Insurance

Why Are New York No-Fault Insurance Regulators Targeting “Crooked Doctors” Who Support No-Fault Claims?

May 21, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

I read this article in the Syracuse Post Standard the other day about how no-fault insurance regulators plan to start “kicking crooked doctors out of New York’s no-fault program“, referring to such doctors as “linchpins in fake-accident scams that cost insurers and policyholders hundreds of millions of dollars”.

As a Central and Syracuse New York auto accident lawyer, I have represented many, many auto accident victims over the years. And I have some questions for the regulators who are targeting no-fault victims’ doctors. The first is, “what planet do you live on?!”

I have never, in my career, known any auto accident victims’ doctors or other medical professionals to take part in “fake” no-fault claims. Instead, I have known no-fault insurance carriers to hire biased doctors to issue one-sided reports used to justify denying car-accident victims their medical treatment. These doctors butter their bread with a regular stream of income from the no-fault insurance industry, which asks them, time and time again, to give an opinion as to whether their insureds’ no-fault funded medical treatment is “reasonable and necessary”. With surprising (actually, not) regularity, these doctors, bought and paid for by the insurance company, find the insured’s medical treatment NOT necessary or reasonable. The no-fault carriers then use these reports to justify denying payment of any further medical treatment for their insured, who by the way, dutifully paid their no-fault insurance premiums for years.

CNY Injury Lawyer’s Letter To Insurance Adjusters

January 4, 2012 | by Michael Bersani

Dear friendly insurance adjuster:

Thank you for your recent letter requesting permission to take my injured client’s “recorded statement” regarding the accident your insured so carelessly caused. As a Central and Syracuse New York personal injury lawyer, I appreciate all communications with insurance adjusters that might help me resolve my clients’ claims. My response is a conditional “yes”. I will allow you to take my client’s recorded statement only if you allow me to take your insured’s recorded statement.

I really doubt, though, that you will agree to this absolutely fair proposal. I have proposed this same “swap” hundreds of times to many different insurance adjusters from all kinds of insurance companies, including yours. So far, no insurance adjuster has agreed to it. They all want to take, but not to give. Haven’t they ever learned that it is better to give than receive?

Neck Injury That Starts Out As A $100,000 Case Ends Up Settling For $1.4 Million.

December 24, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

A client of mine is having a very merry Christmas indeed. I already blogged about his Waterloo, New York car accident case. Guy was passenger in his buddy’s car, who was stopped and waiting for traffic to clear so he could turn left into a driveway. Driver from behind, lost, looking at a map while driving, rear-ends them at full speed, causing them to flip over. Our guy ends up with a herniated cervical disc that takes him out of his welding job, for good, and requires surgery. The surgery helps, but does not rid him of the pain.

At first, there appeared to be no more than $100,000 in insurance, the policy limit of the driver/owner of the at-fault vehicle. There was no indication in the police report, or anywhere, that the negligent driver was doing anything but his own business when he rear-ended our guy. But an off-the-cuff remark by him at the scene — about some “bovine sperm bottles” he had in his pickup truck — tipped us off that perhaps he was working for some company that dealt in such products, even though he owned the vehicle and there was no company emblem or signage on it.

After some investigating, we turned up a California employer. The insurance carrier for the employer discloses a $1,000,000 insurance policy. Now we’re talking! But still, we felt our client’s case was worth more – what with all his pain and suffering, his completely altered life style, and the loss of his job.

Auburn New York Car Accident Lawyer Discusses Insurance Coverage Issues In Sennett NY Car Accident

October 31, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

News reports say that a driver carrying 3 passengers in Sennett crashed after swerving to avoid a deer. A 27-year-old Auburn female passenger was killed and four others were injured in the collision. The car struck a culvert, rolled over several times, and ejected three of the passengers. It seems that all of the passengers suffered fairly serious injuries.

These were young people — late teens and early twenties. As the father of several kids that age, I can say that the parents are living my worst nightmare.

Finding enough insurance to fully cover all the injuries will be a challenge. To have the best shot at getting sufficient coverage, the passengers or their families should promptly retain a New York car accident lawyer to fully represent their interests, which includes investigating all potential insurance coverage.

NY Personal Injury Lawyers Should Be Required To Have Malpractice Insurance.

October 22, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

http://www.baltimoreinjurylawyerblog.com/2011/10/should_lawyers_be_required_to.html

I ran across a fellow personal injury attorney’s blog post pointing out that only one state, Oregon, requires attorneys to be covered by malpractice insurance. When you think about it, it is amazing there are no laws on the books in other states requiring attorneys to carry malpractice insurance, especially personal injury lawyers who handle multi-million dollar claims for their severely injured clients. Can you imagine surgeon not carrying malpractice insurance? Unheard of. Lawyers make mistakes, too, and their clients should be protected from that, just as doctors’ patients are.

I am not sure whether we need a law that all New York lawyers carry malpractice insurance. But I do think we need, at the very least, a law requiring full disclosure. I think all uninsured New York lawyers should be required to disclose, on their letterhead or in some other prominent place, “we do not carry legal malpractice insurance”. Why? Because most clients see lawyers as “rich” professionals, and assume they have adequate insurance coverage, just like doctors do. If they knew the lawyer they were about to hire was “bare”, they might decide to choose another lawyer who is covered.

