$83,972.16. That's an offer we got from Allstate on a UM policy on a back surgery case with $300,000 in UM coverage and only $25,000 in liability coverage.
This was a bad wreck where the other driver ran a red light. The victim is a good client who is in his mid-40s. He had to have multiple rounds of injections before ultimately undergoing back surgery. His medical bills are over $100K.
This offer represents the insurer saying the total damages here are $108,972.16. Do they really think that? I doubt it.
So why did they make the offer? Simple. There's little to no consequence for UM carriers acting in bad faith and making low-ball offers in Georgia. As a result, UM carriers make low offers and just see if the plaintiff will bite.
Deny, delay, defend. That's their strategy.
Maybe the plaintiff will give up. Maybe they won't. But in the meantime, the insurer gets to keep the money and earn interest on it.
Here's the irony: If this were a liability policy of $300K, it almost certainly would have paid because there are real consequences to not paying. Our client's own UM carrier is treating him worse than the third-party defendant's liability carrier would. It makes no sense. But it's the reality I encounter every day.
Here's a simple fix for this problem: Strengthen UM bad faith laws so that carriers cannot drag their insurers through years of litigation and burden the courts, and make it clear that Georgia's offer of settlement statute applies to UM claims.
Until there are changes, we're going to continue to see absurdly low offers on UM claims.
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