I was on the receiving end of a Colossus generated offer. As the property damage to my auto was minor the Pi offer was low. Seems reasonable given the small amount of PD to my auto. Thanks to 3 years of monthly status hearings and a determined counsel who documented a very strong response the full extent of a back injury became very evident. Had a reasonable offer been made at the beginning with old fashioned human adjusting with experience this case would have settled for a small amount compared to the final result. The value of a claim is where the largest differences can be in premium
Seems like it would be difficult to calculate a “reasonable offer” on the initial BI payment if it took 3 years to ferret out the problems with your bad back. I am sure your case is legit, but quite frankly I’m sick and tired of inflated BI payments, therapy, and pain med usage for people that have an accident that is no worse than an amusement park ride.
I am no fan of computerized bodily injury claim evaluation, even if it is just used as a guideline. Personally, I think that it is a crutch rather than a tool; and that the real purpose is to save on personnel expenses.
But, I’m not sure that I understand why a third-party claimant has any standing to complain about the methods used to evaluate his/her claim; I’m not sure that I understand what duties my insurer would have to pay any more to a third-party claimant making a claim against me than they absolutely have to; I’m not sure how minimizing losses that may result in my premiums being lower is a bad thing for me as the consumer of the policy affording coverage and the insurer providing the policy; and, I’m not sure why anyone thinks that this is something that should be subject to regulation.
I aree with Chris’ thought. As far as I am concerned I dont care if the third party claimant gets paid at all, and certainly don’e see where regulation of any type is in order.
People forget that claims handling is the first stage of litigation. By nature it is an adversarily process. I don’t use a computerized system and I often see verdicts come in at amounts less than what was offered. What is equally bad is the inflated amounts that judges and private mediators think the value of cases might be. Add to that the unrealistic amount of medical treatment from counsel directed medical care and one begins to see where the problem lies. What I would like to see is a study of the different outcomes from the same injury from the at fault driver versus the victim. I routinely see cases in which claimant’s have coverage through an HMO but ignore the HMO doctor’s under the advice of counsel. Why is HMO care fine when one is at fault but not when one is a victim?
It’s people’s greed that makes them think the “deserve” the money. Just because you were involved in an accident where you weren’t at fauld doesn’t meed the world owes you jack. Accidents happen, suck it up and move on. No amount of money brings back life, restores limbs, ends nightmares. So ask for the world if you want. The people who actually pay for insurance will just pay a higher premium. The insurance companies try to pay a reasonable amount to remain competitive in the marketplace. No one wants to pay for insurance but they always want to pay less. In order to offer lower premiums less money needs to be paid out. All you idiots who scream I am paying too much have no problem lying to your insurance company about what is part of a loss and filing large BI claims. You can’t have it both ways.
Fair is in the eye of the beholder. When you have an attorney fair is never enough.
Wow, what an amazing comment. To quote “just because you were involved in an accident where you weren’t at fault doesn’t mean teh world owes you jack. Accidents happen, suck it up and move on. No amount of money brings back life, restores limbs, ends nightmares.”
In case you haven’t noticed, money can pay hospital and doctor’s bills, lost income, the costs for prosthetic limbs, the costs involved with refitting a house to continue living there,etc. But you think no, suck it up and cover your own bills and don’t ask for jack.
You favor eliminating any responsibility for the person whose negligence caused these life altering injuries. Why should the person who ran into you have any consequences, they’re not hurt. It was an accident, right?
In addition, you clearly advocate tossing out hundreds of years of tort law and as a consequence, pretty much the entire personal and commercial auto insurance industries (if the injured party can’t collect, no need for insurance, is there?)
Why am I surprised with this comment? I shouldn’t be. It pretty much sums up the comments made almost every time a story runs where an injured party is awarded a large settlement by a jury. And as of this writing, all the “votes” are in the like column.
It says a lot of bad things about our industry that this type of thinking is the norm on an insurance forum and the thought of badly injured people receiving monetary compensation is seen as disgusting to so many industry commenters.
I was recently injured in a car accident where the other person was 100% at fault. This was not an accident – it was pure negligence on the the part of the other driver.
Frankly, I don’t care how high or low your premiums are. What does that have to do with me? Take it up with the insurance company. It’s not my problem.
You sound like someone who caused injury to someone and think that they should just “suck it up.” You should learn to take responsibility for your actions, especially when they cause pain to someone.
I used Colossus at several companies. One used it as a guide, and it was helpful in teaching adjusters the components of injury and treatment. Another used it as a bible and it led to unnecessary lawsuits and unfair claims practices allegations (DOI complaints). Colossus was primarily as good as the tuning desired by the insurer, just like Allegient (legal bill auditing) and the training, education, and discretion given to the claim reps and managers. This is very much old news, but the bigger problem facing the industry right now is the lack of skilled reps and managers caused by years of cutbacks and layoffs.
Colossus is a really stupid name for anything associated with the insurance industry. There is already a ‘huge insurance company v. the little guy’ mentality in claims. Then the huge insurance company uses something called ‘Collosus?’ Genius.
They should change the name to Really Super Fair Settlement Software.
