The Dirty Thirty: 30 Insurance Company Tricks Used Against Accident Victims

Over the years, our office has handled well over a thousand car accident personal injury claims in Texas. Unfortunately, we have seen Texas insurance companies use every trick in the book to try to avoid paying claims promptly and fairly. The purpose of this article is to educate and inform you about some of the more common schemes and strategies we have seen Texas insurance companies use against legitimately injured people. Their lawyers and adjusters are paid well and are expected to use any and all arguments available, regardless of whether they are true or not, in order to deny payment of a claim or to greatly reduce the amount they have to pay to an injured person. What we have seen is shameful, and yet the practices continue, year after year.

Naturally, part of our job is to anticipate dirty insurance company claims handling behavior and prevent the insurance companies from getting away with their stated goal of depriving injured people of the compensation they are entitled to receive under the law. The following list includes the 30 most common arguments that we have seen Texas insurance companies use. We call them, “The Dirty Thirty”. Although many of these practices apply mainly to automobile accident claims, some of these same tricks are used in other personal injury claims that did not involve an auto accident.

Be careful! Once you read this article you will actually begin to understand why injured people need good lawyers and why their lawyers must be skilled at personal injury lawsuits. You will see that it takes a great deal of skill to defeat “The Dirty Thirty” and that asking juries to force insurance companies into paying what is fair is the only thing that is still available to make dishonest insurance companies do the right thing.

• 1. Your injuries were caused by something other than the accident, without ever really having any proof of what that something was.
• 2. You were “more” at fault in causing the accident than their insured driver. Therefore, they refuse to pay you anything.
• 3. You were somehow partially at fault in causing the accident. Therefore, your damages should be reduced by a huge percentage that is disproportionate to the amount they claim you were really at fault.
• 4. You were not “seriously’ injured in the accident, with the insurance company’s definition of “serious” being somewhere between messed up for life and dead.
• 5. You were seriously injured in the accident. Yet, for reasons only known to the insurance company, you should have gotten better sooner.
• 6. You were injured once before in your life. Therefore, your injuries pre-existed the accident, without regard to the severity of the prior injury, the similarity of the prior injury to the present injury, or the number of years in the past that the prior injury occurred.
• 7. You exaggerated your symptoms to your doctor. Therefore, you are a fraud.
• 8. You saw the doctor for too long. Therefore, you are a cry baby and a fraud.
• 9. You weren’t loaded into an ambulance and rushed off to a hospital emergency room immediately after the accident. Therefore, you were not hurt and….you are a fraud.
• 10. You now have pain that did not exist at the emergency room, was not reported at the emergency room, or was not recorded at the emergency room. Therefore, any current pain complaints are not related to the accident….and you are a fraud.
• 11. Now that you have received medical care, you claim injuries that you did not complain of in your recorded statement taken very soon after the incident. Therefore, you are a fraud.
• 12. You failed to tell your doctor about past injuries to similar areas of your body, regardless of whether the doctor even asked, or whether any past injury is even relevant.
• 13. You missed doctor or therapy appointments. There may have been a legitimate reason you missed the appointment(s). However, insurance companies only like their own excuses for things, not yours. Therefore, you are not really hurt, and you are a fraud.
• 14. You try to settle your case quickly and without a lawyer. Therefore, the insurance company seizes on your perceived financial weakness and tries to pay you less to make your case go away.
• 15. You waited too long to see a doctor after the incident. Therefore, you are not hurt and you are a fraud.
• 16. They look in their secret databases and see that you have a history of past injury claims, either at work or elsewhere. Therefore, you are “claims minded” and greedy.
• 17. You were referred to your current doctor by a lawyer. Even though you have no health insurance, poor health insurance, or have no idea what type of doctor you may need for the type of injuries you sustained, the insurance company does not care. Therefore, you, your doctor, and your lawyer are all in some kind of conspiracy together to commit insurance fraud.
• 18. You had a subsequent accident to the auto accident. This is now the cause of your pain, not the original accident. If you didn’t have any other subsequent accidents, the insurance company may still drag out the claim as long as possible so that you might have some other injury or accident that can be used in the blame game.
• 19. You did not miss any time from work or you only missed one or two days. Therefore, you could not have been seriously injured….and you are a fraud.
• 20. You had a poor or inconsistent work history prior to the incident. Therefore, you would have missed work anyway and should not get any money for lost wages.
• 21. You failed to file tax returns in the past. You do not deserve lost wages.
• 22. You did not give a recorded statement to us even though the law does not require you to do so. Therefore, we must deny your claim. Or, when we already know it’s our insured driver’s fault, we simply tell you that we cannot “fully evaluate” your claim.
• 23. You might have been speeding. Therefore, you must be at fault in causing the accident, regardless of what actually happened.
• 24. You slowed down or stopped too fast. This caused the other driver to rear-end you. Therefore, it’s your fault you were injured.
• 25. You were not wearing a seat belt. Therefore, you are at fault for causing your own injuries.
• 26. This type of car accident could not have caused the specific injuries you are claiming.
• 27. There was little damage to one or both vehicles. Therefore, you could not have been too seriously hurt…and you are a fraud.
• 28. Other people in one or both cars were not injured. Therefore, you could not have been injured….and you are a fraud.
• 29. There were no independent witnesses to the accident. Therefore, it is our driver’s word against yours. Regardless of what we secretly know, we will just ignore that information and deny your claim.
• 30. You should have been able to avoid the collision, regardless of what our insured driver did to cause the accident. Therefore, we will try to pay you less or deny the claim completely.

Insurance companies and their lawyers often get very creative when they defend an injury claim. “The Dirty Thirty” is just a list of some of the most common things we have seen. There are certainly other ways to paint the injured victim as less deserving of fair compensation, and we have to look at each and every case separately. An intelligent and experienced personal injury lawyer is the best way to make sure you don’t become the victim of insurance company abuse.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kevin Stouwie
Mr. Stouwie, a motorcycle owner and rider himself, has dedicated his professional life to helping people. His law firm, Stouwie & Mayo, is a premier San Antonio area Personal Injury law firm dedicated to helping people who have suffered damages caused by others. The firm’s clients come primarily from the San Antonio area and surrounding counties. However, the firm does handle select cases throughout the state of Texas. Clients of the firm have recovered monetary compensation in thousands of cases over the years. Mr. Stouwie, a Board Certified Injury Trial Specialist, and his partner, Chris Mayo, have just one mission in their law firm; fight hard for the rights of every single client, and then get the client the best result possible. The firm successfully handles a wide variety of case types from small automobile accidents to wrongful death cases. Mr. Stouwie prides himself in being approachable and personally attentive to all clients.

This article is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to provide legal advice, as individual situations will differ and should be discussed with an expert and/or lawyer. For specific technical or legal advice on the information provided and related topics, please contact the author.