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| FAQ's Frequently Asked Questions
1. What do you have against lawyers? Nothing. It's simply become abundantly clear to me over the years, that in many cases, maybe even, most cases, people don't need lawyers to collect money from insurance companies. Remember, insurance companies don't fire the first shot. They use lawyers, too but only after a claimant hires a lawer. When one party attacks, the other party must defend. Each time a claimant hires a lawyer to make a claim for them, the insurance company may have to hire a lawyer as well. When they do, I work very closely with those defense lawyers in looking out for the best interest of our policyholders. I couldn't do that if I "had something against lawyers" as you suggest. 2. Why do you advise people against using lawyers? I don't always advise people against using lawyers. But, it's become clear to me that most people get about the same amount of money with a lawyer as they would without a lawyer. And, it always takes them longer to get it with a lawyer than it would have had they dealt directly with the insurance adjuster. 2a. Why is that? Because the lawyer must make the claim as attractive as possible. Remember, the lawyer must collect money for the claimant but he always wants to get some of it for himself. That's why he's in business. That process takes time. Furthermore, the lawyer has a duty to his client to handle the claim in a legally correct manner. Sometimes that's time consuming for an attorney. As a result, it takes longer to settle the claim. Furthermore, the attorney, in order to make a living, must handle a large number of claims. When a person handles his own claim, it's the only claim he has. He can spend all of his efforts on that one claim. You can see how it will always take a lawyer longer to get the claim settled than it would for an individual dealing directly with the insurance company. Some attorneys make the job look tougher than it is. That makes the legal fee appear more reasonable. 3. We read and hear all the time about big settlements in lawsuits, where people are represented by lawyers. In view of those large amounts of money, how can you suggest that people handle their own claims? When you hear about huge settlements, you're only hearing the beginning of the story. Those big judgments rarely pay off in full. They are more often than not negotiated down because of other problems. Like low policy limits, or no assets to collect the money from. In some cases, those large judgments are reduced on appeal and the appellate process costs more of the individual claimant's money, further reducing the amount actually collected. And the lawyer's contract may not cover the work on the appeal. 4. Won't a lawyer protect a person's rights better than individuals can protect themselves? If you believe that then you must believe that the government can take care of us better than we can take care of ourselves. What has a person making a claim against an insurance company to protect anyway? A claim is simply a demand for money. If you can buy a car or a house or a new pair of shoes, you can handle your own insurance claim. If you're charged with a crime, you must have a lawyer. If you get sued by someone, you probably will need a lawyer. In both cases your rights will be better protected because of the tricks and vagaries of our legal system. But, when you make a claim against an insurance company, it's just a matter of bargaining. 5. What prompted you to write this book? Many things. Probably the chief thing is that in many cases lawyers get money for nothing. The insurance company is going to pay the claim anyway. In most cases, and I know there are those who would argue with me about this, but in most cases the claim is worth no more money with a lawyer than it is without. The only difference is that the claimant must share the money collected with the lawyer. Another reason behind this book is the ever increasing costs of insurance for all of us. The cost of insurance rises constantly due to a few general classes of costs. The first is Medical costs, from doctors, hospitals and companies who manufacture medical equipment and drugs. The next is the cost of repairing and replacing damaged property. And the third is the amount of money lawyers take out of the system in their fees. After more than 35 years of watching that happen I got tired of it and wrote this book. 6. Why should people spend their money buying this book? The book costs about $25. A lawyer costs at least one-third of the insurance settlement. That's the money actually collected. If an insurance company is willing to pay you $3,000 for your claim, the lawyer is going to get at least $1,000 of that. So, what do you think? Is the investment of $25.00 worth a return of four thousand percent? Sure looks good to me! 7. Isn't the book highly technical and difficult to understand? The book is not highly technical. If it were it would be many volumes thick and cost hundreds if not thousands of dollars. A highly technical discussion of insurance claims is equivalent to a college education. This book was written for