Minor car accident - now with ambulance chasing law firm

I had homeowners insurance though Allstate on my old house and was with Allstate customer since I was 16.

One day my dogs are barking in their fenced in yard while I was in my office working, so I go down to see what was up and there is some creepy looking guy taking pictures of the house. I obviously confront him and before he even told me why he was in my yard he said, " Boy those are some fierce dogs you have." I have 4 dogs 17lb Jack Russel, 20lb Cairn Terrier, 20lb American Eskimo, and a 65lb Pit mix who was the only on not barking actually. My response to him was that what dogs are suppose to do when a stranger is in their property and who the hell are you. He says he was from Allstate doing a routine assessment.

2 days later my agents secretary called me to tell me my insurance was being cancelled because I owned a Pit Bull. WTF!!

Anyway we changed to State Farm who has no dog restrictions and they were cheaper for the same coverage.

If there is a more crooked industry than Insurance I cant imagine what it is.

Dog bite claims are very expensive. If you have one, it'll likely be more expensive than the total of your homeowners premiums over your entire life.

Time for a derail on how pit bulls aren't dangerous.

One of my clients' dogs bit an older lady in the hand about 5 years ago. I don't remember what type of dog it was, other than it was a large breed, but it wasn't a pitbull/doberman/rottweiler that you would likely see insurance companies having an issue with. After 6 months of surgeries, physical therapy, etc., she racked up nearly $150,000 in doctor bills. The person who was bitten was a friend of my client, so she didn't sue, but she probably would've got another $100k in a lawsuit. You don't need to have a high opinion of insurance companies, but if you don't recognize the financial damage a dog bit can cause, you really need to educate yourself.

That goes for every type of insurance really. Two years ago one of my auto repair business clients was test driving a customer's car, and opened the door to get out. A bicycle rider runs right into it and falls down. A week later the rider is having pain in his neck, goes to see a doctor, and finds out he's got a broken neck. Six months later, there's the bill for $1/4 million. Liability claims can be absolutely massive.

I've seen some dumb shit.

Had a lady run herself over with her own car and tried to file a claim. She parked her car in her drive way, got out to get the mail, car wasn't in gear and rolled over her. Claim paid 8k in PIP and another 10k in medical payments. No payments from BI but there was talk that if the bills were high enough they would of had to pay. Argument was if someone else was driving the car and she got hit would it be covered? Yes, so pay up. Since it wasn't an intentional act, just an act of stupidity, it would be covered anyway.

Home claim from a door to door sales man. Client had a cocker. Sales guy let himself into the house, dog bit him. Guy sues. Won 15k. You likely could of shot the idiot and got away with it but since the dog bit him its $$$ time. Got to love our legal system.



To the person that had the roof claim. Most companies pay ACV on the initial claim to get the ball rolling. When you use that money to get the work started you submit a supplement to get the balance minus the deductible. Most people forget about their 2% deductible for wind storm though when the time comes to pay it they get pissy.

Why do they pay it out like that? Stupid people take the money and do stupid things. Like buy corvettes and then wonder why they can't fix the house. They then file a supplement and it gets denied because the work isn't in progress and there is no contract because they pissed away all the money. When we had the bad storms mid 2000's we saw a lot of that.

Kedwyn_sl said:

I've seen some dumb shit.

Had a lady run herself over with her own car and tried to file a claim. She parked her car in her drive way, got out to get the mail, car wasn't in gear and rolled over her. Claim paid 8k in PIP and another 10k in medical payments. No payments from BI but there was talk that if the bills were high enough they would of had to pay. Argument was if someone else was driving the car and she got hit would it be covered. Since it wasn't an intentional act just an act of stupid it would be covered anyway.

Home claim from a door to door sales man. Client had a cocker. Sales guy let himself into the house, dog bit him. Guy sues. Won 15k. Got to love our legal system.

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File that with the burglar who cuts himself on a kitchen knife and successfully sues.

