Social Media in Personal Injury Law Cases

social media in personal injury law cases

A new documentary recently came out on Netflix called The Social Dilemma. I highly encourage you to watch it. After I saw it, I began to reflect deeply on how social media is everywhere and it is really tough to get away from it. I also thought about how social media intersects with personal injury law — the area of law that I specialize in, where I have the majority of my experience.

I thought that now would be a good opportunity for me to offer my take on social media in personal injury law cases, from an attorney’s perspective. Although I’m writing this article with my law colleagues in mind, I’d like to emphasize that this article is intended for everyone else — the general public. Regardless of whether you’ve been in an accident recently, it’s important to remember the impact that social media participation can have on a legal case.

Social Media in the Discovery Process

There is a rule in every state where a lawsuit is filed that allows the opposing party to request disclosures. The umbrella term for this is discovery — where parties engage in trading information.

In personal injury law, as a part of the discovery process, it’s common for the opposing party to ask for a disclosure about the injured party’s social media accounts.

Many people do not realize this. In fact, you might be wondering Why would my Facebook page have anything to do with my case?

Here’s why: Imagine that you’re in a personal injury case. To prove that you have been injured, your attorney may be required to disclose medical records and related documents, in an effort to illustrate the severity of these injuries.

Character witnesses might be called upon, as well. These are the people who can talk about how well you were before the accident and how you are today, after the accident. An example would be Jonathan’s friend saying the following:

Before the accident, Jonathan could golf all the time, without issue. He played on a regular basis. After the accident, he can’t even swing a club, because it hurts his lower back too much. He’s lost something that he really loves doing.

This is a statement that is better coming from a character witness than from the injured plaintiff. In my own experience as an attorney, I’ve noticed that it’s better to have a third party explain changes in the injured person’s activities.

Let’s think about this from the standpoint of the defendants in a case — not just the other person named in a case, but also with that person’s insurance company, defense attorney, and potentially others. The defendants can ask for information in an effort to verify statements made about injuries and the effect of those injuries had.

What people don’t realize is that defendants can request information, through discovery, that includes social media. After all, where are people most active about their daily lives? On social media!

Social Media Extends Further Than You Might Think

In personal injury cases, attorneys need to be careful and ensure that their clients are, in fact, really losing their ability to perform activities. You would not want to be in the situation that Negretti & Associates faced a few years ago, when our client told us, “I love hiking. But I can no longer hike because of the injury to my leg.” But, as we looked at the client’s Facebook pages, we saw bunch of hiking photos spanning the last few months. As a plaintiff’s attorney, this sort of thing makes your client look terrible. They lose all credibility.

The growth of social media has exploded in a billion fragmented directions, touching every aspect of daily living. Yet, it goes far beyond more than just the few sites or apps that we might think of off the top of our heads, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Attorneys should consider every possible “social” profile that a client might have.

Consider these examples:

  • If you are currently single and you’re dating, your dating apps could be considered social media. If you have a profile on a dating website or app like Tinder, and it talks about things that you enjoy doing and things that you can do, it would be odd to testify in your case that you can no longer go dancing. But your dating app that says one of your favorite activities is dancing. These two things do not match and that is not good if you are going to bring a claim for a loss of an activity like dancing.
  • Imagine that one of your favorite activities is cooking and baking. You enjoy sharing images of your newest creations and explaining how you fine-tuned your recipes. If you say you can no longer cook, or you have lost your love for baking, your active Pinterest use can work against you. Be honest about how you’ve been affected.
  • If you like to ride your Peloton bike at home using the Peloton app, this can fall within the boundaries of social media, as well. You may ride with a lot of your friends on Peloton, accept their challenges, and participate in all of the good-natured fun that comes along with competition. However, if you’ve been injured and you’re telling the defendants that you can’t ride your Peloton anymore because of pain or discomfort, then you probably shouldn’t be on the Peloton app, and you shouldn’t be logging rides. If you can ride, then don’t say that you can’t ride.
  • LinkedIn, even though it’s business-related, is still social media. If you’re claiming that you have cognitive deficits — you’ve seen a neurologist, you’ve been diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury, you’re receiving treatment, you’re not able to see straight, and you are constantly frustrated with headaches — but you’re all over LinkedIn, posting different articles or sharing information to help fellow colleagues, those two things may not match up that well in your case.

Whether you’re a personal injury attorney or someone who is involved in an accident, it’s not a good look to be stating that you’ve lost the ability to do certain things and tell the opposite story on social media. If you really have been injured, then your social media should match those claims. Our advice would be: don’t be on social media during your personal injury case. Things can be misconstrued and misinterpreted.

Honesty Is the Best Policy

Ultimately, personal injury attorneys want their clients to be honest about how their accidents have affected their lives.

I’m a plaintiff’s attorney through and through, with every ounce of blood in my body, but I am not about people lying, and I’m not about people overstating what’s going on with them.

People lying and overstating their injuries are part of the reason that conspiracies have evolved in our industry — that every plaintiff is a liar and insurance companies never want to pay. A cyclical, self-reinforcing dynamic, between plaintiffs and defendants has grown over time:

  • Every defense attorney who I’ve ever talked to thinks that every plaintiff overstates his or her injuries and losses.
  • Meantime, simply because plaintiffs have overstated their injuries and overplayed their hands, insurance companies have become trained to believe that everyone does this.
  • Because insurance companies do not want to pay someone fairly for what has happened to them — even if the injured person is being completely reasonable — plaintiffs feel like the industry is out to get them.

What can an attorney do to break this cycle and debunk myths about exaggerating injuries and losses?

Be more transparent. You have to be willing to share information if you are going to take your case into litigation.

In personal injury law contexts, I have encountered extreme viewpoints about social media. Some have the impression that it’s best to go completely dark, in order to eliminate any possibility of having to disclose their social media postings. This is along the same lines of thinking as keeping Alexa out of one’s house, because we know Alexa is listening. Others may feel a need to be more reserved about their injuries in social media, in an effort to not overstate or overplay them.

Here’s what I would say: Just be honest about your injuries. If you’re injured, you’re injured. If you can’t ride your Peloton bike, then don’t ride your Peloton bike. If you can’t bake, or don’t want to — because you injured your hand, it hurts too much, and there are too many accommodations that you have to account for — then you probably shouldn’t be pinning your cooking photos to Pinterest.

Before you post something to social media, ask yourself the simple question: Would this look okay to someone else who may be evaluating the sufficiency or the seriousness of my injuries?

Remember, if your injury has prevented you from doing something, your claim has to be proven in some way. You have to prove your injuries by providing evidence. That’s the only way that the trier of fact — the jury that all of us get to be a part of — is ever going to believe that you really suffered those injuries.

Social Media Disclosures for New Cases

At Negretti & Associates, we have a social media disclosure document that we require all clients to sign at the beginning of their cases. It simply states that we are advising you to stay away from social media while your case is ongoing, so that you don’t send a red flag to the defendants that they should be looking into your social media accounts. If you do that as an attorney, it puts you in a much better place.

Granted, there may be some instances where the client has already made posts about their accident and resulting injuries. In these cases, we advise clients not to delete their posts, because that could be considered destruction of evidence.

One possible solution is to make your account private. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. Remember, if insurance companies and defendants as a whole figure out that you have these channels, they can certainly request them through that process of discovery. You can help to avoid this by making your account private.

Likewise, we encourage clients not to “friend” new people during the pendency of their claims. When accounts are private, avoid granting profile access to unknown users. This avoids the risk of friending people that could be part of the defense team.

There are now companies that can be hired to run social media backgrounds on people that make claims on injured victims. I’ve seen the reports. They are comprehensive. It may not just be an insurance adjuster who’s digging around trying to find information on your Facebook. It certainly could be an entire team of people who are looking into every aspect of your life — including this blog.

I hope this information benefits my clients, and in no way causes any sort of distraction or disruption in their ability to bring a claim.

Bottom line, if you’ve been involved in an accident and you’ve suffered a personal injury, be aware that social media is far more encompassing than you probably think it is.

