Uninsured Motorist Car Insurance Settlements and Claims for Injuries

I'm going to talk about uninsured motorist insurance settlements and claims. I'm going to give you many different settlements that I've had so that you can have as good of an understanding about uninsured motorist insurance claims as possible. Stay tuned and watch the entire video. I don't want you to miss out on any of these claims. Jay Z Helps of Florida, Injury Law Firm. I'm attorney Justin Ziegler. This is the car that my client was standing outside. He was a pedestrian, was standing outside of this car, and another car hit him. The car was actually driven by a federal United States employee, and the federal United States employee was driving a rental car, actually. My client actually had rented this vehicle, and he hit my client, and my client fractured his lower leg bone, his tibia, the larger lower leg bone. The other driver, again, who was a United States employee, had a rental car that had $100,000 of what's called bodily injury liability insurance on it. Above that, the United States was responsible for the rest. When you make a claim against the United States from a car accident, there's no limit on how much they have to pay you, meaning there's no insurance limit. My client, when he purchased or when he rented his rental car, had purchased $100,000 of uninsured motorist insurance. He actually didn't even know he had purchased that. I ended up writing a letter to the rental car company, and they disclosed that to me after I requested the limits of uninsured motorist insurance. Our argument to my clients, the rental car's uninsured motorist insurer, was that because there was only $100,000 of insurance, and above that, even though there was plenty of money to get from the United States, I argued that the United States was uninsured, thus my client could make his uninsured motorist claim. We made the uninsured motorist claim against the rental car company's insurer, who was Ace Insurance Company. At first, the adjuster said to me, I don't know what you're trying to do. There's the federal government on the other side. You've got plenty of money. We're not responsible. I filed what's called a civil remedy notice, which you need to file if it's a Florida accident uninsured motorist case if you want to get above the insurance limits. Even though his case was worth above the insurance limits, so we filed the civil remedy. What that does is it puts pressure on the uninsured motorist insurer to pay you the money if they feel that your case is worth more than the limits, the uninsured motorist limits. Well, ultimately, Ace Insurance Company hired an attorney who sided with me and told them the better business decision was to pay the $100,000 limits. My client received $100,000 in uninsured motorist insurance from Ace. The rental car that hit him, the other rental car, had $100,000 of liability insurance with Philadelphia Insurance Company. They paid that to me, and then we sued the federal, the United States. They paid us $125,000 after we sued him. We gave him a chance to settle within six months. When you have a case against the United States, you need to give them six months before you can sue. They didn't make an offer, so like I said, we sued them. The entire case set up for $325,000, but always look for that uninsured motorist insurance. This is the car that my client was a passenger in. My client was from out of state, and she was in North Florida, Bonifay, Florida, when another car, an uninsured car, veered over into her lane, struck her, and you can see there's a lot of damage to the vehicle. She claimed that the car accident caused her rotator cuff tear. The rotator cuff is in the shoulder, and we ultimately settled with my client's uninsured motorist insurance and the car's uninsured motorist insurance. The driver of the car that my client was in happened to have $100,000 of uninsured motorist insurance, which unfortunately is not the norm. That's way above the average in Florida. My client also had significant amount of uninsured motorist insurance, but what's interesting to note from this case is the car that she was in, that driver's uninsured motorist insurance paid first, and then my client's $100,000, my client's paid $30,000 above it, which equals $130,000, and then medical payments coverage of the car, which applies regardless of fault, paid an extra close to $9,000 or so. Also note, what's very important is uninsured motorist insurance applied in this case and only applies if someone else, not you, was careless and their carelessness caused your injury. If you're the only one at fault, uninsured motorist insurance will not apply. In another case, a pedestrian was crossing the crosswalk, actually the other car claimed to have a green light, but nevertheless, the pedestrian was crossing the crosswalk. She was struck by another car, and the pedestrian's husband owned a car that had uninsured motorist insurance on it. The pedestrian did not own a car, but your spouse, if you live with them, their uninsured motorist insurance should pay, again, if another vehicle like this car we claimed was at fault and they caused your injury. The other vehicle actually had $10,000 of bodily injury liability insurance, which is very typical in Florida. That's the most common bodily injury liability insurance that I see. Again, this accident happened in Homestead, Florida, which is down south. My client actually had a plate put into her face, so she had surgery, and that's the reason for the $110,000 settlement. Surgery, as I've said before in many of my other videos, drives up the value of the case significantly. Without surgery, the case is generally worth much less. The insurance company of the other car was Imperial, also known as RAC, and my client's underinsured motorist insurer was Progressive Insurance Company. Another very important thing to note from this case is my client actually got the ticket in this case. The police officer put her at fault. The good news is in Florida, in many cases, the good news is that even if you get a ticket, you may still have a case. Now, in reality, you generally need a very big injury in most cases if you get a ticket for it to apply, because the officers, although not always, they usually get it right, meaning they usually apportion fault to the correct person, but because my client's injuries were so bad, Progressive paid the $100,000 of uninsured motorist insurance. This is the damage to the truck that hit my client. My client was a truck driver. On his personal car, not the car involved in this accident, on his personal car, he had $10,000 of uninsured motorist insurance with Progressive. Now, the truck that hit him, as many trucking companies have very large policies, so did they. But what's interesting with their policy, they had a policy with Traveler's Insurance Company, and the first $250,000 or so of their policy, they pay out of their own pocket. It's called a self-insured retention. In Florida, I argue that if another vehicle that hits