Remember when insurance companies really were “like a good neighbor” and made you feel as though you were “in good hands?” Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Barry J. Simon, a California personal injury attorney who has been a tort litigator representing victims against insurance and other large companies for nearly 30 years, explained how he's seen insurance industry practices change over the years:
When I first started practicing in the 1980's in California, we had third party bad faith cases. I found it was a lot easier to get cases resolved with insurance companies, even though there were issues with some companies like State Farm and 21st Century who were discriminating on the basis of religion or race and trying to low-ball claims – but they got caught. However, once that law was changed, I think it changed the whole course of personal injury law in California. Insurance companies have gotten worse and worse – and now they’re the worst I have ever seen them. There are some companies, such as Farmers in particular, that are the worst of all. They hope lawyers will be afraid to take the cases because they litigate everything. I’ve got a case going on with Amica Insurance Company right now and I find that you can’t reason with this carrier either. You have no choice but to litigate and get a third party to decide the case because they make such low offers and such unreasonable demands that they don’t leave the attorney much choice.
Insurers dare you to take them to court
In most cases, insurance companies want to go to a jury trial, according to Simon, a California auto accident lawyer who has helped hundreds of injured victims over the years, they don’t want to arbitrate except to learn more about the other side’s evidence. He says they use it as a discovery tool and don't really do it to resolve a case. He explained:
Their object is to make the other side spend as much money as possible and really stress them out. I've gotten the best settlements right before trial because that is when carriers feel the pressure to make a more fair offer. Meanwhile, insurance companies try to make their money by investing the money they should be paying to victims years before trial or before litigation. I used to do defense, so I understand how the defense works and thinks.