It might be challenging to wait patiently for your insurance company to provide you the settlement payment you expect. I've had the unfortunate of dealing with my fair share of insurance claims, like most others who have worked in this field for any length of time. I seldom have insurance claims when a settlement is achieved and paid as soon as I had hoped. I've always been impatient with that agonizingly slow claims procedure.
But ever since I became an insurance agent and saw how claims investigations are conducted, I've developed a new respect for that deliberate pace. Let me share what I've discovered with you before you discard me entirely. You might reach the same conclusion I have, in fact, it's highly likely.
I was hurt in a tragic accident in 2001. My 1994 W900 Kenworth was struck on the passenger side by a vehicle, which I "T-boned" as it wheeled in front of me. The vehicle turned once again, this time with me on the driver's side, and struck the gasoline tank, sending the vehicle careening into the median. At the intersection of the I-5, California 60, and I-10 in Los Angeles, it came to rest beneath a bridge. A witness came to check on me after stopping to check on the driver of the other vehicle, whose injuries were luckily extremely minor. He insisted on giving the investigating police officer a statement while he insisted on staying at the spot. The officer was informed by the witness that the automobile
Although my truck had sustained severe damage, I was still able to fix it on my own. I took a week off work to fix the fenders, replace the bumper, and one wheel before returning to work. Since the claim seemed to be taking forever and the witness had said that the car's driver had done this on purpose, I wanted to be compensated for my loss (repair costs). After several months passed, my insurance provider eventually notified me that the investigation into the claim was over and that my policy would not cover any medical expenses or property damage incurred by the other driver or the vehicle he was operating.
Following an inquiry, the adjuster found a number of items.
- The driver wasn't the car's owner.
- The vehicle lacked insurance.
- The car's lien holder owed money on several occasions.
The adjuster came to the conclusion that there had been insurance fraud. I refused to take a claim settlement check for payment of my repair expenses because I did not want to make a claim on my insurance (even for an uninsured motorist).
Both I and the insurance company would have been the victims of insurance fraud had the insurance company not thoroughly investigated the claim, with or without the eyewitness, and simply settled the claim quickly because that big, bad, ugly truck came dangerously close to running over that poor, innocent little car. My policy's maximum of liability was $1 million, so it might have cost the insurance company an untold sum and significantly raised my rates for years to come, or it could have forced me out of business entirely.
One of my insurance clients recently got into a collision. Another truck drove up behind them and struck them. The business that was in charge of the other vehicle made a claim against my customer's insurance. They thought my client was at fault. Again, the insurance company's adjuster finished the inquiry after a long time (six or more, I think). The owner of the other truck that rear-ended our customer's vehicle had filed a claim, but the adjuster rejected it.
In the instance of my client, the insurance company would have assumed financial responsibility and paid out thousands of dollars for an accident that my customer was not at fault for if it had paid the claim and settled with the owner of the other truck.
In both of these very real instances, the insurance company is acting exactly as we would like them to: ensuring that neither they nor their insureds (our clients) are the target of an attempt to either defraud the insurance company or force us to accept financial responsibility for an accident we were not at fault for.
Truck owners are especially surprised by the lengthy claims procedure for a single vehicle collision. Even in these situations, we still want the insurance provider to thoroughly look into the claim before making a settlement. Why? for the exact same factors as the first two illustrations! Imagine how many claims there would be if insurance companies didn't properly scrutinize each one before making a settlement payment. That would then lead to rates that were so expensive that none of us could afford to get insurance.
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