ordinary human beings to use as a guide in collecting insurance money for themselves. The lawyers have libraries full of thousands of "highly technical" books to tell them how to do it the hard way. Folks only need one book - Claims: How To Collect Insurance Money Without A Lawyer a clear, straightforward how-to guide to make claims for themselves 8. How can you expect ordinary people to understand such a highly technical subject as the law? The law is not really that difficult to understand. Lawyers want you to think that it is, so they can continue working. The most difficult thing about the law is trying the wade through all the big words the lawyers make up to keep the business to themselves. And I'll tell you something else, folks should try to wake up to the fact that if they don't try to understand the law, soon all our freedoms will be gone, taken away by governmentalists who know how simple the law really is when you stop imagining how difficult it might be. 9. Is the book biased in favor of insurance companies? No, the book is not biased in favor of insurance companies. I take some pretty good shots at the companies in this book. I have axes to grind with them as well and I am not shy about saying so. There's always a tit for every tat. One of the reasons we have such an enormous problem with lawyers today is that a long time ago the insurance companies had the upper hand and in many cases took unfair advantage of claimants and policyholders alike. Those folks needed lawyers. And, let's not overlook the fact that the insurance companies, all the insurance companies are in this business to make money too! Bottom-line profit is what they're after, no matter what the advertising and publicity crap says about service to humanity. 10. Is your book for or against insurance companies? The book is neither for nor against insurance companies. It is neither for nor against lawyers. It is for people collecting their own insurance money and keeping it for themselves. It's for settling claims sooner, getting cars repaired and people's lives back in order and keeping the total cost to all of us as low as possible. 11. Just how much more can a person get by following the information in your book and not getting a lawyer? At least, in every case, you can figure that the claimant would have gotten one-third less by using a lawyer than actually collected without one. Now, we have to be careful here. There are cases where a lawyer must be hired and in those cases, obviously the claimant will get more with an attorney than without. But in the cases I'm talking about, those in which the claimants can get as much for themselves as they can with a lawyer, the savings (or increase in the amount of recovery) is at least one-third. If you're talking about a three thousand dollar claim, the claimant may come out with as little as one-thousand dollars or less when using a lawyer. In larger value claims, for example 25 to 50 thousand dollars, the amount of money really begins to add up. Each person should be asking themselves: "Do I want to pay eight to fifteen thousand dollars or more to a lawyer to get this money for me?" 12. Why should anyone buy your book when they have not had an accident? Because the best time to read this book is when you've never had an accident. The best thing would be for a person to read this book and then never need it. But, learning the techniques of this book before an accident will prepare a person to avoid the mistakes most people make within the first few hours and days following the accident. Such as giving away too much information or making careless remarks, easily mis-understood, which can later be used against them. Or worse, signing something they just should not be putting the signatures to without learning more about the consequences of doing so. 13. What if someone has already been in an accident, is it too late for the book to do any good? Certainly not. The sooner they read the book the better, but unless the claim has already been settled the book can do a person a lot of good. I would say the book would be interesting and informative reading even for the person who has already settled a claim with or without a lawyer, to see how well they did. The suggestions in this book can be used to good advantage at many stages in the process of developing and pressing an insurance claim. 14. What if the person already has a lawyer? Even if a person has already hired a lawyer, there are things to do both to improve the recovery from the insurance company and to handle things in dealing with the lawyer as well. Sometimes, things don't always go so well with an attorney. You should know what to do in such cases. 15. Is a person going to have to read and understand their insurance policy to get any benefit out of this book? No, but let me say this to everyone. Insurance policies are so very important in modern life, each person should make an effort to read and understand insurance policies. It makes life much easier when accidents and losses do occur. A few years ago the insurance regulatory agencies around the country set about rewriting the policies to "make them easier to read." These so-called "easy read" policies are sometimes just as confusing as the old policies were, but each person should make an effort to learn what the policy means. However, it is not necessary in order to make a claim. Anyone can do that with the information provided in this manual. 