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Should I Call My Insurance Company After an Accident?

should i call my insurance company after an accident

This article is the third of a three-part series on car insurance. The first two articles in this series are State-Minimum Car Insurance Is Not Enough and Full-Coverage Car Insurance Is a Myth.

At Negretti & Associates, we are asked frequently, “Should I call my insurance company after an accident and it wasn’t my fault?” People often worry that if they use their car insurance, their rates are going to go up.

We tell everyone uniformly that yes, they should contact their insurance companies. There are laws in every state that prevent insurance companies from raising your rates if you are not at fault for an accident and you dip into your own policy. That would be penalizing you for using the policy that you pay for — and contrary to logic. More important, it cannot happen by law.

Regardless, many people live under the impression that they shouldn’t use their insurance, because their premiums will go up, and their insurance providers will seek to recover the amount of the previously filed claim.

Dark Realities and Seedy Underbellies

While all of the above is true, there is a dark reality that you should be mindful of. I have worked with insurance companies long enough to know how the insurance industry works. I have heard countless stories from people who have not been at fault for accidents, and all the sudden there is rate review of their premium, or they are denied coverage the next time their premium comes due.

In essence, the insurance carrier doesn’t want to cover them anymore. This isn’t necessarily stated anywhere in the claim file that this change was due to an accident claim. But it becomes quite clear that this is what is happening.

There is a seedy underbelly in the insurance industry that does do these sorts of things to affect policyholders in the event that claims are made, whether they were at-fault in a claim or not.

You Paid for the Insurance, So Use It

Knowing that your insurance company might eventually raise your rates should not discourage you from making your claim. You buy insurance for a reason. If you have the insurance, use the insurance. Don’t be afraid at all. If you have the right coverages, I would not tell you to avoid using your insurance coverage, because of this fear.

If your insurance company tries to raise your rates, go to a different insurance company. There’s a lot of choice out there. I would not hesitate for a second to bounce to a different insurance company if they raised my rates. If I didn’t cause an accident, and all the sudden they’re playing games to try and claw back some of the money that they’re paying out due to a claim, find another provider.

I’ve had enough of these stories come through our office, and we’ve talked to so many people about this issue. While the law is clear about what insurance companies can’t do, it is quite difficult to prove that an insurance company actually raised premiums directly because of a previous accident claim. They will never admit anywhere, in writing or over the phone, why your rates went up. They’ll offer you a billion reasons, but they’ll never make it about the claim you made.

It would be very coincidental that you all the sudden have a rate increase, because you filed a claim against your insurance. I don’t believe in coincidences.

Be Prepared to Switch

If you are planning to file a claim with your insurance company, you should be prepared to switch insurance carriers. Now might be a good time to reach out to an insurance broker, to start comparing insurance policies and rates.

Don’t forget that you have choices! Don’t wait for your policy to come up for renewal. You can change your coverage at any time.

If this article has spared any questions about your insurance or a claim that you’ve made, don’t hesitate to call our office at 602-531-3911.

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Full Coverage Car Insurance Is a Myth

full coverage car insurance is a myth

This article on full-coverage car insurance is the second of a three-part series on car insurance. The first article is State-Minimum Car Insurance Is Not Enough. The final article in this series is Should I Call My Insurance Company After an Accident?

There is no such thing as “full coverage car insurance.”

Full coverage car insurance is a vague and arbitrary term that really doesn’t mean anything. What seems like full coverage to one person may be minimal for others.

Ask your friends or family what kind of car insurance they have, and they’re likely to say one of two things. Either they’ll say, “I have minimum coverage” — which is what a state mandates you to carry, in terms of coverage — or “I have full coverage.” Usually, there’s no in-between.

When the term came into common usage years ago, it served as a generalized way to speak about having different coverages such as collision and comprehensive insurance in one’s auto insurance policy. Collision insurance covers property damages that you, as a driver, might incur upon another driver’s vehicle, if you were to cause an accident. Comprehensive insurance is property damage that occurs in situations that don’t involve a crash, such as wildfire or a tree falling on your car during a bad storm.

Put Down Your Full Coverage Car Insurance Calculator

When you really think about all possible accident outcomes, is there ever a situation in which you can be entirely covered in full?

Let’s just use the most obvious example — one that’s really quite hard to imagine. Suppose that you’re in a car accident and you kill the other driver. There is no way to purchase a policy that would be commensurate with the loss of a life. You can’t say, “I’m fully covered. If I kill someone, I have enough insurance to protect myself.”

How do you value a human life? It’s really hard to put a dollar amount on the other person’s life. From a legal restitution standpoint, it’s well into the seven figures — possibly eight figures and beyond. And if a car accident resulted in multiple fatalities? Commonly accepted ideas about full coverage assuredly do not take such scenarios into account.

So, if you’re conducting an online search for a full coverage car insurance calculator, stop right now. Put the topic to rest and move along. You can only have a level of insurance coverage that would be considered adequate or sufficient. Think instead about coverage that you think is sufficient for your financial position and how much coverage you would need in the event of a terrible accident.

Think About Achieving Adequate or Sufficient Coverage Instead

How do you decide how much car insurance to buy? Start the analysis by asking yourself, “How much coverage do I want to carry to adequately protect myself, to make sure that I’m not personally responsible for paying for injuries and damages out of my own pocket?” In other words, ask yourself how much insurance can you purchase so that you will never have to write a check out of your personal bank account, to pay for damages that may happen if you cause an accident.

Your analysis may start with questions such as, “Do I own home? Do I have a business? Do I have things that could be in jeopardy if I cause an accident, and I don’t have enough coverage to protect me, and then the person I harmed comes after me personally?”

Whether you have a lot of assets or feel as if you don’t have much to protect, you will still want to put yourself in a position where you are protecting others in the event that you cause an accident. That is truly a matter of civic duty and personal responsibility, regardless of your financial position. You can still purchase more car insurance than the state minimum.

Fact is, you can get good coverage that projects you in the event that a very bad accident were to happen. If your state-minimum insurance is $15,000 in per-person bodily injury liability coverage, try asking your insurance broker or insurance carrier to give you a price for 10 times that amount, or $150,000. Compare the price of that coverage with the state-minimum, and most likely you’ll find that they difference in price is not significant, especially when parceled out as a per-month cost.

UM, UIM and Umbrella Coverage

You can also look into uninsured motorist coverage (UM), underinsured motorist coverage (UIM), and an umbrella policy that would kick into effect if the underlying coverages are insufficient. UM is designed to protect you when another driver lacks insurance. UIM protects you when the other driver has an inadequate policy limit, such as the state minimum. One recommendation is to purchase UM and UIM in the same amount as your liability insurance. In other words, if you’re going to purchase a bodily-injury liability policy of $100,000 per person, per accident, purchase a UM and UIM policy in the same amount to protect yourself.

Umbrella coverage is an extra layer of liability coverage that kicks in when your underlying coverage limits are met. Remember, medical expenses can reach seven-figure amounts. In an event when the other driver does not have enough insurance, umbrella coverage ensures that you have additional protection. You can have anything from $1 million to $5 million in umbrella coverage.

Bottom line, you don’t want to experience a very bad crash and then wish you had the right amount of coverage after the fact.

My Idea of Adequate Car Insurance

In closing, I would like to share my car insurance coverage limits to show you that I put my money where my mouth is. I wouldn’t encourage you to do something that I don’t do myself!

  • $500,000 Liability Coverage (to protect others)
  • $100,000 Property Damage (to fix someone else’s vehicle)
  • $1,000,000 Umbrella Coverage (to protect others)
  • $500,00 UIM/UM Coverage (to protect myself and passengers)
  • $1,000,000 Umbrella Coverage on UIM/UM (to protect myself and my passengers)
  • $50/day rental reimbursement (for a rental while my vehicle is being repaired)
  • $5,000 Med Pay (for medical expenses related to a crash)
  • Comprehensive and Collision Coverage (to repair my vehicle)
  • $500 deductible

Regardless of how much coverage I have, I would never say that I have full coverage car insurance. Instead, I will tell you that I have what I consider to be sufficient coverage — or in alignment with my financial position.