I was on the receiving end of a Colossus generated offer. As the property damage to my auto was minor the Pi offer was low. Seems reasonable given the small amount of PD to my auto. Thanks to 3 years of monthly status hearings and a determined counsel who documented a very strong response the full extent of a back injury became very evident. Had a reasonable offer been made at the beginning with old fashioned human adjusting with experience this case would have settled for a small amount compared to the final result. The value of a claim is where the largest differences can be in premium
Seems like it would be difficult to calculate a “reasonable offer” on the initial BI payment if it took 3 years to ferret out the problems with your bad back. I am sure your case is legit, but quite frankly I’m sick and tired of inflated BI payments, therapy, and pain med usage for people that have an accident that is no worse than an amusement park ride.
I am no fan of computerized bodily injury claim evaluation, even if it is just used as a guideline. Personally, I think that it is a crutch rather than a tool; and that the real purpose is to save on personnel expenses.
But, I’m not sure that I understand why a third-party claimant has any standing to complain about the methods used to evaluate his/her claim; I’m not sure that I understand what duties my insurer would have to pay any more to a third-party claimant making a claim against me than they absolutely have to; I’m not sure how minimizing losses that may result in my premiums being lower is a bad thing for me as the consumer of the policy affording coverage and the insurer providing the policy; and, I’m not sure why anyone thinks that this is something that should be subject to regulation.
I aree with Chris’ thought. As far as I am concerned I dont care if the third party claimant gets paid at all, and certainly don’e see where regulation of any type is in order.
People forget that claims handling is the first stage of litigation. By nature it is an adversarily process. I don’t use a computerized system and I often see verdicts come in at amounts less than what was offered. What is equally bad is the inflated amounts that judges and private mediators think the value of cases might be. Add to that the unrealistic amount of medical treatment from counsel directed medical care and one begins to see where the problem lies. What I would like to see is a study of the different outcomes from the same injury from the at fault driver versus the victim. I routinely see cases in which claimant’s have coverage through an HMO but ignore the HMO doctor’s under the advice of counsel. Why is HMO care fine when one is at fault but not when one is a victim?
It’s people’s greed that makes them think the “deserve” the money. Just because you were involved in an accident where you weren’t at fauld doesn’t meed the world owes you jack. Accidents happen, suck it up and move on. No amount of money brings back life, restores limbs, ends nightmares. So ask for the world if you want. The people who actually pay for insurance will just pay a higher premium. The insurance companies try to pay a reasonable amount to remain competitive in the marketplace. No one wants to pay for insurance but they always want to pay less. In order to offer lower premiums less money needs to be paid out. All you idiots who scream I am paying too much have no problem lying to your insurance company about what is part of a loss and filing large BI claims. You can’t have it both ways.
Fair is in the eye of the beholder. When you have an attorney fair is never enough.
Wow, what an amazing comment. To quote “just because you were involved in an accident where you weren’t at fault doesn’t mean teh world owes you jack. Accidents happen, suck it up and move on. No amount of money brings back life, restores limbs, ends nightmares.”
In case you haven’t noticed, money can pay hospital and doctor’s bills, lost income, the costs for prosthetic limbs, the costs involved with refitting a house to continue living there,etc. But you think no, suck it up and cover your own bills and don’t ask for jack.
You favor eliminating any responsibility for the person whose negligence caused these life altering injuries. Why should the person who ran into you have any consequences, they’re not hurt. It was an accident, right?
In addition, you clearly advocate tossing out hundreds of years of tort law and as a consequence, pretty much the entire personal and commercial auto insurance industries (if the injured party can’t collect, no need for insurance, is there?)
Why am I surprised with this comment? I shouldn’t be. It pretty much sums up the comments made almost every time a story runs where an injured party is awarded a large settlement by a jury. And as of this writing, all the “votes” are in the like column.
It says a lot of bad things about our industry that this type of thinking is the norm on an insurance forum and the thought of badly injured people receiving monetary compensation is seen as disgusting to so many industry commenters.
I was recently injured in a car accident where the other person was 100% at fault. This was not an accident – it was pure negligence on the the part of the other driver.
Frankly, I don’t care how high or low your premiums are. What does that have to do with me? Take it up with the insurance company. It’s not my problem.
You sound like someone who caused injury to someone and think that they should just “suck it up.” You should learn to take responsibility for your actions, especially when they cause pain to someone.
Where is the part about bogus soft tissue subjective injury claims running up premiums and costing the consumer more.
I used Colossus at several companies. One used it as a guide, and it was helpful in teaching adjusters the components of injury and treatment. Another used it as a bible and it led to unnecessary lawsuits and unfair claims practices allegations (DOI complaints). Colossus was primarily as good as the tuning desired by the insurer, just like Allegient (legal bill auditing) and the training, education, and discretion given to the claim reps and managers. This is very much old news, but the bigger problem facing the industry right now is the lack of skilled reps and managers caused by years of cutbacks and layoffs.
Colossus is a really stupid name for anything associated with the insurance industry. There is already a ‘huge insurance company v. the little guy’ mentality in claims. Then the huge insurance company uses something called ‘Collosus?’ Genius.
They should change the name to Really Super Fair Settlement Software.