Ontario County New York Car Accident Lawyer Explains How Insurance Works For Victims Of Recent Gorham NY Auto Crash

August 16, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Five people were injured yesterday afternoon when a car hit a utility pole in Gorham, Ontario County. The accident apparently happened like this: A southbound car carrying 4 passengers on Route 245 tried to pass a vehicle, didn’t see the oncoming vehicle until it was too late, and then swerved off the road to avoid a collision, striking the utility pole. Sadly, several of the victims are children.

Mistakes happen, and this driver clearly made a mistake by attempting to pass when it was unsafe to do so. Fortunately, New York car accident laws help innocent victims of careless driving recover for their injuries. And the insurance carrier for the driver (and owner) of the passing car will almost certainly be held financially responsible for this unfortunate accident.

What rights do the passengers have?

Why This Central New York Personal Injury Lawyer Insists That His Clients Not Speak To Anyone About The Accident Or The Case Without His Consent.

August 16, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

Here at Michaels Bersani Kalabanka, our standard personal injury retainer agreement contains a phrase that basically tells the client, “shut up” (please). Clients are not supposed to speak with anyone about the case or the accident without our consent. Why?

First, it’s pretty obvious why you should not speak to the defendant or the insurance adjuster. After all, their interests are adverse to yours. But what about others? What about that friendly neighbor of yours? Why shouldn’t you talk to him about your New York personal injury case?

Let’s say, for example, you tell your neighbor all about how your accident happened and all about your medical treatment since the accident. The insurance company thinks you’re faking or exaggerating, so they hire an investigator to snoop around the neighborhood. By that time your neighbor is mad at you for having called the police when he kept throwing loud parties. Now your neighbor “remembers” you told him the accident was all your fault, and you are not really hurt anyway. And that’s what he tells the investigator.

Syracuse New York Car Accident Lawyer: How a $100,000 Case Morphed Into A Million Dollar Case And Then Into A Multi-Million Dollar Case.

August 15, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

New York personal injury cases can take weird twists and turns, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Here’s one that took a dramatic turn for the better, twice!

A client was badly, really badly, injured in an upstate New York car crash. But the at-fault driver (who was also the owner) of the car was insured for only $100,000, and all the evidence about him (where he lived, the type of vehicle he was driving, etc.) indicated he would have no significant assets beyond the insurance policy.

So I called my client into my office to give him the bad news: It looked like $100,000 was all that was available to compensate him for his terrible loss, including past and future medical expenses, a lifetime of lost wages, and a large dose of lifetime pain and suffering. You can’t get water from a rock, and this negligent driver looked like a really, really dry rock.

Five Deadly Mistakes You Can, And Probably Will, Make If You Try To Settle Your Personal Injury Case Without A Lawyer, PART V.

June 18, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

This is the fifth and final part of the 5-part blog series about the pitfalls of trying to settle your own New York personal injury claim without a lawyer. Here’s pitfall number 5:

5. WATCH OUT FOR VULTURES. In some cases, you can’t take the settlement money without others, officially called “lien holders”, but whom I call “vultures”, holding out their hand for a piece of the pie. I call the lien holders “vultures” because they don’t participate in the “hunt”, i.e., the hard work of getting the settlement, but sit around and wait for you to make the kill, and then swoop in for a piece of the meat.

Unfortunately, this is their legal right. In a New York personal injury case, this is true especially if Medicare or Medicaid or ERISA-qualified health insurance policy paid for some or all of your treatment. Also, workers’ compensation will have a lien to recover any medical treatment or wage loss payments. If you take the settlement money, and then spend it, without first paying off the vultures, bad things will happen! They will come after you for reimbursement, and in the case of workers’ compensation, they might cut you off completely from any further comp benefits. And if you did not calculate these liens into your settlement demand, well, you’ll have to sit back and watch them eat the whole carcass of your settlement, leaving you nothing but scraps, or nothing at all.

Five Deadly Mistakes You Can, And Probably Will, Make If You Try To Settle Your Personal Injury Case Without A Lawyer, PART IV.

June 17, 2011 | by Michael Bersani

This is the fourth part of the 5-part blog series about the pitfalls of trying to settle your own New York personal injury claim without a lawyer. Here’s pitfall number 4

4. DON’T ASK FOR TOO MUCH, OR TOO LITTLE, TO SETTLE YOUR CASE. Let’s face it; you have no idea how much your case is worth. Even an experienced New York personal injury lawyer has a hard time putting a number on some injury cases. So many factors come into play: your age, how strong your “liability” looks, how bad the injury is, and how long it will last, your state of health and whether you have “pre-existing injuries”, what county the case must be tried in, and a few dozen other factors.

You might think you know how much your case is worth because a friend of a friend had the same or a similar injury, and his lawyer got him x amount. But that friend of a friend might have had a stronger or weaker liability case than you, and he might be older or younger, and he might have had, or not, pre-existing injuries to the same body part. All these things will make your case different from his, so it is a mistake to think your case is worth what he got.