Author: jeffreyhoward

USAA has all of these commercials where they brag about how well they take care of their insured, the men and women of the United States Armed Services. Pffffttt.

If you don’t know what Med Pay is, this won’t make any sense to you, so let’s start with that. In North Carolina, we’re what’s called a liability state when it comes to auto accidents. Each driver is legally required to carry liability insurance to cover the damages caused to others by the insured’s negligence. Your own automobile insurance doesn’t (generally) cover your bodily injury damages UNLESS you have what’s called Medical Payments coverage (Med Pay for short). That’s a tiny bit of coverage ($500, $1000, $2000, sometimes more, but rarely) of no-fault coverage that you pay extra for that will help reimburse you for auto-accident-related treatment costs regardless of whether the accident was your fault or not. Cool, huh?

Not so cool if your insurance carrier is USAA. I’ve represented dozens of USAA insured over the years and almost every time they play insurance games with Med Pay claims. With almost every other carrier (State Farm, Geico, Nationwide, Allstate, whatever…) if it’s their first party coverage (a claim for their own insured) they look at the bills and write a check, easy as that. But USAA almost always first denies the claim. They won’t say you don’t have coverage when you do, but they will say that the billing isn’t right (even if it is). What they clearly want is for you to give up so you can’t get the benefit that you’ve been paying extra for.

Don’t put up with that crap. And definitely don’t put up with that crap from a company that is advertising how well they take care of their insureds. If you’re having trouble withe your liability claim and your USAA Med Pay claim, give me a call at 919-929-2992 and see if I can help. I’d love to metaphorically slap them about the face and neck.

Like it or not, if you have an injury claim in North Carolina, you’re probably going to have to deal with a liability insurance company. If you’re dealing with an insurance company your life is going to be a lot easier if your facts don’t deviate much from the norm.

At the end of the day, all of us in the injury claims world have to think, “What would a jury do with this?” If it’s something that is very average and happens with pretty much every case, then we can make a pretty good guess. If it’s something outside of average, or something that doesn’t often happen, then it’s harder for us to predict. The odder it is, the harder it is to predict.

That lack of certainty makes claims valuation really difficult when we’re working with unusual facts. If you’re lucky your injury claim will be average – average mechanism of injury, average diagnoses, average treatment, average cost, average recovery time – because that helps all of us (both the good guys and the bad guys) have a lot more certainty about what we might face at trial, which makes agreeing on a case value much easier and more likely. Conversely, if you’re unlucky enough to have some weird stuff – a weird accident, bizarre diagnoses, strangely prolonged recovery time, astronomical and inexplicable treatment costs – then that’s going to make it harder to agree on case value, which will make your claims experience much more trying (pun is totally intended).

Whether your North Carolina injury claim is average or not, or you don’t know, call someone with experience who can guide you in your case. Call me at 919-929-2992.

I bet in your line of work, people have certain myths they believe and you have to spend an inordinate amount of time dispelling them.  This is like that for me. 

Sometimes people get a ticket they think is kinda fast (That varies wildly depending on who you are…some folks think 15 over is fast, some don’t really get worried until they’re past 30) and they often ask this question: “Does that count as reckless driving?”

Ugh.

In North Carolina there’s no such thing as a speeding ticket that is automatically turned into a reckless driving charge. It might be different in other states, but this is not a thing in NC. If you’re charged with reckless driving, you are charged with reckless driving.  If you’re charged with speeding, then you’re charged with speeding.  You might get charged with both, but you’ll know, because it’ll say both.  But just having a fast ticket does not get it promoted to reckless. 

You ARE charged with reckless driving if you’re charged under Sec. 20-140. It will be either (a) or (b). But you’re only charged with reckless driving if THAT statute is referenced in your ticket. Let me say it again for those folks in the back. There is NO speeding ticket that automatically becomes a reckless driving charge. That is not a thing.

Don’t listen to your friends unless they’re a lawyer, and even then, don’t listen to them talking about traffic law unless they regularly handle traffic tickets. Call someone who knows this stuff. Call me at 919-929-2992.