Next time you shop for insurance, remember that there are many good people out there who can guide you on how policies work and what coverage they recommend for you. Insurance brokers, in particular, can be a great resource. I like using a broker, because rather than obtain quotes from multiple insurance companies separately, the insurance broker can collect quotes for you. By looking at coverage limits and prices from multiple insurance companies, you can confidently make an educated decision.

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State-Minimum Car Insurance Is Not Enough

state-minimum car insurance is not enough

This article on state-minimum car insurance is the first of a three-part series on car insurance. Other articles in this series are Full-Coverage Car Insurance Is a Myth and Should I Call My Insurance Company After an Accident?

Every time we get into our cars and drive somewhere, we’re exposing ourselves to the risk of getting into in a car accident. This is true whether we think we’re exemplary drivers or our driving record has room for improvement. Getting behind the wheel involves some degree of risk — of either causing an accident or being hit by another driver.

And this is why car insurance exists. We buy insurance to protect ourselves and others in the event of an accident — potentially an unimaginably severe accident, whether it’s our fault or not.

So, if we think about car insurance in its proper context — as protection against risk — how do we know that we have enough to cover ourselves and other motorists when it’s needed?

At Negretti & Associates, our legal staff works with the insurance industry every day. We’ve seen all types of insurance coverage.

Here, we’d like to offer our perspective on one approach to car insurance shared by many drivers: buying just the absolute minimum level of car insurance that states require drivers to carry. We’ll outline why this approach has many drawbacks.

We hope that anyone who reads this will carefully reflect on whether they’re properly protected in the event of an accident.

Topics that we cover in this article include:

Types of State-Minimum Car Insurance

Nearly every state in the U.S. has laws that require motorists to carry a minimum level of car insurance. However, state laws only require two types of car insurance coverage: bodily injury protection and property damage.

Bodily Injury Protection: More commonly called liability coverage, bodily injury protection covers injuries to the other driver and his or her passengers. However, these amounts do not cover your own injuries.

Property Damage: Property coverage covers the damages that you cause to another driver’s vehicle. You can purchase collision coverage to protect your own vehicle in the event of an accident, regardless of fault.

Virtually every state mandates coverage amounts that drivers must carry for bodily injuries caused to other drivers and their passengers, as well as damages to other drivers’ vehicles and property.

Elements of State-Minimum Liability Insurance

Let’s take a more careful look at the types of liability protection that nearly every state requires: bodily injury and property damage.

Think of state-minimum car insurance as the maximum amount of liability coverage that drivers are required by law to purchase.

At Negretti & Associates, we are licensed to practice law California, Arizona, and Colorado. We’ll therefore use those three states as examples.

State-minimum car insurance in California is $15,000 / $30,000 / $5,000.

  • The first figure ($15,000) defines minimum per-person bodily injury liability coverage. In effect, California drivers must have policies that pay up to $15,000 for one person’s injuries in an accident. If you have California state-minimum coverage and cause an accident, the most that the other driver or any individual passenger could receive as compensation for medical bills would be $15,000.
  • The second figure ($30,000) specifies per-accident bodily injury liability coverage per accident. California drivers must purchase at least $30,000 in per-accident bodily injury liability coverage. If you have California state-minimum car insurance and were to cause an accident, $30,000 is the maximum amount that the other driver and his passengers could share as compensation for their injuries.
  • The third figure ($5,000) covers property damage liability per accident. In California, drivers must purchase at least $5,000 in property damage liability coverage. This would be used to repair damages incurred to the other driver’s car, or someone’s nearby property.

In Arizona, liability coverage amounts were raised — for the first time in decades — on July 1, 2020. Currently, Arizona drivers must carry at least:

  • $25,000 in per-person bodily injury coverage per accident.
  • $50,000 in per-accident bodily injury coverage.
  • $15,000 in property damage liability coverage.

Colorado mirrors what Arizona has in coverage: $25,000 bodily injury coverage per person, per accident; $50,0000 bodily injury coverage per accident; and $15,000 for property damage liability coverage.

What Does Liability Coverage Actually Cover?

Let’s look further at property liability coverage, which has numerous applications.

For example, the at-fault driver’s liability coverage can be used as a source of compensation for damages for any of the following:

  • Repairs made to the other driver’s vehicle.
  • Loss of use: the other driver’s car rental while his or her vehicle is being fixed.
  • A potential diminished value claim: the difference between what the other driver’s vehicle was worth before the accident and what the vehicle is worth after the accident.
  • Other losses that may occur related to the property claim.

Also, when a vehicle is declared a total loss — in other words, not repairable — the other driver must be compensated for fair market value of the vehicle prior to the accident.

How State Minimums Leave Drivers Barely Protected

When you list the possible uses of liability coverage, you quickly find that California’s minimum requirement of $5,000 for property damage coverage is extremely low.

It’s hard to find a fully functioning replacement vehicle for less than $5,000. Considering the ways in which vehicles are built today, as well as the labor needed to restore vehicles to pre-accident condition, just a small fender-bender can cost far more than $5,000 to repair.

Even in neighboring Arizona, where the cost of living is lower, the required $15,000 state-minimum property damage liability coverage does not stretch far. The average selling price of a used car is $21,000. Many cars on the road have values surpassing $15,000. State-minimum insurance often does not account for loss of use and diminished value.

It doesn’t take much math to conclude that purchasing state-minimum car insurance leaves drivers barely protected. Drivers who buy state-minimum insurance are merely complying with law. They are not even protecting themselves. This is an incredibly dangerous position to put oneself in.

If you have state-minimum car insurance and are deemed at fault in an accident, you may be liable for all expenses not covered by your policy. You may be expected to pay out of your own pocket to cover the difference between your insurance and the other driver’s actual expenses.

An attorney or a person injured in the accident could look to you personally to contribute to resolve a claim. The other driver can sue you, seize your assets, and have your wages garnished.

The Risks of Not Having Underinsured and Uninsured Coverage

Despite all of the insurance requirements written into states’ laws, the national average for uninsured motorists remains somewhere around 13%, according to a 2017 report from the Insurance Research Council (IRC). This means that one in eight drivers has no car insurance at all.

Remarkably, many people simply risk not paying for insurance and hope that they don’t cause an accident. Either they don’t want insurance or can’t afford it. Some states have much higher rates of uninsured motorists. In Florida, 26.7% of drivers lacked insurance in 2015.

California, Arizona, and Colorado have uninsured motorist rates that mirror the national average. However, these three states do not have laws on the books that require drivers to purchase uninsured motorist coverage (UM) or underinsured motorist coverage (UIM), which cover damages to your own car or injuries you suffer because you’re hit by another driver.

Underinsured/uninsured coverage: In addition to liability coverage, approximately 20 states go a step further with laws that define minimum insurance amounts that drivers must purchase to protect themselves against uninsured or underinsured drivers. This covers expenses related to vehicle damage and injuries when at-fault drivers have no insurance or do not have enough insurance.

Medical Payment coverage: This insurance covers your own and your passengers’ injuries, regardless of who is at fault in an accident. MedPay can cover medical bill, transportation to appointments, and physical therapy and rehabilitation.

Some states mandate what is called Personal Injury Protection (PIP) instead; this covers the driver’s own injuries, regardless of accident fault, and can include a loss of wages.

With MedPay or PIP, you have to be mindful of how much coverage you’re buying. Some states limit how much coverage can be used in an accident. Some insurance companies will require that they are paid back in full if you collect from another coverage under the at-fault driver’s policy.

If you were hit by an uninsured motorist and you don’t have UM coverage, then you are out of luck in terms of getting help from insurance to pay for your own damages and injuries. You might still be able to file a personal injury suit against the uninsured motorist, but you would not be able to collect from insurance.

By comparison, UIM exists to protect you when you are not at fault in an accident, and your damages and injuries exceed the other driver’s liability insurance amounts.