16. Isn't this book just your way of getting back at the lawyers who have beaten you over the years? The short answer is no. I remember only one time I felt as though a lawyer had beaten me and it was my fault. I laughed at him. It was early in my career. I was working on a fairly simple automobile claim. My policyholder was clearly at fault and owed the claim. But the claimants had hired a lawyer right away without ever giving me a chance to speak with them. A man and his wife claimed to be injured in a very minor collision with little damage to either of the two cars involved in the accident. I presumed the two people would be claiming soft tissue injuries to their necks and backs. Fairly typical. But not enough time had passed for them to have accumulated much in the way of medical expenses. In their lawyer's office, sitting across the desk from the attorney, I asked how much he thought the claims were worth. He said, with a straight face: "The policy limits." That means the full amount which could ever be collected from that insurance company under that policy for that accident. Usually, that would have required serious bodily injuries with large amounts of medical bills and/or lost wages. I was totally unprepared for such a demand and I had not yet developed my "poker face". Neither did I yet have the patience to put my brain in gear before engaging my mouth. I laughed. Out loud! I truly didn't mean to be rude. It was just so much of a surprise to me. Policy limits! The lawyer said: This discussion is over. I'm not going to sit here in my own office and let you laugh at me." I apologized, but it did no good. I tried to explain how I was really laughing at myself for being so ill prepared for our meeting. The meeting was over, however, in spite of my sincere apology and attempts to get the discussion going again. I had to leave. The lawyer never talked to me about that claim again. He filed suit, sent his clients back to his favorite doctor, ran the medical bills up, tried the lawsuit and got a judgment for - you guessed it - the Full Policy Limits! I had gone to the lawyer's office thinking that I could settle the claims for a few hundred dollars each. I clearly lost that one. You see, in the industry we regard it as a win if we ultimately settle the claim for no more than our best evaluation of it. For example: If I place a value of $10,000 on a claim and then settle it for $8,500, it's counted as a win. The insurance industry rarely loses. It is not a matter of whether the claim is owed or not, it's how much it costs to settle that matters. 17. You mean to tell me that you always win? No, that's not what I mean. If either party to a negotiation goes into it with the idea of beating the other person or of winning, which means the other guy loses, they're in for a surprise. Settlements occur because people work together to make them happen. In real estate and in motivational seminars you hear a lot about win-win situations. Well, that's what you must have if a negotiated settlement is hoped for. If you want to win or to beat the other guy, hire a lawyer and try the lawsuit. The court and a jury will decide for you who wins and who loses. 18. What is the single most important message of your book? The single most important message in this book is that lawyers are in business to make money, just like the rest of us. And if all the lawyer does is get what a person has coming, as the television commercials promise, what do you need a lawyer for? If you have a certain amount of money coming, you can get it for yourself, by yourself by dealing directly with the insurance company representatives. 19. Would you ever advise someone to hire a lawyer? And, if so, what would those circumstances be? Certainly. There are cases where legal steps must be taken and a person cannot do that for themselves in most cases. If the conflict is such that it must go to court, you must hire a lawyer. There is a famous quote about the lawyer who defends himself having a fool for a client. Well, it's true for individuals as well. And, there are cases where the insurance company representative may be incompetent or just down right mean. If you can't get him in line by talking to his boss, maybe a lawyer is the way to go. Yes, there are cases where I would recommend hiring a lawyer. One such case is where the insurance company's investigation has shown serious doubt as to whether your claim is owed. Sometimes, the principles involved can get tricky. In such cases, I would certainly send that person to see a competent and honorable attorney. There are many of those out there, too. You just don't hear much about them on TV. 20. Is the book available in book stores?
Cargo Publishing Company Claims: can be ordered on-line at Cargopub.com If you want fast service go to orders to buy a book on-line now. |
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