If you get a traffic ticket in North Carolina, it might not be as simple as paying a fine and going on your merry way.

Even on the lower end of the spectrum, traffic tickets can have drastic consequences. North Carolina follows the Safe Driver Incentive Plan which financially punishes drivers (and awards insurance companies) when they’re convicted of moving violations. That means a ticket you pay off and/or plead guilty to (same thing!) can result in hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in increased insurance premiums for three years. As you go up the chain to more serious offenses, the consequences can get much worse than losing money, though. You can lose your license or even go to jail in rare circumstances!

How do you protect yourself from these undesirable consequences when you have a ticket? Call an attorney! If you get a ticket in Orange County or Chatham County particularly, give me a call at 919-929-2992. You’ll be glad you did!

I could write almost endlessly about the interactions between your North Carolina injury claim and your health insurance, but as I was composing this post I realized that, distilled to its essence, what this really boils down to is in-flow and out-flow.

In-flow

You get your health insurance by paying for it, one way or another. The deal is that when you need it, they pay for stuff for you. For purposes of this article, I’m thinking of that as “in-flow” because it’s money/benefits coming into your situation from an outside source. The way I look at it is that you have (if you’re lucky) several sources of funds that are putting money into your claim bucket: a liability carrier, perhaps your auto policy in the form of med pay coverage, and hopefully health insurance. How does that impact your injury claim? YOUR HEALTH PLAN SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE. I can’t repeat this often or loudly enough, so I’ll do it once more. YOUR HEALTH PLAN SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR HEALTH CARE. Yes, if you’re injured in North Carolina, YOU are responsible for your health care (NOT the at-fault party), which means your health plan is now responsible for your health care. We do NOT wait around for the liability carrier to pay for anything (they won’t). We do not assume anyone else is responsible for our care! We are NOT a PIP state and we do not do Coordination of Benefits when it comes to injury claims. If you seek health care, for whatever reason, your health plan should be on the hook. Now, there are some rare times that you might not want to use it (like with super-frequent care that you might get from a chiropractor) because of the frequency/amount of co-pays, but when in doubt, use your health insurance!

Out-flow

But do benefits ever go the other way? Do we ever have to pay the health plan back? YES! But not always! North Carolina has an anti-subrogation rule, meaning that the average state-specific health plan does NOT have a right of reimbursement in third party claims, meaning we generally do not have to pay your health plan back. However, there are exceptions to every rule. And there are several here. The most common is Medicare. You have to pay Medicare back from your settlement, but I’ve written about that elsewhere. Medicaid is pretty much the same, though with a different, more cumbersome and unreliable process (you guys who work there aren’t great…sorry, but it’s true). The State Health Plan has a statutory “super lien” which means they get paid back before, over, and above anyone (after attorneys) so you really have to watch them. Finally, even if you live in NC you might work for a large employer that’s set up their health plan through a Federal law (overrides NC law) that allows for reimbursement in third party settings. That law is referred to as ERISA and it gives me no end of grief. You probably won’t know if you have this sort of plan without asking, but the problem is that the people who answer phones at these places often don’t understand the question you’re asking, so it can be really difficult to learn your responsibilities in this situation. If no one there can seem to tell you, then you’ll want to get the Summary Plan Description of your plan and look at it. That will tell you what you need to know, but you may have to read 80 pages of nonsense to get there.

Look, injury claims get way more complicated than any of us would like, so get some help. Call an experienced attorney to get the guidance you need so you don’t inadvertently make things worse than they already are. Call me at 919-929-2992.

In any profession, there some common questions you hear ALL the time. The question I get most, phrased in varying ways, is “When should I hire an attorney?” That’s a more complicated question than you might think, but the short answer is, “Probably now.”

I’m a lawyer so I’m full of caveats…this post is about injury claims, not every potential legal dispute you might have, so take it as such. If you and the neighbor are arguing about a tree, you probably don’t need an attorney asap. But injury claims are a different story.