Imagine that you are in an accident in California, the at-fault driver had merely the state-minimum bodily injury liability coverage of $15,000, yet your injuries totaled $100,000 in medical expenses. Without UIM coverage, you would have to find a way to pay the difference of $85,000. You could attempt to go after the other party personally with the help of a lawyer, and you may be successful in obtaining a personal contribution from the at-fault driver. However, it’s unlikely that the other driver would have enough assets to cover that difference.

A few years ago, Negretti & Associates represented a young woman who was seriously injured when hit by an intoxicated driver. The at-fault party only carried the state-minimum insurance of $15,000. However, our client’s injuries — including surgeries and rehabilitation — were in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Our client was fortunate to have UIM, but only purchased $15,000 in coverage. The maximum amount of insurance money that we were able to collect for our client was $30,000. She deserved so much more. She told us that she wished that someone would have talked to her about how much UIM coverage to have before her accident.

What to Consider When Shopping for Car Insurance

When considering how much car insurance to purchase, start your analysis by asking yourself how much insurance you would want to carry so that you wouldn’t have to write a check from your personal bank account to pay for damages.

Do you own a home? Do you have a business? Do you have prized possessions? All might be in jeopardy if you were to cause an accident and were underinsured.

It might be uncomfortable to do so, but you have to think about worst-case scenarios — unthinkable situations, such as causing an accident that resulted in killing someone. Regardless of the policy you have, there’s really no way in which we can purchase enough insurance that would be sufficient for such an outcome. It’s difficult to put a dollar amount on a person’s life.

This considered, rather than choose state-minimum coverage, price-out a much larger plan — perhaps 10 times the state minimum — and then compare the two policies. Quite often, the difference in price may not be that much.

To illustrate, if you’re in Arizona, where the minimum liability coverage is $25,000, try to find out how much $250,000 in per-person bodily injury coverage would cost. On a per-month basis, the difference may not be significant. But coverage you get in return would be drastically different.

With quotes for the two policies in hand, you can go back to the original question: How much coverage do I want to protect myself and my family, along with my assets and belongings, to ensure that I’m not in jeopardy of losing what I have?

Even if you don’t have many assets to protect, you would still want to put yourself in a position where you are looking out for others.

As you shop around, remember that you can always reach out to an insurance broker, who can be great resource for recommendations on available policies. A broker can help you compare insurance from several companies all at once, so that you don’t have to solicit quotes from the insurers yourself.

You can also change coverage at any time. You don’t have to wait until your policy is up for renewal. You could contact your present insurance company today, even, and ask about different coverage. You can make changes immediately, if you are so inclined.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage and Umbrella Coverage

Do not overlook the importance of uninsured motorist coverage (UM). It can be a good idea to buy the same amount in UM as what you have in liability insurance.

For example, if you are going to purchase $100,000 per person, per accident in bodily injury coverage, try to purchase that same amount in UM for yourself. In effect, you’d be protecting another driver for up to $100,000 if you hit them and covering yourself for that same amount.

Umbrella insurance is another coverage type to consider as you shop for quotes. An umbrella policy is an extra layer of liability coverage that kicks in when your limits are met on the liability policy. Injuries can get into the seven figures. It possible to have anything from $1 million to $5 million in umbrella coverage.

It’s possible to have UIM and UM with added umbrella coverage. For example, you can have $250,000 in UM and UIM coverage, and then $1 million on top of that in umbrella coverage. In a scenario where the other party that caused the accident didn’t have enough insurance, an umbrella policy can ensure that you’re protected and that’s there is enough coverage for your own injuries and damages.

Adequate Insurance Is Necessary for All

The next time you shop for car insurance, explore your options. Think about what kind of coverages you would want in the event that you had to tap into your liability coverage. Try to find ways of covering yourself well above state-minimum limits, which leave drivers barely protected.

Don’t wait for a bad outcome to happen and wish later that you had an adequate amount of coverage.

Regardless of your financial position, having car insurance is the law in virtually every state. Why not take the extra step and have a good amount of insurance, to protect yourself and others if you were to cause an accident?

This is truly a matter of personal responsibility and civic duty. Please consider purchasing more insurance than your state’s minimum — for your own benefit and other drivers’.

And let’s work toward reducing the number of uninsured drivers on the road from 1 out of 8 to 0 out of 100. Let’s make sure that everyone has insurance. Driving without insurance, or having too little insurance, is quite simply an extremely risky thing to do.

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COVID-19, Workplace Safety, and Employer Liability Concerns

Can an employer be responsible if you are required to return to work and you contract COVID-19?

If you are forced to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, can your employer be responsible if you are hurt while “on the job”?

These are just two of many questions that Negretti & Associates principal Jonathan Negretti explored recently with employment law attorney Jessica Miller in his Legal Beagle Podcast.

employment law attorney jessica miller

A former law school classmate of Negretti’s, Ms. Miller is an attorney at Zoldan Law Group in Phoenix. She has developed an impressive CV that includes having filed appellate briefs and arguing in front of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. Further, she has been recognized by Super Lawyers and was selected as a “Rising Star” based on peer recognition and professional achievement. Ms. Miller has served as lead counsel and assistant counsel in more than 100 lawsuits, representing both plaintiffs and defendants.

Jonathan Negretti: First question: If I’m forced to go back to back to work as an employee, and I get sick with coronavirus, can my employer be held responsible?

Jessica Miller: The short answer to that is maybe. It really depends. One thing that I’ll say about all of the law that’s governing this subject matter right now is that it’s really based on What would reasonable people do under the circumstances?

So, if you’re an R.N. and you go to work and you contract COVID-19, it’s pretty certain that you contracted COVID-19 in the workplace. Then you file for workers’ comp. That’s something that I think that the Department of Economic Security or the Industrial Commission has encouraged insurers to not categorically deny all of these claims, because it’s a workplace hazard.

If an R.N. didn’t have work-related exposure to COVID-19 patients, then she or he wouldn’t contract this illness. The fact that an R.N. is working benefits the employer. The employer, through its workers’ comp insurance carrier, ultimately can be responsible.

That becomes less evident in this situation: Say that I work in a call center. The weekend before, I went out to the beach or to a concert — one of those functions that the public is shunning, and I didn’t say that as a political statement. If I go somewhere where I could have been exposed to the virus, and then I come in on Monday and I’m exposed to some co workers, and then I get sick, the employer is allowed to ask, “Where do you think you were exposed?”

If COVID-19 wasn’t contracted in the workplace, the employer has a legitimate defense to not providing workers’ comp for that illness.

Remember, you also get benefits. The federal government rolled out the FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act). In which, if you have to stay home, I think you get two weeks of either full pay or partial pay. Beyond that, you can apply for a workers’ comp claim, or you can file a workers’ comp claim and see if the insurer will cover it. They’re just going to look to say, “How plausible is it that you caught this actually at work?”

Hopefully, any employer is imposing reasonable restrictions on employees returning to work. I think I would have a real problem with an employer that’s not requiring a mask to return to work, or an employer that’s not able to impose social distancing guidelines. They should be doing those things. It becomes less likely for employees to contract COVID-19 at work, and more likely that the employer will have healthy employees that are able to keep the business running.

Jonathan Negretti: How difficult do you think it is to prove that nexus between the virus and the positive test? There now have been lawsuits filed against Walmart. Let’s say you’re a Walmart employee and you’re not going out to a concert or out to eat or anything. You’re literally just going to work and you’re going home. How difficult is it to prove that relationship between those two things?

Jessica Miller: I can’t recall if people at Walmart and grocery stores are considered essential workers. For essential workers, the Industrial Commission has come out and said it will be really sensitive to these front-line workers, who are way more likely to contract COVID-19. It didn’t come out and say, “don’t deny these claims.”

For essential workers, you’re going to have a little bit of a relaxed analysis, because it is just that much more likely that they were exposed in their workplace. As far as Walmart opposing each and every workers’ comp claim that’s filed and actually forcing the injured worker to prove that nexus, it’s difficult.

