re: Auto insurance rates plummet

quote:

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Why do I get sued for a fender bender with minimal damage and no actual injury? Because the ins Co will settle is why.

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If the insurance company doesn’t settle, and you (their insured) gets a judgment against you for more than your policy, you would then have a claim against your own insurance company for failing to settle the claim when they had an opportunity to do so. The plaintiff attorney will then offer to release you from that excess exposure in exchange for assigning your rights to them. They will then go after the insurance company for the whole judgment.

The end result is the insurance company has to weigh the risk of a Louisiana jury (who is inundated with advertisements and billboards suggesting all these claims are worth millions) awarding a lot of money and then they might have to pay that whole judgment even though their policy limits were some lesser amount.

If you want your insurance company not to settle, are you willing to release them from all liability to you for not settling in the event it goes badly for you at trial? Just because you think the person wasn’t injured (and they may, in fact, not be injured at all) doesn’t guarantee the jury will agree with you.