If you’re injured in an accident, whether it’s a car crash, dog bite, slip and fall, medical malpractice, you are going to get the most benefit from hiring an attorney immediately as opposed to waiting to see what happens. Here’s why:

The sooner we get involved, the more mistakes we can prevent you from making.

The moment your accident was reported an entire industry was set forth against you. They’re sole mission was to prevent you from getting what you might deserve and they’re trained to make you do dumb stuff! Don’t let them! Think of it like a Miranda Rights situation; everything you say (and do) can and will be used against you by the insurance company. If you hire an attorney sooner rather than later, we can build a virtual wall between you and the insurance carrier to prevent these mistakes.

The sooner we get involved, the more we can do to set up your claim for success.

There’s a lot that we can do to help set up your claim so it can be viewed in the light most favorable to you. And the sad bit is a lot of this needs to be set up early in the process; if you wait too long, it can be too late to do what we need and/or it can diminish the effects of what we try to do. This is what we do for a living! If I came to your job and tried to do it today I’d totally suck at it, and the same can be said for you trying to do my job. If you let me do what I know how to do, it’s probably going to help your claim.

The protest I get most often is, “I don’t want to make a big deal out of this.” But that’s the wrong way to look at it. By hiring an attorney, you’re only making sure that the insurance company doesn’t get away with making a smaller deal out of this than it otherwise should be. It’s not you making a big deal out of something, it’s you making sure you’re treated fairly. That’s all.

If you have an injury claim, call me at 919-929-2992.

If you’re in need of an automobile accident attorney in North Carolina, you might look for a personal recommendation from someone you know. That’s probably a great idea. Many folks turn to a Google search, and more often than not, the search term will turn into “personal injury attorney near me.” What you see after that search is really interesting to me, for many reasons.

PAY TO PLAY

Like anything these days, getting business through Google is definitely a “pay to play” proposition. As of the writing of this post, the first results you’ll see on the above search will be the Google Screened results, which come from the Local Services Ad that many professionals are sold. Can these results help? Yes, in a way. But the reality is that who shows up first, or at all for that matter in the Google Screened list is based on who is paying the most for you clicking that ad and making a call. So if what you’re looking for is a big injury practice with a big marketing budget, then you’re likely to find what you’re looking for with those results.

GOOGLE MAP LISTINGS

The results you’ll see after the GS/LSA lists will be the Google Map that will be slightly more organic, but the first one will STILL be a paid ad. You can simply read the “Sponsored” note on that first listing under the map. The next results are more relevant and will help you to see which attorneys that purportedly (though not always) practice in the area of personal injury and have an office near you. So the real map listings are by far more responsive to the search term than anything else we’ve seen so far. Interestingly, these hits are based on proximity, but they’re also (purportedly) stacked based on useful content. That means that the unsponsored/organic map listings will show the websites with the most helpful information that you can use even if you don’t hire them. That’s a worthwhile bit of info. Another thing that influences those rankings are Google reviews, so use those as a good indicator of experience.

Here’s the point I’m trying to make: Be an intelligent user of Google. When you search for help, know what listings are the results of bids and what are the results of actually helpful websites of reliable, trustworthy law practices with content on them that can help you whether you hire them or not. If you’re looking for an attorney that’s near you (which may or may not be actually relevant), look for the one with the most helpful information and, more importantly, the one with the most/best reviews. At the end of the day, you want a positive experience with a trusted attorney, not a drive-by settlement with a “case manager” that works at Big-Time Jack’s Super Mega Injury firm because they had the most money to pay for ads.

When you’re in an automobile accident it sucks. When you’re in an accident and your whole family is with you, it sucks even more. What’s worse, is it can get really complicated when there are lots of victims. What this post deals with is the situation where there’s a lot of victims and a little money.

