Are The Accident Attorney Ads I See On TV Even Real?
You have seen the TV commercials and the billboards from law firms that show people claiming to have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in a car accident case.
I’m sure you’ve asked yourself, “Is this real?” Can injured people really “win” a ton of money in a lawsuit? What are the chances of this actually happening? And, what has to happen in order for an injured person to get so much money from an accident?
There are two important things you need to know.
First, the amount of money available to compensate you for your injuries is directly tied to:
(1) how much bodily injury insurance the at-fault driver has, and
(2) how much uninsured/underinsured motorist insurance you have.
Second, in order to get a six-figure payout, you have to be REALLY injured as a result of the specific auto accident that is the subject of your claim, and for obvious reasons, that’s not necessarily a good thing!
Let’s first talk insurance.
Before I was a lawyer, I had no idea how this all worked, and I assumed that the coverage I had, and that other drivers had, would adequately protect me in any scenario. Boy was I mistaken!
There are only two forms of auto insurance that drivers must purchase in the State of Florida.
The first is Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance. Your own PIP insurance will pay your first $10,000.00 in medical bills after you are in a car accident (your PIP pays 80% of the amount of your bills and you pay a 20% co-pay).
The second is that you must have a minimum of $10,000.00 in property damage liability (PDL) coverage. This is the amount your insurance must pay to repair or replace someone else’s vehicle when you are the one who caused the accident.
These are the only two mandatory forms of auto insurance in the State of Florida.
Yes, you read that right.
There is NO requirement that Florida drivers have bodily injury (BI) insurance. Bodily injury insurance is something an at-fault driver’s insurer would have to pay the person injured in a car accident for their medical bills, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment, future medical bills and care, etc.
So, what happens if you are rear-ended by someone with no bodily injury insurance?
There would be zero insurance money to go after as far as the at-fault driver is concerned. This means that you are completely on your own in terms of paying your medical bills and obtaining any compensation for your injuries.
Now you might be saying to yourself, “I know that the law does not require the driver to have BI insurance, and I can’t get any insurance money from his carrier, but can’t I sue him personally?”
Sure, theoretically, you could sue the at-fault driver. However, it is almost never worth it.
Why?
Because of how incredibly difficult it is to collect on a judgment, even if you win a lawsuit.
Let’s say you sue the at-fault driver and win. It costs money to file a lawsuit and litigate a case. Most lawyers won’t take your case on contingency (percentage) basis because they know how difficult it is to recover any money from an individual at-fault driver without insurance.
So, you’ll likely have to pay an attorney by the hour to litigate the case, or fork over a large retainer, or litigate the case yourself (and, again, litigation costs you money).
Let’s assume you win.
Contrary to what most believe, you don’t just get the Defendant’s money from the Defendant, the Court, or the Sheriff. You actually have to find assets personally owned by the Defendant that are non-exempt, and then you have a sheriff levy and execute on the judgment.
This costs more money and takes time.
Many assets are exempt such as marital property owned jointly, a 401k, a primary residence, and leased vehicles. A person who has money usually knows how to protect his/her assets so that they are exempt. A person without money won’t know how to protect their assets, but they won’t have enough to satisfy your judgment either.
Garnishing wages and bank accounts are similarly difficult, and even if you are successful, the amount you can obtain is limited. For example, you can only garnish 25% of a debtor’s disposable income.
Finally, if the at-fault driver is in bankruptcy, or has other creditors, you’ll be placed at the back of the line, and you’ll likely never recover anything. Ultimately, it is almost never worth it to pursue an individual driver without insurance because the amount of money you spend on the case will almost always be more than the amount that you can actually get.
So an at-fault driver can get away without any responsibility for compensation?
Essentially, yes, that is exactly what I’m saying. I had a case where a client was stopped in his vehicle and was slammed into at 60 miles-per hour by a truck.
The entire rear of his car was pushed up like an accordion to the front of the vehicle. It’s a miracle he is still alive. He was knocked unconscious, had bleeding on the brain, and had two shoulder surgeries.
