I got to see this world firsthand recently, though not as extreme, and while, at least, trying not to make this system worse.
I was rear-ended while stopped. Other driver was (otherwise) pleasant, had insurance. Made a huge dent in my bumper. Really shocking, but I felt fine and could go about my night with nothing but emotional damage. (My city doesn't even send police if there are no injuries and both cars are driveable.)
Everyone told me I should "get checked out", in case there was non-obvious injury, which I did, at an urgent care place, which charged more than it should, but not a crazy amount. The doctor confirmed I was unhurt from it.
Because I didn't know how much injury I had when filing the claim, I just answered "yes" on the form for that part, planning to fill in details later.
About two months after the accident, I got an email from their insurer offering me $1000 compensation plus up to $5000 toward any medical claims I could document (conditioned on waiving further claims against the other party or insurer).
My (very naive, paladinesque) instinct was to contact them and say, "Oh geez, come on, there wasn't even a real medical issue, just cover the doctor bill for the exam and we can forget about it."
I asked my friends for advice, and the consensus was, "No way, man, you gotta take them for all they're worth! Really play it up! They don't want to pay for litigation, you can easily milk more out of them! Giving up the right to sue alone has gotta be worth $5000, easily!" (Spoiler: I didn't do that.)
I was gobsmacked. Really? This is the kind of world we live in, where it's expected that you use the threat of the crappy court system to play up injuries?
Remember: I didn't even have to document anything. I just answered "yes" to the injury part, and that was enough to spook them into that overgenerous offer.
This should really scare you. Litigation is so overbloated that you'll get a "sucker's" offer of $1000 just for asserting injury with no documentation. That should scare you. It means the inflated costs appear throughout the system and pump up insurance costs.
(Throwaway because I don't want my real identity within a hundred country miles of this.)
I was rear-ended while stopped. Other driver was (otherwise) pleasant, had insurance. Made a huge dent in my bumper. Really shocking, but I felt fine and could go about my night with nothing but emotional damage. (My city doesn't even send police if there are no injuries and both cars are driveable.)
Everyone told me I should "get checked out", in case there was non-obvious injury, which I did, at an urgent care place, which charged more than it should, but not a crazy amount. The doctor confirmed I was unhurt from it.
Because I didn't know how much injury I had when filing the claim, I just answered "yes" on the form for that part, planning to fill in details later.
About two months after the accident, I got an email from their insurer offering me $1000 compensation plus up to $5000 toward any medical claims I could document (conditioned on waiving further claims against the other party or insurer).
My (very naive, paladinesque) instinct was to contact them and say, "Oh geez, come on, there wasn't even a real medical issue, just cover the doctor bill for the exam and we can forget about it."
I asked my friends for advice, and the consensus was, "No way, man, you gotta take them for all they're worth! Really play it up! They don't want to pay for litigation, you can easily milk more out of them! Giving up the right to sue alone has gotta be worth $5000, easily!" (Spoiler: I didn't do that.)
I was gobsmacked. Really? This is the kind of world we live in, where it's expected that you use the threat of the crappy court system to play up injuries?
Remember: I didn't even have to document anything. I just answered "yes" to the injury part, and that was enough to spook them into that overgenerous offer.
This should really scare you. Litigation is so overbloated that you'll get a "sucker's" offer of $1000 just for asserting injury with no documentation. That should scare you. It means the inflated costs appear throughout the system and pump up insurance costs.
(Throwaway because I don't want my real identity within a hundred country miles of this.)