I think that you’ll see different states develop different policies. It just hasn’t been long enough to really tell how all that’s going to roll out. If administrative law judges are routinely denying workers’ comp claims because of a claimant’s inability to prove precisely who the disease was contracted from, I think that that goes against every public policy principle that’s out there. That’s precisely the problem, right? That was one of the directives from the government: more testing and contact tracing.

I don’t think that every claimant is going to be held to that standard — except maybe in a really, really conservative state. I don’t think a claimant can be held to that standard to prove where they contracted it from. I definitely think it would be great ammunition to use against an employee, you know. Just pull up their Facebook. Were they in the pool with a bunch of people the weekend before? There’s just no proving it.

If we could prove where it all came from, then the country would be in a much better place, right? We’d be able to put a stop to it. But since that’s an issue that’s faced by everyone — employers, employees, citizens, non-citizens, residents, human beings, you know — everybody’s having a problem with this. I can’t imagine that it would be so strict that they would have to actually prove where they got it from, especially in the case of essential workers.

Jonathan Negretti: You bring up an interesting point. Sometimes plaintiffs have this very linear view of how things work: I got sick and therefore it must have occurred here. You highlight the fact that maybe it’s not as clear, or the line isn’t as bright as that. All of these other factors are at play. There’s still some balancing tests or maybe some reasonable tests that have to be done in order to truly identify whether there’s a viable claim.

But I think you and I skipped a step — only because we’re attorneys and we think a certain way. Can you explain quickly why you have to file a workers’ compensation claim?

Jessica Miller: You have to notify the employer first. Every employer in the state of Arizona has to carry either workers’ comp insurance or, if they’re self-insured, they have to have a certain amount of money saved up to be able to compensate employees who are injured on the job when they’re working for the benefit of the employer. Arizona has a no fault system, so it doesn’t matter whose fault it is. If you’re injured on the job, then your employer has to pay it.

I would go out on a limb and say most employers have workers’ comp insurance. The insurer has the ability to evaluate the claim and then approve it immediately, without the employee ever having to file or go to some type of hearing or sue. Insurers have the ability to grant the claim or the ability to settle the claim with you if, heaven forbid, it’s a permanent type of injury. You have this intermediate [arrangement] — I’ll say informal, even though it’s not formal, it’s governed by statute and regulation — where employees do not have to sue the employer, which is really good news. So, not everyone filing a workers’ comp claim is going to have to go sit in front of an administrative law judge and put on an entire case to prove where they got COVID-19 from.

I would imagine it varies from insurance company to insurance company, depending on who your employer’s carrier is. A workers’ comp is case is not something that you just go to the superior court and you file on. It’s housed by its own agency. If you want to get real boring, we can talk about Article 1 judges versus Article 3 judges, but I won’t.

Jonathan Negretti: I’m going take a nap and I’ll come back when you finish that explanation.

Jessica Miller: I love that stuff, nobody else likes all that stuff except for me! The good news is that you don’t have to haul off and sue your employer if you’re injured at work. Sometimes you can just notify the employer and the carrier will say, “OK, we’ll compensate this person because they were injured at work.”

Jonathan Negretti: This leads us to Question 2. “Injured at work” — those three words. This comes from conversations that I’m having. People are asking me these questions. Do you see a shift or a different level of responsibility for employers that are requiring their employees to work from home? Do you see a situation emerging from this where employer liability extends to the home, because the employee can’t come to the office?

Jessica Miller: Employer liability definitely extends to the home. But you have to use the same analysis that any workers’ compensation judge, attorney, or carrier would use.

One thing I think people need to remember when we’re thinking about industrial injuries at home, it’s not the type of industrial injury where you’re handling caustic materials and chemicals and it burns your eyeballs. You’re not dealing with heavy machinery, because all of those people have to attend work to actually perform those job functions.

The people who are working from home are the folks like you and me who can generally sit down at a laptop, access information, send emails, and attend Zoom videos. It’s not these hazardous types of workplaces.

But that doesn’t mean that you can’t be injured. I think that the injuries are much less sensational. Your employer would still be responsible for something like carpal tunnel that you develop while you’re typing on your laptop, or if you have back injuries from just sitting at the desk all day. I’ll call it an unsexy injury — and no offense to the people that have those injuries — but it’s not the type of thing that’s enumerated in statute. The statute talks about, “All right, how much is a finger worth? How much is a hand worth? How much is your eyeball worth?” Those are your typical industrial injuries.

I have wracked my brain all week to try to figure out what would be a difficult scenario. Say that you attend a Zoom meeting on your laptop, your laptop is plugged in, you decide to take a bath, and you get electrocuted. Well, are you working or are you on — and you’re going to love this — a frolic or a detour? Have you so deviated from your work that the employer should no longer be required to cover it? Granted, if you attend a Zoom meeting with no clothes on, it, you probably have greater problems than just your industrial injury! You probably aren’t going to be employed anymore!

If you’re injured in the course of doing your normal work tasks, Arizona doesn’t factor in contributory negligence like you would in a personal injury type of claim. So, if you’re dumb enough to do something like that — granted, I mean, there are exceptions, don’t get me wrong — but the employer might be responsible to cover your very, very stupid decision to attend a Zoom meeting in the bath.

Jonathan Negretti: Well, let’s use a less sensational example. Let’s say that you have this really nice setup at the office — a desk with the proper chair that supports your lumbar spine and back. You may even have a stand-up desk. Employers are limited on what they can do and what’s really reasonable. They can’t pay for every employee to have that same setup at their home.

Jessica Miller: Right.

Jonathan Negretti: And you may not even have the luxury of a home office or a situation where you can work, so you’re working on the couch or on the dining room table. Now you’re hunching over, and you develop a back injury. As I understand, from what you’re saying, you could make a claim there.

Jessica Miller: Yes, and you’re also getting into another territory, which is the Americans with Disabilities Act.

So, if your employer employs 15 or more people and you need a stand-up desk to work, you go to your doctor, who writes a letter saying, “You know, you have this, this, and this wrong with your back.” He will write a letter to the employer recommending an accommodation, which is a stand-up desk. Your employer has an obligation to engage in the interactive process with you. The employer has to provide you with a reasonable accommodation, unless it would impose undue burden. Basically, what undue burden means to me is the employer has to give you the stand-up desk, unless it is so prohibitively expensive that the employer can’t afford it.

You know, if you have an employer with maybe 15 employees and the stand-up desk costs $30,000? Well then, I don’t think that the employer has to give to it to you. That’s prohibitively expensive, depending on what business you’re in. But, if you’re employed by Amazon and you have a disability where you can’t sit at your couch, then I absolutely believe they have a duty to provide a reasonable accommodation at home, so that you don’t develop that injury. But that’s a completely different ball of wax. The ADA is a little bit different from a workplace injury.

Jonathan Negretti: Well, as our listeners can probably appreciate, this is a complicated area of law. It’s not as simple as a yes or no as it relates to workplace (at-home) injuries or COVID-19 injuries.

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Total Loss Car Insurance Settlements

total loss car insurance settlements

When a vehicle is said to be a “total loss,” it means that the cost of repairs exceeds the vehicle’s actual cash value. While this may sound simple enough, there are many questions surrounding total loss car insurance settlements. How is a total loss settlement calculated? Can an insurance company force you to total your car? Can you keep your car once it has been totaled?

To help you navigate the total loss car insurance process, Negretti & Associates provides this overview of answers to popular total car loss questions. If you still have questions about your car accident case, reach out to us today for a free consultation.

How Is Total Loss Calculated?

What constitutes a total loss can vary between states.

About half of states use what is called the Total Loss Formula, where if the sum of the cost of repair plus the salvage value of the car exceeds the car’s actual cash value then it is considered a total loss.

Some states go by a Total Loss Threshold, where damage only needs to exceed a certain percentage of a car’s value to be determined a total loss.

  • Arizona uses the Total Loss Formula
  • California uses the Total Loss Formula
  • Colorado uses the Total Loss Threshold

How Is a Total Loss Car Insurance Settlement Payout Calculated?