The driver that slammed into my client had actually killed another motorist 10 months earlier by negligently crossing a double-yellow line and striking the other motorist head-on. Somehow, this guy’s criminal lawyer had his charged reduced, and he was free to drive and endanger more Florida motorists.
However, this guy was not only a terrible driver, but he was a liar as well. The vehicle he was driving was supposed to be insured under his company’s policy, and technically, it was. The problem was that this guy told the insurance company that he would not be driving the vehicle, and he signed an excluded driver endorsement.
Why did he do this?
Because the premiums would have been astronomical after he killed someone 10 months earlier.
So he lied and said he wouldn’t be driving the truck, even though he fully intended to do so. Since he wasn’t supposed to be driving the vehicle, the company’s insurance company had a valid defense to my client’s claim.
Pursuant to the contract of insurance, they were not insuring the driver.
This meant that, if we were going to recover anything from the driver or his company, they had to have non-exempt assets that could satisfy a judgment obtained in a lawsuit.
We discovered that the driver and the company had already filed for bankruptcy. Moreover, even if they hadn’t filed for bankruptcy, they didn’t really have enough non-exempt assets to make a lawsuit worth our while. I called the officer who responded to the scene of the accident to see if they could arrest the negligent driver for fraud, but nothing ever got done.
This driver got away scot free from any responsibility.
Was there anything my client did to protect himself from the fact that the at-fault driver did not have BI?
Yes, thank God! Not only did my client have extensive injuries, but he missed 6 months of work. He truly needed money in order to survive and provide for his family. Luckily, he purchased a substantial amount (6 figures’ worth) of Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist (UM) coverage.
What is this? UM is purchased through your own insurance carrier, and is part of your own policy. This insurance covers you when you are injured in a car accident, and the at-fault driver either has no BI insurance or a small amount of BI insurance that is not enough to compensate you for your medical bills, pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment, future medicals, etc.
Since BI is not required in Florida, it is crucial that you all buy UM insurance to cover yourself. In my client’s case, since his injuries were so bad, it was truly a lifesaver that he had substantial UM coverage to pay for living expenses since he couldn’t work.
Neither BI, nor UM, is like PIP insurance.
PIP pays your doctors after each office visit. To get any BI or UM money, you actually have to convince an insurance company that you are owed the money you are seeking. It’s not just paid out. You have to prove your case to get any bit of money.
Insurance companies are businesses that, like any other business, are out for a profit. This means that they like taking your premium payments, but they don’t like paying you when it comes time to pay. They delay paying out claims because the longer the money stays in their hands, the more it can be invested to make them more money.
So, they play games with you.
Let’s say an at-fault driver has $10,000.00 worth of BI insurance and you have $100,000.00 of UM insurance.
Here’s an important point: it is very rare that an individual driver has over $100,000.00 of BI coverage. In 95% of cases, the at-fault driver will have $100,000.00 or less. Many times they will have an extremely low amount, such as $10,000.00. Typically, only corporate auto policies have limits over $100,000.00.
Your medical bills are $13,000.00; you’ve had 2 epidural pain injections; 3 days of chiropractic treatment a week for 3 months; and, your orthopedic doctor has given you the opinion that you’re going to need neck surgery.
After most of your medical treatment is over, your attorney can write a demand letter to the BI carrier (at-fault driver’s insurance company) to attempt to get the $10,000.00. The $10,000.00 should be fairly easy to recover based on your medical bills and your medical treatment.
But, do you get the $100,000.00 in UM?
In this scenario, your own insurance company “steps into the shoes” of the at-fault driver and, essentially, develops an adversarial position with you.
Yes—your own insurance company becomes the enemy and tries every trick in the book to avoid paying you! They will:
a) blame your injuries on things that happened in your past;
b) they’ll say that you weren’t really that hurt because you took a vacation or went to the gym or posted fun pictures on Facebook during your treatment period;
c) they’ll say the surgery isn’t medically necessary;
d) they’ll say you could have avoided the accident, etc.
In essence, they act like they are representing the other driver, not you—even though they are your own insurance company!
What I have attempted to illustrate here is that, even though there appears to be $110,000.00 available to you, you don’t just get the $110,000.00.
