Paper Name: HERALD-NEWS
Pub. Date: 11-Sep-1999 Saturday
Page: A8
Headline: Insurance trial wasn't fair
Story Length: 53 lines
Keywords: INSURANCE. COURTS. LAWSUITS

During the first week of September we were part of a civil trial. This trial was brought forth on behalf of my wife and myself and against a large insurance company. The trial was an attempt to recover expenses incurred due to a 1997 accident. During 1997 a person insured by this company turned left, in front of us, causing an accident. We were forced to pay out of our pockets more than $3,000 in expenses due to this accident, which was not our fault.

We both believe in following the law and will never drive without automobile insurance. However the responsible party's insurance refused to accept, at that time, full responsibility for its client's actions, so we were forced to have our insurance repair our vehicle. It took more than three months to repair our car, which includes a month delay caused by this company, during the entire time we were renting a car. Before this happened we were like most people, and thought if you have a dispute with an insurance carrier, you have a couple of options.

First is to file a complaint with the Illinois State Insurance Commissioner. We did that and were told in writing. "On April 17, 1981, the Supreme Court of Illinois rendered an opinion that changed the form of negligence from contributory negligence to pure comparative negligence," therefore the company is within its rights to deny 100 percent liability for this claim. The second option is to hire a lawyer and file a motion in civil court to get the court to force the company to accept responsibility.

When the trial started the company finally accepted full responsibility for this accident, but went on to accuse us of making bad choices. That is why the repairs took so long. Now it is my fault! The only bad choice I made was thinking this large insurance carrier would accept responsibility for its client's action.

In civil court we always thought that everyone in there has a story to tell and our story would be told to 12 jurors who could not refuse us this claim. We were wrong! As soon as court started we were told we could not say anything about insurance companies, not even the word insurance, or there would be a mistrial. The whole time we were under attack by their attorney, and accused of delaying the repairs. All we were allowed to say was "it took five weeks before the funds were made available." Not one word that the delay were caused by this company, for it was my fault not theirs.

All we were hoping to get out of this was the amount of money we spent on this accident, plus enough to pay our lawyer fees. We didn't even come close. We don't blame the jurors. With what they were allowed to hear, no one could not have come up with an intelligent decision. That is what the insurance company wanted and got.

The civil court system, when it comes to insurance cases, is not using a level playing field. Everything is designed to prevent the truth from being told, and it worked to perfection, and in their favor.

Al and Kathy Legan
Joliet, Illinois