In a total loss car insurance settlement, you’re compensated for the settlement amount, less your insurance policy’s deductible and your insurance company’s cost for selling the vehicle to a salvage yard. Your settlement may also compensate you for costs related to a replacement car, such as estimated sales taxes, vehicle registration fees, and title.

If Your Car Is Totaled and You Still Owe on the Loan

If you have a loan on the vehicle, the lender will be paid before you receive anything. For example, let’s say the fair market value of the vehicle (total loss amount) is $10,000, but you owe a bank $8,000. The bank will be paid the $8,000 first, and you will receive the remaining $2,000.

If your loan amount exceeds the fair market value, the lender will be paid and you will not receive anything. Additionally, absent gap insurance, you will still owe the lender the outstanding balance on your loan.

Can You Keep Your Car If It Is Totaled?

Yes. If you elect to keep the vehicle — perhaps you own a rare car, you’re a bit of a gearhead, and you’d like to rebuild it — your insurance company may require you to obtain a salvage title. This may put significant limitations on the vehicle in the future. In some states, salvage-title vehicles cannot be driven on public roads. Salvage title vehicles, once rebuilt, can also be difficult to insure and re-sell.

Your insurance company will also reduce the total loss payout by the amount that the insurance company could have received by selling the vehicle to salvage. This can be as a few hundred dollars — depending on the year, make, and model of the vehicle.

If you want to know whether you can still drive your car, after being declared a total loss, you might want to check with a mechanic.

How To Fight Your Insurance Company After It Has Called Your Car Totaled

If you disagree with the total loss amount assigned to your vehicle, and you used your insurance company to evaluate the loss, you may have the option of invoking your insurance policy’s appraisal clause.

The appraisal clause enables you to have your vehicle independently inspected and appraised, to see if the loss amounts differ. You would order the appraisal at your own cost.

If you invoke the appraisal clause and find that the amounts differ, your property expert and the insurance company’s expert are supposed to meet and confer to see if an agreement can be reached on the value.

Can Insurance Companies Force You to Total Your Car?

A more common question that we get asked is whether the insurance company can elect to repair your vehicle rather than declare it a total loss. (We’re just not sure why someone would want to have a vehicle repaired if their insurance company has already proposed to have it totaled!)

The question about repairing your vehicle is typically found in a situation where the cost of repairs falls is just below the total loss threshold/formula outlined above. If you want to push for a total loss, be sure to see if your policy has an appraisal clause that you can elect to use.

Have a Question? Give Us a Call

Wherever you are at in your process of achieving a total loss car insurance settlement, remember that you don’t have to go it alone. Reach out to Negretti & Associates today for a free, no-pressure case evaluation with one of our trusted team members. Contact us online, call us at 1-833-827-3535, or text us with your questions.

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How to Talk to Insurance Claims Adjusters After a Car Accident

how to talk to insurance claims adjusters after a car accident

Do you know how to talk to insurance claims adjusters after a car accident? Knowing how to provide the right information and having some negotiating tactics handy can prevent you from leaving money on the table.

In this article, where we discuss some of the more common questions surrounding how to talk to insurance claims adjusters, we highlight the importance of having a negotiating strategy when initiating an insurance claim.

Know the true value of your claim, maintain a professional tone, be mindful of what you’re saying, and only talk about the things that help your claim. You don’t need to become best friends with your adjuster!

How Do You Negotiate a Settlement with an Insurance Claims Adjuster?

First, you need to understand the full value of your claim. Claim value is a combination of a variety of factors, including but not limited to the severity of your injury, the duration of your recovery, any permanent or future medical needs, lost wages, impairments, and pain and suffering.

Understanding the value of your claim is an area where hiring a lawyer can be especially helpful. A good lawyer will take the time to work with you, understand the damages you have suffered, and properly present your case to the insurance company. At Negretti & Associates, we have developed a case valuation tool that helps us arrive at a settlement range for each case, based on specific facts.

Keep in mind that insurance companies have evolved toward using software to determine claim values. The software gives the insurance adjuster a range in which to settle the claim. These adjusters have an incentive to settle claims on the low end of the range. Therefore, you might be negotiating blindly and with someone who ultimately gets a bonus for paying you less.

Second, you need to have a strategy. There are a lot of great books out there about how to negotiate effectively. I like Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference, which you can read online for free. Voss was a former hostage negotiator, so he has been involved in high-stakes negotiations. His techniques can be applied across the board.

Remember that you need to know what your bottom line is — and what you next move is, in the event that you can’t get to your bottom line. Some insurance adjusters negotiate fairly. Others do not.

What Should You Never Say to an Insurance Adjuster?

It’s not so much what you shouldn’t say. Instead, there are things you should be aware of when you are talking to an insurance adjuster.

People believe that the insurance industry is there to help them. That’s why we pay for insurance, right? Wrong. The insurance industry is there to make money!

Insurance companies make money by failing to pay full value on claims. Period. If you fail to make a claim or settle for less than the full value, then the insurance industry wins.

If you were going to sit down and play chess against someone, you wouldn’t start the game by telling your opponent your strategy. There is no difference here.

Once you initiate a claim with an insurance company, you are engaging in a chess match. Don’t give the insurance company your strategy by telling them things that don’t help you.

What Questions Should I Ask an Insurance Adjuster?

Simple questions you can ask an insurance adjuster are:

  • Have you ever been injured in an accident?
  • If you were in my shoes, would you honestly recommend the settlement that you’re asking me to accept?
  • Is anything else that I should know before resolving my claim, such as how health insurance subrogation and reimbursement works?
  • Is it your job to represent the other party, or to simply save the insurance company money?

How Do You Recognize a Low-Ball Insurance Settlement Offer?

It really depends on the specific facts and circumstances of your claim. However, the first offer is typically not the best offer. It is very unusual to get the highest offer right out of the gate. You have to be patient and diligent in your approach if you expect to negotiate up your offer.

If you have any questions regarding your car accident claim in Arizona, California, and Colorado, Negretti & Associates will be happy to help you find answers. We know how to talk to insurance claims adjusters, too! For a free consultation with our legal team, contact us online, call us at 1-833-827-3535, or send us a text.

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“Someone Hit My Parked Car and Left — What Can I Do?”

someone hit my parked car and left the scene of the accident

“Someone hit my parked car and left the scene of the accident! What should I do?”

Having your parked car involved in a hit-and-run accident can be a drain on your time, energy, and money. But there are steps you can take that can help you resolve your issue faster.

At Negretti & Associates, the first thing we recommend is checking to see whether there were any witnesses to the accident. You can also check to see if any surveillance cameras in the area recorded the accident. If you strike out finding evidence on who hit you, then you may have to rely on your own insurance to repair your vehicle.

Assuming a driver hit your car and didn’t leave a note, you could also call the police to see if anyone placed a 9-1-1 call witnessing the accident. Quite often, that witness will give a description of the other vehicle, and the police can use this information to try to locate the vehicle’s owner for you. Once the driver is found, the police can collect the applicable insurance information for the other vehicle so that you can make a claim.

As a reminder, it is against the law to leave the scene of an accident without exchanging insurance information with the other driver. For this reason, if you accidentally hit another parked vehicle, do the right thing and leave a note with your contact information.

Whose Insurance Should I Call?

Even if you succeed at tracking down the hit-and-run driver, and you have collision coverage on your own policy, then we would recommend that you submit a claim through your own insurance company. Please be aware that you may have to pay the deductible pursuant to the terms of your policy. This can be both disappointing and frustrating.

Will My Insurance Go Up?

Your insurance premiums should not increase if you submit a claim and you were not at fault for the accident. There are laws in Arizona, California, and Colorado that prohibit insurance companies from raising your premiums in this situation. If an insurance company were to raise your premiums because you submitted a claim, that insurance company could lose their ability to sell insurance in that state.

Someone Scratched My Car and Drove Off. Who Should I Contact First — My Insurance Company, or an Auto Body Shop?