You have to fight like a dog to get a good chunk of it, and you probably won’t get the full amount without going to trial based on the facts of my previous example.
And, going to trial is a huge gamble. It costs about $35,000.00 to take a case to trial. The costs come out of the client’s share of the damages award, not the attorney’s share. So, even if you win a trial (based on the facts listed above), the most you would get in your pocket after the attorneys’ share, costs, and your medical bills are taken into account, is about $20,000.00.
Wait….what???
Even if I get a verdict at trial of $110,000.00 or above, you are telling me that I’d only get $20,000.00 in my pocket. Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.
A jury can award $1 million dollars, but if there’s only $110,000.00 available in insurance money, that’s likely the most you could get. The exceptions are: (a) if the insurer acts in bad faith, which is beyond the scope of this post; and (b) if the individual defendant actually has non-exempt assets which, as I described above, is unlikely.
And even $110,000.00 is not the most you could get because your attorney is going to get between 33.3% and 40% of the award; and, you will have to pay the litigation costs and outstanding medical bills out of your share of the award. As I said, you actually get about $20,000.00.
So, when you see an advertisement or a billboard, you have to ask yourself:
“I know you’re telling me that a jury awarded $1 million, but what did the injured person actually get in her pocket?”
“How much coverage was there?”
“Was it an individual policy or a corporate policy?”
“How much were the Court costs and medical bills?”
And, “How much was the attorney’s share of the pot?”
I hope that you got two things out of this post.
First, please for your own sake go purchase a good amount of UM coverage from your insurer. People in Florida aren’t required to have BI insurance, and even when they do, it’s often at a low amount.
Protect yourself! Remember, it is next to impossible to get assets from a judgment against an individual person in Florida. You must protect yourself in the event that you are injured, and you do so by having a good amount of UM coverage.
It may cost you a little bit more in premium payments, but trust me, it’s worth it in the event that you are hurt in an accident.
Second, contrary to what you see on TV or on the billboards, a personal injury claim is nothing like a winning lottery ticket. I’ve been practicing law for over 10 years, and the advertising that I am seeing now is extremely sketchy and creates unrealistic expectations in people’s minds.
Just because an attorney gets a substantial verdict, or even a high settlement, does not mean that the client is going to benefit.
The commercials don’t tell you that:
a) insurance policy limits are the most you can generally get out of a suit;
b) your cut is only 60%-66.6% of what is won (keeping in mind that policy limits are generally the most that can be won) because your attorney gets a cut of the pie too; or
c) the enormous litigation costs and outstanding medical bills will come out of your share, not the attorney’s share.
I believe in telling the truth, and I believe in thorough communication with the client so he/she can make the best decision for him/herself. There are definitely times when a client has to go to litigation because the insurance company is unfairly low-balling them.
This happens, and a good personal injury attorney will have a solid game plan that the lawyer and client can implement to combat the insurance company.
But, it is unrealistic to think of a case as an opportunity for a payday.
A case should adequately compensate you, but to get that compensation requires a client to have a permanent injury (broken bones, bleeding on the brain, facial scarring, herniated discs, etc.), consistent medical treatment for a three month period, invasive treatment such as epidural pain injections, a surgical recommendation, etc.
I gave you the blueprint for building a good case in one of my prior posts, so refer to that for more information.
Every case is unique, but generally, you need to have a serious injury that requires consistent and extensive medical care. This is not the “happy” financial windfall that is portrayed on TV. It’s a traumatic period of time for the injured person.
A good attorney will be honest with the client and communicate with the client often.
It’s deceptive when an attorney is essentially promising accident victims a financial windfall. It’s manipulative, and it serves the purpose of keeping a law firm in the forefront of an accident victim’s mind after the crash.
But, after reading this, do you really think that what is often portrayed is real? Do you really think that the testimonials you see on the commercials are true? Or, did they get a much smaller percentage of the amount that’s listed on the screen? Is it most likely a marketing ploy that will render you angry when you discover the truth at the end of your case?
I’d rather be truthful with my clients from the very start. If you have any questions, our team is always here to help.
COHEN LAW GROUP
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