Tag: insurance companies

House Introduces Malpractice Reform Bill

On Monday, Republicans introduced medical malpractice reform legislation into the House that, if passed, would greatly limit the rights of patients who have suffered injuries at the hands of negligent medical providers. The bill, sponsored by Republican Phil Gingrey (R-GA), an OB/GYN, Republican David Scott (D-GA), and Judiciary Committee Chairman, Republican Lamar Smith (R-TX), aims to place extensive limits on how and when victims of medical negligence can file claims. It also aims to apply one-size-fits-all caps on recoveries.

The HEALTH Act

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Republican Phil Gingrey (R-GA)
The bill was introduced as the Help-Efficient, Lowcost, Accessible, Timely Health Care Act, or HEALTH Act. Supporters of the proposed legislation claim that reform of the medical liability system is necessary to lower healthcare costs. But the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that such reform could only save, at most, .5% of all healthcare costs. Furthermore, the bill does nothing to support an American people that loses up to 100,000 lives a year to medical negligence. With caps on liability, the bill serves as a government hand-out to physicians, insurance companies, nursing homes, and even pharmaceutical companies, that act with negligence and greed, and harm patients and consumers.

Limiting liability and removing many patients’ rights to a jury trial will only further the country’s current medical negligence problem that continues to worsen. What motivation is there to provide better care when accountability lessens? If healthcare reform is the question, sacrificing patients’ rights is not the answer.

Medical Malpractice Lawyers in New Jersey and Philadelphia

Medical malpractice lawyers everywhere are fighting the passage of medical liability reform legislation. Patients are injured everyday due to the practice of negligent and careless medicine, and many need compensation to carry out the rest of their lives.

If you or a loved one have suffered at the hands of a negligent medical provider, contact the Mininno Law Office for a free case evaluation. You may also call for a free consultation at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey, or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.

Let our team fight for your rights to full and fair compensation.

What You Don’t Know About Homeowner’s Insurance

Homeowners Insurance is a necessity if you want to own a home. But when it’s time to call upon it, it’s a migraine headache. Everyday, homeowners file claims to their insurance companies, hoping that the premiums they’ve been paying will afford them the coverage they need. All too often, insurance companies employ bad faith insurance claim settlement tactics that will withhold or greatly reduce payments to policy holders. It seems that insurance companies are not hoping to help people as much as they are hoping to make a buck.

And it’s a shame that most will not find out about this until tragedy befalls their home, and it’s time to file that claim. Below are nine secrets of homeowner’s insurance companies that will help if you ever have to call upon yours. In some of these instances, an insurance claims attorney will be necessary to make sure you are not being “ripped off” by your insurance company, and that you are indeed being compensated appropriately.

1. A claim for a total loss can cost less than rebuilding a damaged house. Just like a car, why pay more to fix it when you could pay less to get it new?

2. If you have a mortgage, checks will be made out to both you and your mortgage bank. You’ll have to endorse the check and hand it over to your lien holder. The money sits in escrow (money limbo), until repairs are made. Typically, they’ll release the money to you in installments over the course of reconstruction. It’s a way for mortgage companies to protect their investments. You’ll have to front the money for repairs, and then be reimbursed.

3. Don’t sign a release on your home insurance claim. Insurance companies will try to have you have sign a release as quickly as possible to close the claim and relieve them of any future responsibilities to you regarding this particular claim. It would be a good idea to have an insurance claims attorney review the release, to make sure you are not being cheated. When dealing with insurance companies, you want someone on your side. The quicker they ask you to sign, the likelier it is you’re dealing with a bad faith insurer.

4. Don’t cash any checks marked “full and final settlement.” Endorsing and cashing this check is the same as signing a release. Again, it would be intelligent to have an insurance claims attorney review the payout. Very often, an insurance claims attorney can fight to get you more money!

5. Don’t let your insurance company replace your Pottery Barn stuff with Wal-Mart stuff. You want to keep good records of everything you own. Keeping receipts with your tax information is an excellent idea. When your insurance company tells you they’ll give you $25 for a $150 table, you want the receipt proving what you paid. You are entitled to payment for exactly what you owned, not something that looks like it. (Attempting to do this is also a sign of a bad faith insurer).

6. Condo owners need coverage! It’s a wide misbelief that the condo association’s insurance will cover property damage or liability, but that’s only true for common areas. If you want your space and your things insured, you will need your own policy.