In North Carolina drivers are required to carry liability insurance with minimum limits of $30,000 per person/$60,000 per accident. That’s the least amount of insurance you can carry legally in NC. So as you can guess, that’s what most people are likely to have. You can see the problem…what happens when someone with a 30/60 policy causes an accident with 5 other people, each of whom has a $20,000 claim? Trouble, that’s what.

Of course the first layer of recovery is going to be from the at-fault policy. So the negligent driver in our example above has $60,000 to give and 5 people to give it to, and everyone agrees that that should get more, there’s only not enough money to go around (we’re also assuming for purposes of this illustration that there’s no umbrella policy for the at-fault driver, and the assumption is reasonable, because it would be a truly weird bird who carried minimum limits AND an umbrella policy… I don’t even think a carrier would write that). What will generally happen is the insurance company will try to get each of the victims to take a pro rata share of the limits, meaning a percentage portion relative to their damages. If everyone’s claims are deemed equal, then they all get equal shares. Another way to look at it is to do it pro rata based on each party’s medical expenses, though sometimes that’s not necessarily fair. For instance, if you have broken ribs, your medical expenses might be limited to a $2000 ED visit, but your pain and suffering might actually have been way worse than the person who had a $10,000 ED visit with lots of diagnostics but nothing broken and no other treatment.

The good news is that there might be more coverage with your insurance policy, in the way of what’s called Underinsured Motorist coverage. That’s for another post, though.

As you might deduce from the scenario illustrated above, this can get really messy, especially if each of the parties isn’t on great terms. There is a school of thought that each party should have their own attorney. This would alleviate any concerns of a conflict of interests, because each attorney would only be looking to maximize their own client’s recovery. There is another school of thought that, if everyone is amenable to it, the parties might want to waive any potential conflict because each party having their own attorney can lead to a nightmare in getting everyone’s claims resolved. Much like in school, you can only go as fast as your dumbest classmate. So in these situations, if you have a really slow or slack attorney for one party, you might get stuck waiting to try to resolve your claim until they get their act together. Also, you might run into 1 plaintiff feeling like THEIR claim is the WORST and THEY should get more than anyone else, so in that instance, having one attorney who can objectively arbitrate between parties to help everyone see eye to eye and expedite the process for everyone might be a good thing.

The practice of law is rarely one size fits all; there is rarely an “always do this this way” sort of path. It’s always good to get advice from a seasoned personal injury attorney, so if you find yourself with a wacky injury claim, call me at 919-929-2992.

When you have an auto accident in North Carolina you still DEFINITELY want to use your health insurance UNLESS you have a compelling reason not to.

I know, I know, you might feel that the at-fault party should bear the cost of your care. Maybe they will! But there’s nothing in our system that makes them do that upfront. That means your bills are YOUR bills until we can get the bad guys to pay them. As such, you should treat them like there is no one else even potentially responsible for them but you. If you had these bills and there was no injury claim related to them, what would you do? You’d USE YOUR HEALTH INSURANCE! Exactly!

Your health insurance is there to shield you from the catastrophic costs of health care. And while it’s certainly a far from perfect system, it’s what we have and it can help reduce your out-of-pocket costs significantly. Because you have health insurance, the provider normally has to take what’s called a “contractual adjustment,” but what we normal folks might just call a discount, which means your health care will cost less than it otherwise might have. That can make a big difference later in your claim.

What you don’t want to have happen is to be stubborn about this and refuse to bill your health plan, only to find out you’re facing an uphill struggle getting the at-fault carrier to pay your bills. Then, if you try to go to your health plan to rescue you, it may be too late; most health plans have a deadline by which you have to submit bills to them, so if you aren’t on top of it, you might get yourself into a mess.

To reiterate: When you have an auto accident in North Carolina you still DEFINITELY want to use your health insurance UNLESS you have a compelling reason not to. If you aren’t sure your reason is compelling, talk to an experienced personal injury attorney. Talk to me. 919-929-2992.

If you get a ticket in Orange County North Carolina give me a call at 919-929-2992. I’ve been practicing in this area since 2001, so I’ve been around the block. Call me for a free consultation now.