A HACK TO LIABILITY INSURANCE DISCLOSURE

Personal Injury Attorney Gabriel Carrera here, and this is a video for all you attorneys out there whether you’re just starting out or you just starting to get into personal injury, and that insurance company just won’t give you the coverage of the wrongdoers insurance policy, what do you do, stick around. I got your answer.

So where do you start the biggest Arsenal, the biggest bullet the biggest bomb that the attorney has to fight in this war is the Florida Statutes. In Florida statute 627.4137 states that the insurance company that issues policies in Florida must disclose the liability coverage, you know, on the insured. And what do they have to disclose, whether it was bodily injury, property, whether there’s commercial general liability, umbrella coverages, you know, sometimes they max out, and then they have to get a separate policy to do an umbrella especially if people have a lot of assets to protect. And any other policy that the insured may have, a lot of times, somebody dad will throw the car keys to the kid the kid will have an accident, well you know what we want, dad’s insurance file and we want the sons or daughters insurance policies on that.

Very important. The request must be in writing. I always do this. I always send a fax to them, then I take the fax, and I put it in the mail and I send it in, why? would the faxes arrive to the insurance company sometimes it goes into one department and if I send it in the mail goes to another to get scanned in the system, I want to make sure that it’s in their system so they can say that they don’t have my request, and the insurance, when I get that document. It has to be under oath and most of the times, it is a statement under oath, a threat of perjury. And normally, there is a notary stamp there on the bottom, and they take Well, they have 30 days to get it to you.

Are there exceptions to disclosing the insurance company, well yeah there’s always an exception, come on! you know it is up there in the legislature they got loopholes coming in and out of everything. But if they’re, you know, Florida, is a very transient state, we are very tourism heavy. We get snowbirds that come down from all over Canada, New York, of in from those northern states. And a lot of times when you put a claim on insurance company that’s out of Florida and the insurance main addressees New York, Wisconsin, Canada, syndication Canada. They didn’t want to disclose it under their laws, they did it.

But I’ve got a trick for you. What you do is you tell the adjuster look, we’re new in the case, I don’t want to have to file because if I file in court. The attorney that you’re going to put your hand in your pocket to pay. He’s going to give it to me anyway under subpoena power so why don’t you just give it to me.

Sometimes the adjuster will be hard head, and you’ll be like You know what, fire, throw a lawsuit in there, get their respect because you have to be an aggressive zealot attorney within the law to fight for your client, you know, don’t just sit back and be cradled to sleep by the adjuster because they’ll try to do that, they’ll try to be your best friend and teammate, man. Then you see who they really are.

Now, what happens if they refused to send you full disclosure of the coverage of the person that crashed into your client. Well, first thing you do is you send out the policy, you wait the 30 days, and they still have it, then the company could be in bad faith, and you could be able to get more money in court from them above the beyond. Um, I’m going to talk about the Cheverie versus Geisser. I’ll put the, the site right here but basically, This was a wrongful death case, there was $100,000 of policy from the wrongdoer the guy that that was liable caused the accident, there was no disagreement, but the adjuster thought, just a thought it was slick. He did not or she did not present all the disclosures that were, there was a certified letter that was sent to all state insurance company. And what happens was there was no production of the policy limits. And basically, they filed in court. And for the wrongful death case and all states sent the $100,000 check in, they said oh we want to dismiss this case this case is no good because we already settled we gave him a policy limits. And the other side to know.

We asked for the policy limits, we didn’t know what the policy limits are. They sent us a check, we don’t know if it is, well, they won’t. And then they went up to the fourth district court of appeals which is right here in Broward County in Palm Beach County that covers the fourth DCA, and they said no no no no these are not suggestions and, basically, you have to disclose in the day in writing request that you have to give it, and there is no settlement, until the full disclosure of the wrong doors insurance coverage and policy is disclosed under oath under oath, and they, I don’t know what happened after that. But basically, on the fourth DCA made it strong. It was very consumer friendly. I applaud the fourth DCA because a lot of these these cases and laws that are coming out are coming out from the insurance company and that for the people. Oh, don’t get me on that rent that’s another video. But that’s what you do on file in court, don’t be scared to go into file in court.

And, you know, try your case. And if you don’t have it you just say, Your Honor. You know, we may have a case of bad faith here. Now one of the things that I spoke about earlier, our insurance adjusters verbally, giving limits over the phone, you got to be very very careful. My favorite saying is if it ain’t in writing and never happened to hear that. I said it But ain’t in writing, it never happened. Very important if you’re a young attorney cut your teeth on these cases you want to be the big King Kong of personal injury, put it in writing. Don’t be lazy, send it to them even if it’s you write them a fax and throw it in an envelope with a stamp.

They don’t even look for stamps anymore. But you throw it out at them in the mail, you know, paper then have a paper of paper trail. Oh, one of the things that is good, is that as an attorney I can file suit, and basically if they don’t want to give me the policy or they’re they’re playing three card Monte with, with the disclosure that they’re supposed to disclose to me. Basically the insurance company’s gonna have to hire an attorney attorney to give it to me, you know why? because us attorneys, we are licensed through the Florida Bar in the state of Florida. We’re held to it high ethical standards, and there is repercussions. If we lie if I judge, I am fried. I can be sanctioned if I got a list right here. I could be sanction, reported to the Florida Bar Association, suspended in this bar. But if an adjuster tells ya there’s only $10,000, and you’ll see there’s a million on the other side. What are you gonna do? nothing, nothing happens to the adjusters, but the attorney? If the attorney lies, they are in deep doo doo. If you can’t get the disclosure from the insurance company, follow these steps, that’ll help you. hey if you like these videos, really, just go down there and press the button, that like button, subscribe, hit the notice there’s a nice little bell. Bing. And, hey, there’s gonna be more coming down the pike Hope you like these videos I try to put a little humor into it I talk about who I am I try not to be like a stuffy shirt. Oh, because no, I try to be Gabe, Gabe is Gabe. if you need an attorney.

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