you has a self-insured retention, also known as SIR policy, that they're considered uninsured under Florida law, so I let Progressive know my theory, and Progressive at first did the same thing that, in the first example I mentioned involving the pedestrian that was hit, they said, there's plenty of insurance to get from the truck, their insurance policy is millions, and even though they have a $250,000 self-insured retention, I said, nope, that's not compliant with Florida law. Please pay me the $10,000. They hesitated. I filed a civil remedy notice. Again, that's what allows you to get above the uninsured motorist limits if you can prove up your damages, and reminds them that they have a duty to act in good faith. And Progressive, after telling me there's no way I'm entitled to the $10,000 of uninsured motorist insurance from my client, they paid the $10,000. Now, we also settled the case against the other truck for $200,000, bringing the entire settlement to $210,000. My client had a shoulder injury. He claimed that the crash caused his labrum tear, and he actually underwent surgery. We also claimed that the crash either caused or aggravated a herniated disc of his. Interesting to note in this case was that he was working at the time of the accident. We were able to get the workers' compensation lien because workers' compensation insurance paid a lot of money towards his lost wages and medical bills. They claim that they're entitled to part of the settlement as they're allowed to do, part of what they paid. Now, since he hired an attorney in Florida, the workers' compensation insurer has to reduce their lien by attorney's fees and costs, which they did in this case. This is an image of an epidural. It's a shot that most people associate an epidural with. A pregnant woman who's giving birth is given an epidural to minimize her pain. But it was given to my client. He was rear-ended by another car. He was actually the driver. He was from another state. He was doing business in Miami. He was on the clock, working actually at the time of the accident. And the other driver had $10,000 of bodily injury liability insurance, which you're starting to see a little theme here that in most personal cars, that's the average that you're going to see in Florida, unfortunately. So State Farm had the $10,000 from the careless driver that hit my client. They paid it. And remember how I just said uninsured motorist insurance. The other driver needs to be at fault for it to kick in. So once we determined that the other driver was at fault, we made a claim through my client's own uninsured motorist insurance on his personal car. Even though he wasn't driving a personal car, he was driving another vehicle in Florida. His personal auto insurer paid $47,000, which bought the total settlement to $57,000. Again, he had epidural shots to his lower back. His doctor said he's a candidate for a discectomy, a lower back surgery. He told me he had no plans of wanting to get the lower back surgery. But nevertheless, we told the uninsured motorist insurer that my client may need it in the future. A bicyclist was riding in South Miami-Dade County, Florida, and a car essentially made a right-hand turn in front of him and hit him. They were both going in the same direction of travel, and the car did what's called failure to yield right away. He collided, was thrown off the bike. Fortunately, he had a helmet on. He claimed that the crash caused headaches for him and that he had a compression fracture of his mid spine. And the at-fault vehicle, again, only had $10,000 of liability insurance. Fortunately, my client had, with USAA, an uninsured motorist insurance policy. So we received $10,000 from the at-fault vehicle. And then my client received $42,000 from USAA due to his compression fracture. This is the pickup truck that my client actually t-boned another vehicle who he claimed blew a stop sign. And the guy code, the insurer of the other vehicle, again, someone was underinsured. They had $20,000 of insurance. My client had epidural injections to his spine. He had significant medical treatment prior to this accident to his spine. But we claimed, as you're allowed to do in Florida, that the crash aggravated or worsened his spine, his herniated discs. And that's what we were seeking money for. He was insured with Star and Shield Insurance Company and NARS, North American Risk Services, adjusted the claim for them. They paid $19,000 on top of the $20,000, which brings the entire settlement to $39,000. But again, he was entitled to underinsured motorist insurance because the other driver was careless. If, in this case, the other driver was not careless, he wouldn't have gotten a penny of underinsured motorist insurance. In another case, a client of mine was rear-ended. And she's very young. I think she was about 19 years old or so. And Geico was her uninsured motorist insurer. Actually, it was her parents' uninsured motorist insurer. She had what's called stacking uninsured motorist insurance. And what you do if you have stacking, you multiply the number of cars for each stacking policy. So if you have one stacking policy with three cars, you multiply the level of uninsured motorist limits per person times three, which is what happened for her here. The driver who hit her was arrested for drunk driving. He unfortunately had no bodily injury insurance. So that's why uninsured motorist insurance kicked in from the beginning. In this case, my client was entitled to personal injury protection under a policy. Essentially, that applies to almost all the other claims that I've mentioned so far, the settlements I've mentioned, where your own auto insurance, the personal injury protection coverage part of it, pays up to $10,000 for your medical bills and lost wages. So that was the case here. Her own PIP paid for up to $10,000 of her lost wages and out-of-pocket medical bills or actually medical bills. This is the pickup truck of a vehicle that my client was driving. As you can see, there's some damage to the rear of it. My client had a host of injuries before this accident. But again, the driver that hit him was uninsured. Fortunately, my client had $25,000 of non-stacking insurance with USAA. Non-stacking is the opposite of stacking. It just means you're only entitled to the per-person limit of uninsured motorist insurance on the policy. So he had $25,000 of non-stacking uninsured motorist insurance. That's when we ended up receiving the policy limits. But again, we had to prove that his damages, his injuries were worth $25,000 or more. He had a meniscus tear that we argued was either aggravated or caused by the accident. He had a labrum tear, et cetera, a herniated disc. But we argued that all these injuries were either caused or aggravated by the accident. But USAA did the right thing and they paid the $25,000. I hope you like this video. Please subscribe to our channel. Please like this video. Please watch our other videos. I'm attorney Justin Ziegler with my office in Miami. Have a beautiful day.