Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

When you prepare a client for deposition, you can prepare them for hours but it is hard to give them a feel for what the process is really like. Short of taking them to a deposition, it is hard to get someone all the way there mentally. But you have to get your clients as close as you can to understanding what is coming in as complete a way as is practicable.

I think one more thing you can do so they get idea of what the deposition questions will be is simply showing them a deposition or two so they can see the question defense counsel will pose. You have sample depositions in old cases, just redact the names or look at the sample depositions on our website.

There is a popular conception that lawsuits in car accident cases are filed directly against the insurance companies. It is easy to understand the source of the confusion. The insurance company that insured the driver or the vehicle is going to stand behind their insured and pay any claim up to the policy limit of the policy. The insurance company is also going to make the decision as to how much to offer as a settlement, not the actual defendant, who is usually kept in the dark on the entire process from initial settlement offer though the tactics the insurance company will take at trial.

Technically, in Maryland car accident lawsuits are generally filed against the defendant themselves. This technical distinction makes a difference at trial because the jury is not told there is insurance behind the case under Maryland’s collateral source rule. I remember trying a case against a defendant once where we got a good verdict ($298,000 award after a $25,000 offer before trial). When we met with the jurors after the trial, their big concern was whether there was insurance because they were concerned that the defendant – who was a pretty good guy – would have to pay the verdict themselves.

The exception to this is underinsured/uninsured motorist cases. In Maryland, claims are brought directly against the insurance company. To serve an insurance company defendant with a lawsuit in Maryland, you can serve the Maryland Insurance Administration. It looks like this:

I hate to be a shrill for the insurance companies. Maryland accident lawyers and insurance companies rarely hold hands on an issue related to car accidents and insurance. But there is one thing we both agree on when it comes to uninsured motorist limits: they should be high. How much? That depends on how comfortable you are but I just don't think it makes sense to have less than $1 million in uninsured motorist coverage.

No one has been able to give a good answer as to how many people are uninsured in Maryland and I think Maryland is doing a better job of keeping uninsured motorists off the road (the FR-19 system). But our accident lawyers know one thing for sure: people who are uninsured disproportionately cause more accidents than people who have valid car insurance. Why is this? I speculate that people who will take risks by having no car insurance also are willing to take risks on the roads.

This argument takes particular force in cases if you have a preexisting condition such that you are more susceptible to an injury from the trauma of a car accident.

Click here for more information on uninsured motorist lawsuits in Maryland.

In MAIF v. Baxter, the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled that Maryland law does not require a car insurer to provide uninsured motorist coverage to an uninsured stranger/pedestrian who is struck by a car driven by a person excluded under the insurer’s policy. Basically, the court found that the Maryland Legislature only required that UM coverage be extended to an “insured.”

For once, MAIF was – albeit accidentally – fighting for the good guys, because the pedestrian’s estate asserted a claim against the Uninsured Division of MAIF. The Plaintiff’s estate was relatively indifferent because the UM limit was $20,000 in either event. So, incredibly, we have MAIF fighting unsuccessfully to create good case law for Maryland accident lawyers.

I have not read the nuances of this case closely enough to find great flaw in the court’s interpretation of Maryland uninsured motorist law (and it does not sound as if reading MAIF’s briefs would be of much help in this regard). But this is just bad law. The woman is an innocent pedestrian walking down the street. There is insurance coverage on the car. That should be enough. (But I understand reasonable people can disagree with this premise.)

One funny thing about the case - and this sounds just like MAIF – is that MAIF asserted for the first time in its reply brief that the insurance policy issued by the insurance company that covered the car (Interstate) should have provided coverage.

The recession has created another problem for Maryland accident victims: more uninsured motorist accident lawsuits. A new study indicates that one in six drivers in the U.S. might be driving without insurance by 2010. Uninsured drivers had been declining due to sharper enforcement efforts. (In Maryland, the hammer is the FR-19 which Maryland sends out every time you leave your current insurance company.) In fact, the estimated percentage of uninsured motorists in the United States decreased to 13.8% in 2007 from 14.9% in 2003, but it’s expected to sharply increase because of the recession.

A recent study estimated the number of uninsured motorists by using a ratio of insurance claims made by people injured by uninsured drivers to claims by people injured by insured drivers. I'm not sure about the accuracy and I doubt there is an entirely linear relationship but the theory is that an increase of 1 percent in the unemployment rate causes a nearly three-quarters of a percent increase in the uninsured motorist rate.

That sounds incredibly high but I don't know. In Maryland, we have never really gotten a handle on the number of Maryland uninsured drivers. A study from 1977 - sorry it is all I have - suggested the uninsured motorist rate in Maryland was 2.8%. I cannot imagine it was that low, either.

I think most uninsured drivers probably had low policy limits close to the Maryland minimum of $20,000 per accident, $40,000 per occurrence. So from the perspective of the Maryland car accident lawyer, I don't think it matters a great deal practically if the uninsured motorist rate in Maryland is on the rise if - a big IF I know - your client has insurance coverage.

Car insurance is mandatory thoughout the country, including Maryland. Yet you would be amazed how many uninsured motorist claims we see every week. As many as 20% of Americans do not have any type of car insurance. The numbers in Maryland have not been estimated in years (that I have seen, anyway) but while not approaching that figure, the number is still too high.

In Maryland, the legislature made uninsured motorist coverage mandatory in 1975.
Click on the following link to read the primary statute in Maryland covering uninsured motorist claims.

Most car accidents occur with injuries. Maryland accident lawyers typically do not get involved in such cases, leaving accident victims to deal with handling the property damage claim and getting a rental car themselves.

Convincing the insurance company to provide a rental car is a hassle in some Maryland accident case, even if you have a lawyer much less without. This article on getting a rental car from the insurance company after an accident provides a few thoughts for those of you who are traveling solo without a Maryland accident lawyer.

Remember that one good way to take this issue out of play in the further is to purchase rental reimbursement coverage. It costs very little - only $12 a year under most auto insurance policy but it is an investment worth making.

Maryland. Insurance Code Ann. § 19-511 gives Maryland accident lawyers a weapon in forcing decide what they are going to do about subrogation against the at-fault defendants. Maryland lawyers call this law the "pay to play" statute. The statute mandates that when the liability carrier tenders a policy limits offer, the underinsured motorist carrier - the client's own insurance company - has 60 days to whether to allow the at-fault driver's insurance company to pay on the claim, which means they waive subrogation against the at-fault driver. If they do not waive subrogation, the UIM insurance company must pony up the amount of the offer. But in doing so, they retain their subrogation rights, i.e. they can go after the driver individually for any payments that are made. Thus, the title "pay to play."

It is generally not a good idea to handle a personal injury claim without a lawyer. But there are exceptions and, either way, many injury victims are going to proceed without a lawyer. If you find yourself in this situation, here are some thoughts on handling a personal injury case with the insurance company without a Maryland accident lawyer.

Related Article:

Handling Property Damage Claims Without a Lawyer

The Maryland Injury Lawyer Blog has a post about difficult dealings with an Erie Insurance adjuster.

Most insurance adjuster are decent people and it is just as hard to make generalizations about insurance adjusters anymore than it is about doctors or lawyers or Indian chiefs. In September, I'll have the opportunity to visit State Farm for settlement day where we will attempt to settle our outstanding State Farm cases in a single day. We did the same thing a few years ago (I blogged about State Farm Settlement Day here.) It is a nice opportunity to meet adjusters and put a human face on our dealings with State Farm.