Getting Scammed by Your Insurance Company

Transcript: Hi, I’m Indiana personal injury attorney David Holub.

This is a recent scenario that happened in our office that I thought it would be important to post a video about.

We recently were contacted by two individuals who were harmed in a crash in a vehicle that was owned by their uncle.

They came in with their uncle and the two individuals were having difficulty speaking because of their injuries, so their uncle was helping them try to set up a claim with his own insurance carrier. And this crash happened to be the result of multiple impacts to the rear of the uncle’s vehicle. The uncle asked if he could call the insurance carrier while we were present with him in the office and we said yes. So he got the insurance carrier on and put them on the speakerphone.

What we found as a result of this incident was quite shocking. The uncle first asked the claims adjuster for his own insurance company to explain to him what benefits he had under his policy. The adjuster immediately changed the subject and would not answer and started to talk about questions about whether the police were called, and what time of day the crash happened, and information of that nature. The adjuster then proceeded to say, “Well there’s no collision coverage on this particular vehicle, so there’s no point in making a claim, thanks for calling us, but there’s nothing further that we can do.”

The uncle rightfully persisted and said, “What other benefits are available under my policy? Is there something called med pay benefits that would be available for the people that were in the car and are now undergoing medical treatment?” As soon as the uncle asked this, the adjuster got quiet and put him on hold for a good two to three minutes. When the adjuster returned, they grudgingly said, “Yeah, there’s medical pay benefits,” and then went on to some other subject. The uncle persisted and said, “Well can I get a claim number that I can give to the car occupants so that they can get their medical bills paid?”

The adjuster then gave a number. It was maybe a ten-digit number with letters and numerals. The uncle wrote it down and I wrote it down. Before the conversation was over, we asked the adjuster to give us that number again. The adjuster repeated the number, but was one digit off. It’s my speculation that this was on purpose because if you give the wrong number to health care providers and they then try to make an insurance claim, the insurance company can say, “Well we don’t have any claim by that number,” and delay payment and frustrate any kind of a claim for medical pay benefits.

The other thing that was surprising is the adjuster repeatedly questioned the uncle about how this crash happened and repeatedly came back trying to explain back to the uncle what the adjuster was hearing. In other words, this was two crashes. One crash and then about sixty seconds later another car rear-ended the first car and pushed it again into his car.

The adjuster kept repeating the facts back saying, “Well this is just one crash, correct? This was just one crash. Nothing happened to make these separate crashes.” Well, it was a complete lie and the adjuster was totally trying to get a different story written down, presumably because they wanted to avoid having to pay on the claim.

The insurance company tried to hide their benefits, they took steps to purposely mislead their insured. So I guess the bottom line is it’s absolutely essential to have an attorney.

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