This depends on the severity of the scratch. It might make sense to get an estimate from a body shop to determine how much it will cost to repair your vehicle. If the cost is less than the deductible on your insurance policy, then you probably don’t want to make a claim through your insurance company.

If someone hit your parked car and drove off, and you use some pointers on what to do next, contact Negretti & Associates for a free consultation. Contact us online, call us at 1-833-827-3535, or text us with your questions.
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Arizona State-Minimum Car Insurance Requirements Raised July 1, 2020

arizona state-minimum car insurance requirements raised july 1, 2020

On July 1, 2020, something rather momentous happened in the state of Arizona. For the first time in nearly five decades, Arizona state-minimum car insurance requirements were raised.

The new law is codified in the Arizona Revised Statutes under Section 28-4009. Auto insurance policies issued or renewed after July 1, 2020 must pay at least:

(i) $25,000 because of bodily injury to, or death of, one person in any one accident.
(ii) Subject to the limit for one person, $50,000 because of bodily injury to, or death of, two or more persons in any one accident.
(iii) $15,000 because of injury to, or destruction of property of, others in any one accident.

These three numbers — $25,000/$50,000/$15,000 — represent new limits that are paid out to another person if a motorist is at fault in an accident. You cannot purchase insurance for less than these limits.

The Arizona Legislature passed the state bill that put these new limits into effect — State Bill 1087 — in May 2019. The bill was signed into law by Arizona Governor Doug Ducey on Friday, June 7.

Previous Coverage Limits Had Become Outdated

When you receive your renewal notice for auto insurance — or if you are currently shopping for new insurance — the quotes you receive may look a little different. This is simply because Arizona state-minimum car insurance requirements have been raised.

The previous coverage amounts for motor vehicle accidents were $15,000 per person, per accident; $30,000 total accident; and $10,000 for property damage.

The problem with the old limits is that they were based on cost-of-living equations that were established in June 1972, when a McDonald’s Quarter-Pounder with cheese cost just 70 cents. These days, the same burger costs $3.79. Only the number of calories has remained the same!

Due to inflation, limits that seemed quite adequate nearly five decades ago had grown completely inadequate over time. Medical expenses and the cost of vehicles were much lower in 1972. Today, you can no longer step foot in an ER for less than a few thousand dollars.

Bill’s Passage Overcame Insurance Industry Resistance

The insurance industry was adamantly opposed to this move. Time and time again, this bill had been brought to the Arizona Legislature in one form or another by various organizations, including one that I belong to — the Arizona Association for Justice. Time and time again, it did not pass.

Why did insurance companies want to keep Arizona car insurance minimums so low? Frankly, under old amounts, they could pay out less, should someone be in an accident.

Because payout limits were so low, insurance coverage was not protecting people injured in automobile accidents. That’s why the Arizona Association for Justice and like-minded organizations fought so hard to increase these limits.

Accident Victims Have More Protections from Out-of-Pocket Costs

Assume that you’re in an auto accident. You go to the emergency room and get a normal workup. You may not have any broken bones, but you’re given some imaging, as a precaution. Later, you go through physical therapy, and start to feel better.

The cost of medical care just for these simple procedures and therapies could well exceed $15,000 — and possibly total $25,000.

  • Under the old limits, if someone only carried Arizona state-minimum car insurance, the most you could receive per accident was $15,000. If the person who caused the accident did not have any additional money to contribute to this claim, to help you pay off all your medical bills, you would be forced to pay the $10,000 out-of-pocket for an accident that was not your fault.
  • Under the new limits, insurance coverage would reimburse you for that $10,000 differential — up to the new $25,000 limit.

Keep in mind that this analysis does not account for pain and suffering or lost wages.

Of course, there are people who carry much more than the minimum limits. I encourage you to do the same, if your economic situation allows.

Vehicle Damage and Arizona State-Minimum Car Insurance

Today’s vehicles have more features than ever, which is reflected in higher sticker prices. Yet, this also means that vehicles’ values can suffer quite a bit more damage. Frame damage or deployed airbags can result in a total loss.

Unless you’re looking for an older model or a used vehicle, it’s very difficult to find a vehicle under $10,000 these days. Anything new costs far more than $10,000.

Now that property damage limits have been raised to $15,000 — from $10,000 — it’s more likely that Arizona state-minimum car insurance will more fully cover damage to newer vehicles.

Higher limits make it more possible to recover what’s called a “loss of use claim.” These are the expenses related to renting a vehicle while your vehicle is either being repaired or declared a total loss, as well as time needed to find a new vehicle.

Higher limits also allow more accident victims to be compensated for their diminished value claims. A vehicle loses value because of the simple fact that it was damaged in an accident. Even though it’s repaired, it’s still worth less.

Arizona law states that you do not have to wait until you sell your car to collect for that difference in value.

To illustrate how diminished value works, imagine the following scenario:

  • Let’s say that your vehicle was worth $20,000 before an accident.
  • After an accident, it receives $8,000 of repairs. The insurance company chooses to repair it and not declare it a total loss.
  • However, your vehicle is now worth less, because it was in an accident.
  • You order an appraisal from an auto expert, who tells you that your vehicle lost $6,000 of value due to the accident. Therefore, not only should the vehicle receive $8,000 in repairs, but you should also be compensated for $6,000 in diminished value.

In sum, the old $10,000 limit did not provide enough coverage to repair vehicles, compensate owners for their loss of use, or account for diminished value.

Kudos to the Arizona Association for Justice

Higher Arizona car insurance minimums reflect values the Arizona Association for Justice emphasizes: to serve the community, to protect the rights of the public, and to make sure that injured victims are protected in the event that they get hurt due to someone’s negligence.

With that said, a big thank you goes to Jeff Trachtenberg of the Arizona Association for Justice. Jeff is a stalwart in our community and absolutely pushed hard to increase the limits in Arizona, so that they caught up with other states’ limits. He created a better environment for those who are injured in accidents, and those that need to take advantage of these new insurance limits.

If you have more questions about new Arizona state-minimum car insurance, or if you’re just curious about what kind of coverage you should have, give Negretti & Associates a call. We can help make sure you’re protected. Contact us online, call us at 602-531-3911, or text us with questions.

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Full Circle: Negretti & Associates’ Carissa Johnson Helps Fellow Accident Survivors

negretti & associates' carissa johnson helps fellow accident survivors

Following a life-threatening accident in 2011, Carissa Johnson faced an arduous, two-year recovery that involved multiple leg surgeries.

Negretti & Associates Administrative Assistant Carissa “CJ” Johnson was involved in a horrific accident in April 2011. While she was on a sidewalk, an out-of-control SUV hit her, pinning her against the guardrail of a nearby parking lot, nearly claiming her life.

Recently, CJ opened up to Negretti & Associates Principal Jonathan Negretti about her accident, how she got through her recovery, and how her attorneys ensured that she was compensated for her indescribable misfortune. You can listen to the full conversation in the July 2, 2020 episode of Negretti & Associates’ Legal Beagle Podcast.

CJ says her family’s decision to find attorney representation after her accident was “the best decision we could have made.” Had she not hired an attorney, she reflects, “I don’t think that I would have pursued healing and recovery like I needed to.”

For Negretti & Associates, CJ’s story mirrors who we are as a law firm. Several members of our staff have endured terrible accidents first-hand. What we have learned has given us a deeper empathy for our clients as they manage the repercussions of their accidents and injuries. CJ often draws upon her own experiences to provide clients with valuable insights about the recovery process.

While she never imagined working at a law firm, CJ has come full circle in her life. To be able to help others as they mend their lives after a tragedy is, in her words, a blessing.

Jonathan Negretti: Tell me about what you were doing before this accident occurred that brought you to the place and time where the accident happened. What was the back story that led you to where this accident occurred?

Carissa Johnson: Back in 2011 I was doing some fitness modeling and some random modeling jobs. This happened to be a promotional modeling job that I was doing. I was working on a job that was in partnership with Segway, and it was for a doctor’s convention. We were in downtown Denver handing out promotional materials. We were just along the sidewalks talking to people as they were heading to the convention center.

