The US insurance industry capitalizes on over $30 billion a year. The Automotive Insurance Industry pays their CEOs more money than any other industry in America.
Question: Do insurance companies, even with all of this money, still strategize to hurt their policyholder’s legitimate claims, for the sake of increasing their profits year in and year out?
Answer: Most of The Time… Unfortunately, the answer is Yes!
Some of the biggest insurance companies use “questionable tactics in order to make more money. Below are just a few of the kind they have been known to implement in the past:
Companies such as State Farm and Allstate can be found caught denying VALID claims over the course of their existence. Even though these companies are supposed to be helping drivers, and they promise to take care of their insured when their insureds need them, paying out claims to people is the last thing insurance providers really want to do. They strategize and even re-write their policies regularly in an effort to deny what otherwise are extremely legitimate and payable reports.
For what reason? Mainly to make more money!
This is yet another common tactic that is utilized by auto insurance providers in an effort to improve profits. They postpone claims as long as possible, and really hope the claimants are too overwhelmed to follow through or follow up?. They have even gone as far as locking up paperwork in safes and making use of some policyholder’s health in hopes the insurance policyholder would pass away. In some circumstances when this happens, the claim disappears, or the claim value becomes greatly diminished.
This situation is a pretty easy one to understand. Who actually understands insurance contracts?
Answer: Very few people.
Insurance contracts are by far some of the most dense & incomprehensible agreements the average consumer could ever see. It has gotten to the point where states have enacted? In plain English, laws in order for consumers to better understand what exactly they sign up for. Still, many are taken advantage of with many clauses that weren’t easily understood initially or weren’t noticed due to the density of the contract itself. Indeed, more often than not you don’t even get your insurance contract until after you have submitted your application form and paid your premiums. Do you read through it after the fact?
The answer is no.
Unless there is something specific that you are worried about, many people are content leaving the insurance in place. After that, any concerns become situational, meaning that you have no reason to look at your policy until an incident occurs. However, oftentimes by then it’s actually too late. The policy either covers or doesn’t cover the loss event, and the resolution is pretty much set in stone. So you try to read your policy and understand it. Does any of this make any sense?
Many people have to read the policy language multiple times to really understand it, crossing referencing other provisions, definitions, exclusions, etc. This is confusing stuff, & it’s designed to be just that way.
The reason? The insurance companies have a Bottom Line.
In the US we have the best justice system in the world. Perhaps not perfect, but by far the best. In the United States, the powerless have the same standing in a court of law as the powerful. In Congress, it often seems there is little than one person can really do to bring about change. In the courts, however, it only takes one with the right facts, with the right evidence and the right auto insurance lawyer to bring even the biggest of companies to pay for their mistakes and change their policies that were designed as profit-maximizers.
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