Pretty much. Again, a lot of hate for insurance companies is justified, but the policies are structured the way they are due to the way the legal system is designed with payouts and liability/fault. Policies continue to get more restrictive language because they have to or the insurance companies have to jack rates.

I've been an insurance agent for 10 years now, In that time I've seen:

12 year old shooting a bow and arrow at a bale of hay/bullseye in his backyard. Misses the bale and impales the 6 year old neighbor who was playing in his sandbox. Right through the kids arm. Wasn't a life-threatening situation, but still paid out the homeowners liability limit of $300K. We didn't cancel them until the next year rolls around, the company we hire to do routine home inspections drops by to take pictures and the SAME KID IS IN THE BACKYARD SHOOTING HIS BOW AND ARROW AGAIN. Canceled them ASAP.

We had a senior citizen that was showing his neighbor his gun collection. Shot his neighbor in the foot. 500K(had higher than standard liability limits)

Our insured had a trampoline. Neighbor kid comes over and jumps on it without their permission while they are out of town on vacation. Breaks his arm, 300K because they didn't have a fence or anything to prevent people from using the trampoline.

Best thing I can recommend to people, is to just buy an umbrella liability policy. Around here they don't cost more than about $200-$300 per year, and its a million dollars(or more if you want more/pay more) of liability that follows you everywhere, whether it's at your home, out driving, on your boat, jetski, 4-wheeler, whatever. That way you don't have to worry about carrying crazy limits on everything you own, just get the one blanket umbrella for cheap and rest easier.

The thing that baffles me more than anything else is that I'll see the insurance company nickle and dime people to death on small claims, arguing for days over whether a totaled car is worth $4200 or $4500, yet when a liability claim comes through they don't bat an eye shelling out the $100,000 policy limit in no time flat. I guess they just want to hurry and get those paid and releases signed before everything gets tied up in court with lawyers for months/years, but it just seems ridiculous that getting a 6-figure check is easier than an extra couple hundred bucks on your junker car that you just totaled.

They won't cover you if you are actually committing a crime, crimes end all liability, but if it's an accident then you are liable for the damages.

We also had a guy who called the fire department over a kitchen fire. They show up and find out he was making meth in his kitchen with propane tanks and it blew up basically. We didn't cover that, since the damage was caused while committing a crime.

Because being a dumb ass is fairly common and covers such a broad range of things you can't exclude coverage for it.

Vvoid_sl said:

All of these stories are exactly why they will have to pry my USAA insurance from my cold, dead hands, and I don't even look at whether or not I could save a few bucks with another company.

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USAA is a great company if you qualify to use them. And conveniently their pricing is very competitive as well, so you really don't ever need to shop around. Anytime someone calls us for a quote and I ask them who they are currently with and they tell me USAA, I tell them not to bother.

It boggles my mind that the most litigious country in the world (USA) has some of the smallest insurance limits. I am Canadian and I will not sell a Liability policy that has less than $2mm in coverage. I personally (as Joeboo rightfully suggested) carry a $5mm Umbrella that sits over all my other coverage (home, auto, Equine) I pay $250 a year for it (i admit I get a screaming deal)

My focus is on construction insurance and most of my guys carry $5mill with the heavy hitters carrying $10 and $20 million limits. Its still not enough, some of my guys work in Hundred million dollar Oil and Gas facilities that would lose a million dollars a day if shut down due to a fire/accident/stupid employee fuck up.

You should not file small claims, up your deductibles to save on the premium, there is no point blowing your claims free discount on small shit or risk getting dropped or your rates jack when you have a "real" claim. Fix it yourself and buy insurance to protect yourself from the 2 major life killers:

1) liability claims (fuck lawyers, use the insurance companies lawyer, let them defend you)
2) Catastrophic property loss.

For the most part, if its under $5k fix it yourself.

Mist_sl said:

I've been through 4 major natural disasters in 4 years

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Where the fuck do you live and why haven't you moved away?

Yeah, I'd double check your fight or flight response priority.