7. If you are forced to leave your home, don’t sleep at a shelter. Meridian insurance company is required to cover your “additional living expenses.” Stay at a hotel! In many cases, you’ll have to front the money and be reimbursed later. But if this is something you are not monetarily capable of, an insurance claims attorney will fight to get you that money immediately.

8. After a widespread disaster, insurance companies will bring in out of state claims adjusters to assess damages. An adjuster from the southern United States will not be accustomed to local building costs in New York City. You have every right to have a public claims adjuster come out to assess your damages if you feel you are not being compensated rightly. An insurance claims attorney will help you if your insurance company is not willing to comply.

9. Many times, people will settle for less than the total cost of damages because of the length of time the process can take. Insurance companies know this! They will issue checks for actual cash value of your belongings rather than replacement costs. DO NOT SETTLE FOR LESS THAN WHAT YOUR PROPERTY IS WORTH! An insurance claims attorney will help you receive the money you are due.

Filing an insurance claim and collecting payment can be a lengthy, tiresome process. Typically, you should be ready for a fight. All too often, insurance companies employing bad faith insurance claim settlement practices are looking to pay out the least amount possible, regardless of what you need and deserve. That is why an insurance claims attorney is an excellent resource to have on your side.

If you are currently in a battle with your insurance company because of an accident that has befallen your home, the team at Mininno Law Firm wants to help you. Contact us or call at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.

Nursing Home Abuse Lawyers Fight Scheme

Did you know that nursing home abuse can be lucrative? Insurance companies do! The economy is struggling. You and I, our families and friends, even big companies are struggling to stay alive in a toxic economic climate. The difference is, these insurance companies have corporate shareholders to keep at bay. Their answer? Cash in on nursing home residents’ insurance policies of course!

Nursing home abuse against scheme to make death profit

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Greedy Scrooge McDuck in the 1983 Disney animated feature

Remember when Ebenezer Scrooge died and his house cleaner sold his stuff to cash in? Well, insurance companies and nursing homes are now scheming to do the same to residents. It involves encouraging patients in long term care and assisted institutions to sell their policies for a discounted cash amount. The patients get a pittance of a return – which they can spend at the home for “care.” In exchange, the nursing homes and the insurance carriers get the insurance policies from the patients. These policies are then packaged and sold to Wall Street as future bonds. When the patient dies, Wall Street or the care facilities gets the payout. Talk about a conflict of interest! The longer the patient lives, the greater the cost to the nursing home and the smaller the profit on the policy. Conversly, if the patient dies just after the purchase, the care center reaps the profits.

Nursing home abuse and the “profits over people”

We believe that these institutions should be in the business of caring for our elderly loved ones, not stealing from them. They should not be in the business of leveraging a patient’s health and life as a commodity to be traded on the market. Such practices are depraved. But, this nursing home business IS big business, and as is often the case, “profits over people” is business as usual. Every day, we read about how nursing home abuse and negligence take the place of adequate and compassionate care, only to make an easier and quicker profit. People and their medical care should come first. We understand this and are ready to help you.

Nursing home abuse lawyers in NJ and PA

If you feel that your rights are being violated or that a loved one has not received proper care or may be a victim of nursing home abuse, contact the Mininno Law Office for a free case evaluation. The nursing home abuse lawyers at the Mininno Law Office will make sure that your loved ones’ voices are heard and their rights protected. You may also call for a free consultation at (856) 833-0600 in New Jersey, or (215) 567-2380 in Philadelphia.

Make sure that care is put before profits and advocate for these rights. Let the Mininno Law Office team earn you the compensation you deserve.

Full NY Times article, Wall Street Pursues Profit in Bundles of Life Insurance

AIG – Arrogant, Ignorant, and Grossly Immoral

We have all read the headlines over the past months worthy of making an individual sick. Constantly we are told of how drastically irresponsible some insurance and financial institutions have been with the bailout money they have received from the Federal Government. At the top of that list sits AIG.

You may remember this, from an article in the Washington Post, dated October 8th, 2008:

Only one day after it was revealed that AIG had sprung for a $440,000 spa vacation shortly after getting an $84 billion government-loan bailout comes this report: The government is loaning AIG another $38 billion.

