My daughter was involved in an auto accident in which the other driver was ticketed for being at fault. It has been a year since the acciden...

Question

My daughter was involved in an auto accident in which the other driver was ticketed for being at fault. It has been a year since the accident and our lawyer has presented an offer from the other driver's insurance company. The amount of the offer does not exceed the amount of her medical bills. My daughter wishes to accept the initial offer and is being told by our lawyer that our insurance company could possibly sue my daughter for reimbursement of the cost of her medical treatment. Is this valid?

Answer

You have a lawyer for a reason. Your lawyer knows a lot more about the case than an anonymous website.

Answer

The question does not make sense to me...You stated/implied that there were no issues of fault and that the other driver was responsible. Then you stated that your daughter wanted to settle for an amount below her medical bills associated with the accident. Lastly, you stated that you received information that led you to the conclusion that your insurance company would sue you for reimbursement for her medical bills...

I think you need to spend more time with your lawyer to get clarity. It is evident that you have a lot of unresolved issues/concerns about moving forward. Remember, it is your case and you are ultimately responsible for the decisions you make.

Regards,

Answer

You and your family are finding out the hard way about so-called tort reform. What your lawyer is referring to is health insurance subrogation, a device being used by health insurers to essentially steal money from their own insureds. This was made possible in large part by the passage of the ERISA statute by Congress during the Nixon Administration years ago but which really only became implemented in the last 10 years or so. Hidden in the language of of the health insurance policy is a clause termed either "subrogation" or "right of reimbursement" which states that the health insurer has the right to recover from its own insured the amount it paid for medical expenses if the insured got those treatments as a result of an injury that was the fault of someone else and the insured (your daughter) sues and gets a verdict or settlement from that person and/or that person's liability insurance carrier. There have been some exceptions carved out of this by the courts but they are so complicated that it takes a lawyer who really knows about this to navigate it. There are many in the legal profession who believe that this "subrogation" is not really about the health insurer getting back money at all. Rather it is about wrecking the civil justice system so that the injured person, faced with the prospect of recovering effectively nothing or very little, will drop the idea of making a liability claim in the first place. This is another insurance industry scheme adopted by our government expressly against the best interests of the people because of lobbyists and one of the political parties that is wholly owned by special interest groups, particularly the insurance industry (I'll leave it to you to figure out which one that is). As long as people keep voting for that party because of artificially manufactured "wedge issues" like gay marriage they can keep cheating the American people with scams like this for the benefit of the fatcats. People like you find out about this one person at a time when something bad happens to you or a family member. You need to read up on this, tell all your friends about it and vote accordingly.