For the personal liability portion of my homeowners insurance I paid a whopping $18 (eighteen). At the point Business Wire asked to settle my insurance company had spent about $61,000. The next step was to debate a point of law with the Court of Appeals; discussing the actual case was months away. It probably would have cost them upwards of $250,000 to make it all the way through trial, and they knew we had every intention to see this thing through to the end... and Business Wire knew this as well (g).
The downside of having to rely on insurance company money is that the company itself is concerned with risk management, not law. Their goal is, on behalf of shareholders, is to spend as little money as possible. It's not uncommon for them to settle the case out from under you right from the start. In other words, on the one hand they can be your best friend and on the other, say if you're trying to make a stand on principle, your worst enemy. In my case we simply told the insurance company anything short of Business Wire dropping every last charge against us and they could negotiate forever and we wouldn't agree to anything Business Wire asked of us. So, Business Wire dropped all the charges and was able to finagle a fraction of their legal expenses from my insurance company over which I had no control. Case closed.
- Jeff |
