted in an earlier post:
\”You, too, can get rich, Jacqueline. Just get hit by a drunk driver so that you end up in a wheelchair. It will be great. You\’ll get millions of dollars and not have to work as a peon anymore. Such a deal!
Your ignorance about the civil justice system and the way it works is rather stunning. With a little investigation, I think you will find that the biggest cost the carriers incur is in defending claims, not settling them.\”
I know very well how the civil litigation process works…..having been hit by an uninsured driver and left crippled as a result when I was 24 years old back in 1991. I went from earning a middle-class living as a union plasterer to being unable to earn anything, ending up destitute after my savings ran out.
Adding insult to injury, I was denied SSI after being left permanently disabled. In order to get a $500/mo SSI pittance from social security as someone who became suddenly disabled at a young age, I was told I would have to pay steep lawyer fees out of the proceeds. A lawyer who was NOT economically disadvantaged due to losing his/her ability to make a living and who did NOT suffer, would be entitled to over a third of any eventual SSI award I may get. It was unaffordable for me to try to fight for the crappy $500/mo SSI I was entitled to that you really can\’t live on. $500 and change a month is hardly a king\’s ransom. I would have had a hell of alot less than that after a lawyer finished grabbing up a significant chunk of that back-due award, not including unaffordable up-front filing fees, so I didn\’t bother because I just couldn\’t afford to access the justice system. Getting a million dollars would have been a blessing because I got NOTHING. So spare me the stupid sarcasm that I too could get rich if I was hit by a drunk driver and ended up in a wheelchair. Been there – done that. The deal I got was a hell of alot worse than your sarcastic innuendo – I got nothing because the party who hit me had no insurance and my lawyer didn\’t see fit to fight for me to make sure that any future earnings or assets the guilty party may acquire be garnished to pay me for causing me to lose the ability to work and support myself when she ran a red light and was driving illegally without insurance.
I struggled overcoming the poverty resulting from becoming disabled and overcame the disability itself in getting a B.S./B.A. degree in Math/IT. Then some lawyers-turned-politicians sold this country out w/ things like NAFTA, Gatt, and now CAFTA making off-shoring any and all American jobs, I found myself without any job opportunities as a 30-something year old disabled woman for getting a good job in the field I \”re-trained\” for – IT. Obviously, I am not in the IT field now – I am an independent P & C agent/broker, and I am far from rich – not even close to upper-middle-class, considering I had to create my own \”job\” when no one would hire a disabled woman approaching middle-age. Where were the altruistic lawyers then? Wasn\’t disability and age discrimination in being denied jobs a violation of my civil rights? There are laws on the books that deal with that, but no way to access any justice if lawyers feel a legitimate case of job discrimination simply isn\’t as glamorous to take up as a case of some nitwit spilling her coffee on her lap, then suing MacDonalds for her own stupidity, or some thin-skinned highly-paid Texaco executives getting offended at being called \”jelly beans\” by other executives and turning it into a multi-million dollar race discrimination suit while so many poor and disenfranchised blacks, women, disabled people, and people over age 40 can\’t even get jobs that would lift them out of poverty, never mind put them into the wealthy top percent!
If I could have gotten a chance for a good job like some executive position, do you think I would have sued over some stupid sexist or able-ist remarks? Hell, I would have been damn grateful just to get the chance for a decent job like that in the first place!
I created my own \”job\” as an independent P & C agent on a shoestring budget with absolutely NO money or access to credit or capital, just my licenses, knowleedge and the computer I have had since college 8 years ago.
I will never again be able to compete in a martial arts tournament. I missed out on the best years of my life because of ending up disabled 2 weeks prior to my 24th birthday. When most of my friends were moving up in their careers, getting married, buying their first homes and having children, I was struggling with the physical, emotional and financial impact of having a disability and being marginalized by society because of it. Being disabled also did not exactly make me a desirable potential mate, since I was physically limited and most guys just don\’t find themselves attracted to women who must use braces and a walker just to get around, and whose poverty might make them wholly economically dependent on their potential mate. So spare me the insinuation that I don\’t understand what it means to suffer from being disabled.
I lost out on 11 prime earning years of my life where I was destitute, going through college on Pell Grants and student loans, eating Ramen noodles cooked in a microwave, and suffering from lack of ability to afford and get dental care while I scraped to survive on student aid stipends in my endeavor to \”re-train\” for a new career that someone with a physical disability could do.
So there is not a whole hell of alot you can tell me about the justice system, litigation, what someone who becomes disabled goes through, and how humanitarian most lawyers are because I have lived it. The ONLY help I got was my Comprehensive First Party Benefits on my own auto insurance policy from one of those \”terrible insurance companies out to take advantage of customers\”, which was a hell of alot more than the absolute nothing I got from the justice system, and lazy lawyers who don\’t want to actually have to work to fight the good fight for a client.
Ms. Rice said \”the cost of care to that child over his or her lifetime will likely be in excess of $10 million\”. Says whom? That\’s only if they build in enough to profit the lawyers taking care of the case!
Jaqueline, your story nearly brought me to tears. There are many people in similar circumstnces who have all but stopped living, but you hung in there and made what you could of the cards you were dealt, and that is truly inspirational. I cannot say that I would have done as well had the same thing happened to me at twenty-three.
Aside from being my morning inspiration you also provide corraboration of my point: that lawyers write the laws to suit themselves, find servile congressmen and senators to approve them, then milk the system for all it\’s worth. To actually NEED an attorney just to get $500/month SSI benefits is proof that at least a significant and influential portion of the bar is engaged in what amounts to a protection racket. The practice of law has gone far from justice and protecting rights, and become a means of defrauding and robbing people in particular, and society at large. It is truly pathetic.
Proverbs 3:3-8, \”Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart: so shalt thou find favor and good understanding in the sight of God and man. Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.\”