If that wasn’t enough to make you gag, wait until you hear this. While spending exorbitant amounts of taxpayer dollars on pedicures and vacations, AIG has been simultaneously dragging a suffering family through the mud for over a decade. After a fatal fire killed two Brooklyn firefighters in a, “fireproof,” building insured by AIG, the families of Lt. Joseph Cavalieri and Christopher Bopp were awarded several million dollars in damages by a unanimous jury decision.

AIG however, has continued to refuse to pay. By exploiting the appeals system of the courts, AIG has dodged payment for over 10 years.

“How do you possibly appeal something like this?” Mother of Christopher Bopp, Deloris Bopp recalled saying when she first heard of the appeal. Indeed, it seems hard to find grounds on which to appeal when the jury only needed an hour to award the families with $10 million dollars.

As the appeal was moving forward, the wheels began to fall off the oversized AIG corporate machine. When Ms. Bopp found out that AIG would be receiving $85 billion in bailout money, she became furious, and rightfully so.

How can a company pay millions of dollars in bonuses and all expenses paid vacations for its employees, while denying payment of the $10 million dollars that is rightfully owed to the victims under their policy? Easy: by taking massive amounts of taxpayer’s dollars and ignoring all moral responsibility to the public.

Insurance Company “frivolous defense” Tactics Add to American Economic Woes

For years, the insurance companies and their paid lobbyists have spent millions of dollars on public relations campaigns to make the phrase “frivolous lawsuit” a part of our vocabulary.As a result of the insurance industry’s systematic public relations campaign, potential jurors view every personal injury lawsuit as “frivolous”; the injured people who file a lawsuit– “cheats or scammers”; and the trial lawyers who represent them – “greedy” or “ambulance chasers.”Never before has our country seen an industry spend so much money so effectively to destroy a right that was guaranteed by our Founding Fathers. That is the right to have our civil disputes decided fairly and justly by a jury of our peers.As a result, statistics show that most lawsuits get dismissed and, for those that are not, the injured men, woman and children leave the courtroom without adequate compensation to care for the injuries inflicted upon them by wrongdoers. The insurance company lawyers do not need facts or evidence to win, they merely have to say, “here’s another frivolous lawsuit” and jurors respond as though they have been conditioned to respond by the insurance companies.

But, you never hear about “frivolous defenses.”Each year, there are hundreds of thousands of claims that are wrongfully denied. Despite the economic hardships every American is facing, insurance companies continue to use tactics that highlight their true colors.These tactics range from the denial of reasonable claims, creating confusing, all the way to delaying claims until the customer dies.

The tactics insurance companies use against consumers include:

·Denying Claims: Some of the nation’s biggest insurance companies – Allstate, AIG, and State Farm among others – have systematically denied valid claims in an attempt to boost their bottom lines. These companies have rewarded employees who successfully denied claims, replaced employees who would not, and when all else failed, engaged in outright fraud to avoid paying claims.

·Delaying until Death: Many insurance companies routinely delay claims, even going as far as to lock paperwork in safes, knowing full well that many policyholders will simply give up. In the words of one regulator, “the bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don’t pay claims… They’ll do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.”

·Confusing Consumers: Insurance contracts are some of the densest and incomprehensible contracts a consumer is ever likely to see. More than half of all states have enacted “plain English” laws for consumer contracts, yet many Americans still do not fully understand the risks they are subject to.

·Discriminating By Credit Score: Insurance companies are increasingly using credit reports to dictate the premiums you pay, or whether you can even get insurance in the first place. The practice penalizes senior citizens with little credit, those who responsibly pay bills every month with cash or check, or those who have suffered financial crisis through no fault of their own.

·Abandoning the Sick: Health insurers looking to cut costs have taken to retroactively canceling, or rescinding, the policies of people whose conditions have become expensive to treat. Some insurance companies have even offered bonuses to employees who meet “cancellation goals” – cancer patients in the middle of chemotherapy have even been targeted.

·Canceling for a Call: Many people are rightly reluctant to make small claims on their home insurance for fear their insurance company will raise their premiums. But few realize that insurance companies often refuse to renew a policy just for making a phone call. Often, an insurance company will count an inquiry over the phone as the same as a claim, and then they will do everything in their power to drop you.

The insurance industry is a multi billion-dollar industry – with more money than most countries.With insurance companies not holding up their side of the deal, expect even the most miniscule claim to be a painful and aggravating process.In order to improve your bargaining power, you should always consider hiring legal representation to help you with your insurance claims.

Contact a personal injury attorney in PA