What's there to understand?

1. Man A requests services from Company B.
2. Company B provides services.
3. Man A trips on a crack in the floor, or spills his coffee on himself, or
gets too fat, or is exposed to horrible odors, or gets hurt in a random,
uncontrollable event of violence.
4. Lawyer C sees an opportunity to lay full blame on Company B.
5. Man A (and Lawyer C) sues Company B for outrageous sum of money - pain &
suffering, punitive damages, etc., that far outweigh any real damage done
to Man A in the first place, because there is no downside.
6. Company B Law Team uses scare and diversion tactics to push Lawyer C to
attempt to settle for some amount of money that might have even been
appropriate, if all the lawyers were not involved.
7. Lawyer C is being paid on a contingency, so he suggests to Man A to hold
out for more money (since half of it is his anyway, again no downside).
8. Lawyer C spends more of Man A's money to counter the counter-claims of
Company B.
9. Years of real pain and suffering and emotional distress go by as the
case spends an inordinate amount of time wasting everyone's dollars - even
tax dollars in the court system as judges read thousand-page dissertations
describing every possible angle and pre-empting every possible rebuttal as
to why Company B might be responsible for the fact that Man A tripped over
himself.
10. At some point the process ends. Either a settlement or a judgement is
made. Either way, it is generally very subjective, and has evolved with so
much baggage that neither party is satisfied with the result.
11. At the end of the day, the Lawyers send their bill, and walk away with
a nice profit.
12. Man A gets less than he would have if he had just settled in the first
place, anyway, but has invested an inordinate amount of time and effort and
pain and sufferring in the process.
13. Company B has spent more money in this litigation than it ever made on
the service it offerred to Man A.

No one really protects Man A or Company B.

So along come the insurance companies.

Now, Man A pays an insurance company a few hundred or thousand dollars a
year to protect him from an injury.

Company B pays another insurance company a few hundred or thousand dollars
a year to protect them from a liability.

And then the whole process repeats itself. Nearly identically. The biggest
difference is that since the litigation is now between two insurance
companies, with better trained lawyers who still have no downside, they
each increase the claim amounts well beyond reason until the lawyers are
making so much money it is obscene. And as a result, the insurance company
Actuaries have to raise all the rates because they are losing even more
money to the lawyers and the frivolous lawsuits.

And all Man A really wanted was a free refill for the cup of coffee that he
spilled while he tripped over his shoelace on their sidewalk.


Quite frankly, the insurance system would probably work if there were a
risk to filing a frivolous action. Then actuaries would have real,
relatively forecastable numbers to work with. But lacking that, it is
impossible in the current system to protect oneself from the possibility of
being sued for absolutely no legitimate reason, and for an essentially
unlimited amount. And if you are unfortunate enough to be sued by someone
(or something) with enough money to throw away, even your insurance company
might not be able to save you. And even if they do, it costs everone money
in the long run...

Hmmm.. I wonder why there are no Lawyer HMOs...



"Tom Sixkiller" wrote in
:


"Judah" wrote in message
...
No - the point is that every dollar you spend on coverage that you
never use is wasted, and any accident that costs more than your
coverage means that all of your dollars are wasted.

Sorry. I've gotten very cynical about the whole insurance and legal
system in this country. It's a big beef of mine.

Maybe if you understood it better...or, maybe if you understood it at
all!! (based on remarks above)