Were you on Segways?

Yes. We were on Segways. But at the time of the accident, we were actually stationary on the sidewalk. We would move around occasionally. At this point in time we were just chilling on the sidewalk with our little pamphlets, ready to talk to people.

And then what happened?

It was our second day on this job — 7:45 in the morning. We had just gotten the day started. My friend and I were working on the job together. We were just talking, getting ready to hand out some material when I heard some sort of crash. I looked up and I saw an SUV that looked out of control. It was headed directly for us on the sidewalk. And it was going full speed.

So, I just looked down. I was, like, “Oh yeah, I don’t think I’m gonna survive this.” And I shut my eyes, said a prayer, and I thought I was going to meet Jesus. The next thing I knew, I felt the impact. I was hit and then hit again. The SUV actually slammed me into the steel-rail fence that was from of a parking lot by the convention center. I was hit and pinned — and I was still conscious. And the SUV wasn’t moving.

I was going crazy because I couldn’t get out. My legs felt like they were getting severed off. I was yelling for help, and I didn’t feel like any help was coming. So, I bent over the rail and tried to pull myself out. I was like, “I’m gonna pull off my legs just to get out of here.” I thought that was my best option at the time.

How did that work?

It didn’t. I pulled as hard as I could. And then I think at that moment I blacked out, maybe for 30 seconds. In that time an ER doctor, who was headed to the conference and just missed getting hit, saved me. He came over and had the SUV back off my legs, then caught me, set me down on the ground, and checked to make sure I was okay — which I clearly wasn’t, but I was alive. That’s my nightmare in a nutshell.

Did things slow down at all? Meaning, did time seem to go slower than normal? Or did it all happen just extremely fast?

It definitely slowed down. It was very ironic, when I think about it. I should have had time to move because it seemed slow. I literally had my life flash before my eyes, and it felt like forever. I saw this monster vehicle headed toward me and, yet, time did slow down. It’s very weird how that happened, and I am just still surprised to this day that I survived. It’s a miracle for sure.

It’s amazing because the car was probably going 35 miles per hour. The driver had sped up to try to beat a red light. I found out later that there was a driver in the middle lane, who had tried to make an illegal left turn onto a one way street. He was, like, “Oh yeah, there’s my turn.” He hit the rear of this SUV, who was already driving kinda aggressively, trying to beat the yellow light. I think when that happened, the guy just lost control and let go, jumped the curb, hit the trash can and nailed me. So, if he’s going 35 miles per hour, no doubt that was pretty darn fast by the time I heard the other two cars hit. No doubt it was fast, but in my mind, it was very, very slow.

This story made international news because there was an article on a website called The Mirror, which is out of the UK, that covered this story. I suspect part of that was because of your involvement in the fitness community and how you had risen to the pro level in that industry. But also because of the horrific damage that was done to your body. I think — if I remember from that article — you credited the Segway as actually helping you a bit. And, if not for the Segway, you felt like you could have been even more damaged or possibly paralyzed. What did you mean by that?

That is correct. All of this is ironic to me, but I feel like the Segway elevated me just enough to where when the SUV hit me, that it didn’t hit my internal organs. Instead, the brunt of the impact was my legs and not my organs, ribs, and my whole core. I’m pretty short, so the Segway added height and took off a little bit from the impact. It elevated me just enough to where I didn’t die.

You underwent multiple operations and had titanium rods inserted in your legs. Is that both legs, or just one leg?

Both legs. Well, actually, I had rods and pins inserted in both legs, because I had compound tibia and fibula fractures in both legs, and a compound left ankle fracture. So, I had a bunch of hardware connecting me together. And it took forever. It didn’t look like the bones in the left leg were going to fuse back together, but they finally did six months later.

Because I’m so involved in fitness no one ever thought I was going to get back into it, because of the trauma and everything my legs have been through. It was really intense. But I couldn’t shake it. I can’t shake the fitness bug. I did everything that I could to get back into the gym and back working out.

But I felt like a well-worn machine by 2013, which was two years later. I was squeaky. I was creaking. I could relate to the 70-year-olds in the gym when it was cold. It was horrible. I was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t run, so I underwent additional surgeries to have the rods removed. I went through two additional surgeries to have all of the hardware removed.

After the accident and after you recovered a bit, did you immediately go and look for an attorney to help you? Or were you trying to deal with it on your own? Tell me about that experience.

When I was hit, I honestly didn’t know what to do. I was just very thankful to be alive. It was an interesting experience, because I was working — workers’ comp was involved, as well.

There was a woman who showed up in my hospital room. I call her my angel. She was my case manager and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have health insurance at the time, and it was terrifying. I didn’t know how everything was going to work out. It was amazing to have the case manager come in.

And then later someone was, like, “You know, this is really an intense thing that you went through. There are a lot of moving parts — a lot of different parties involved. You should probably get representation.”

My family and I were both so unfamiliar with the process. We didn’t necessarily want to sue anyone. Yes, it was horrible, but accidents do happen. Yes, I almost died. But I didn’t know whether we should do anything.

Eventually, we decided, “Okay. Everyone else has legal representation. We should probably pick up representation, as well.” It was the best decision we could have made.

How did you find your attorney?

It was through recommendations. I think a family friend recommended the attorney that we went with, because we had no idea where to start. We knew we didn’t want to go with one of the ambulance chasers on TV, because that is definitely not our style! Their image is not anything that we wanted to deal with.

After you hired this law firm to help you, I imagine you were educated on the process and what the next steps were. And they walked you through everything up until the case concluded?

Yes, they did walk me through the process. They helped streamline it. Of course, if I hadn’t picked up attorney representation, I don’t think that I would’ve pursued healing and recovery like I needed to and should. They helped guide me in that direction and make sure that I did take care of my wellbeing and that I did try to get back on my feet. They helped me know that I shouldn’t feel guilty for trying to get my life back. They helped guide, guide me the whole process.

It was really scary at times, and I was really anxious and nervous about it all — especially when I thought about it possibly going to trial and having to defend myself about this accident that I was legitimately hurt in. That broke my heart. I never wanted to go there. I felt like that would be the worst thing: I had to endure all this and then I would have to fight to, to tell the adjusters that Yes, I am hurt. Obviously, my life was set back tremendously.

Again, I’m lucky I’m alive. It helped to have them there for me through this whole recovery process. I do still keep in touch with them. It was a sure blessing to have them even though, again, I never thought I would need an attorney for anything like this. It was a good decision.

Fast forward to today. You’ve worked for our firm for a few years now. How surreal is that you now help people who have gone through something similar to what you went through — people who are unfamiliar with the process, who are uncomfortable with even talking to an attorney or someone that works in an attorney’s office? How does that make you feel?

I honestly can’t believe that I’m in the place that I am, and that everything has come completely full circle. I never envisioned this. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work like I did before, because of my PTSD, et cetera. To have the opportunity to work for a firm who helps injured clients and help them understand the process — help people who are probably a lot like me … “I don’t want to sue these people, but I’m hurt, and I don’t know what to do” — it is the best feeling. It really is.

I am so thankful to work with Negretti and just the caliber of people that we have. I know everyone just has the best heart and it truly feels incredible. I never would have imagined that I would be able to help people like I was helped in my time of need. So, it’s a huge blessing. I love it so much and it breaks my heart for what a lot of our clients have experienced, and for some clients who are probably coming to our firm soon. I’m glad that we can be there for them and help them through terrible times in their lives, and hopefully make things better and help them get back to their lives.

You’re a modern-day success story. Not only did you get back into the fitness competitions and excel and do very, very well, you found yourself working for a law firm. It was very organic. And it’s really neat that we have you as part of the team. You’re not only exceptional at what you do, but you have such a big heart and you’re so caring. And that’s important to the people that we represent.

I tell all clients, and I really believe this, CJ, that all of our clients have the chance to get back to doing the things in their lives that are important to them. And I think it’s so great that you get to give back in this way. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of our team and for jumping on today’s podcast and sharing your story.

Thank you.

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