Personal Injury Law

Insurance Companies Have Many Ways to Minimize Payouts

Every day innocent people here in Tennessee and across the country are injured through no fault of their own. And every day insurance companies give their all to avoid having to pay legitimate claims to those victims. Using a variety of tricks, they attempt to limit the amount of money they have to pay to those who are entitled to it.

No one is under the illusion that insurance companies are in the business of anything other than making a profit. One of the ways the insurance industry attempts to maximize their profits is by shifting the blame off their client.http://www.hhpfirm.com/lawyer-attorney-1041327.html No blame means no payout. If that is not possible then they will try and minimize the level of fault in order to minimize the loss. This is called "comparative negligence" and is the criteria used by Tennessee law. Under comparative negligence more than one person can be at fault in a situation. The one with the higher burden of fault has the higher burden of penalty put on him. If it can be shown that their client was only 40% to blame then they only have to pay 40% of the penalty.

This split is relatively easy to differentiate when there is straight and easily calculated figures to work with. Things like lost wages, damaged property, and medical bills are concrete numbers that are hard to dispute. Where things get murky is when abstract ideas like pain and suffering or emotional distress. This makes the insurance companies work even harder to keep their payout at a minimum.

All of this legal wrangling is easy for the insurance companies. They have countless numbers of lawyers on staff whose sole function is to do just this: keep the company's losses as low as possible. They have the resources to fight and battle and prolong a situation until the victim is bewildered and desperate. That's why it's vitally important to have a good lawyer in your corner fighting for your rights.

Full post as published by Tennessee Law Blog on September 27, 2010 (boomark / email).