This particular site caught my eye this morning. As you’ll see, this page collects reviews of Erie Insurance. There are some positive reviews here. None of them, however, seem to be written by someone who has submitted a claim. By contrast, all of the injury insurance claims are negative.
One of the reviewers writes that she was injured and has been seeing a chiropractor. She was surprised and upset when the Erie adjustor told her that her case wasn’t even worth the medical bills and lost wages because “…There’s just not a high value on chiropractic care.” The injured person who wrote the review aptly notes, “Where does [the insurance adjustor] get her medical expertise to be able to diagnose what treatment I needed?”
What these writers don’t understand is that the process of getting an insurance company to pay on a claim is an inherently adversarial process. It’s not enough to be genuinely injured. It’s not enough to be a good and fair person. It’s not enough to present evidence of your claim. The insurance company is going to do everything possible to minimize your injuries and the value of your claim. More importantly, they know that many people are opposed to seeing lawyers and opposed to suing and so, with no threat of a lawsuit in the mix, they know that many people will just take whatever they offer. Sure, the person will be upset and make noise. But rather than see a Pennsylvania insurance lawyer, they’ll take the offer, no matter how small or unfair. And that’s really all the insurance company cares about.
Yes, I know it makes people upset. They’ll write these negative reviews. They’ll tell off the adjustor. They may think to themselves, “Eventually, this’ll come around and bite this insurance company where they least like it.” But the truth is that people have been complaining about insurance companies for as long as there have been insurance companies. The complaints and dissatisfaction are largely meaningless to these companies.
The only thing that gets the attention of an insurance company is the possibility that they will be held accountable in the one place where they are not in control of the outcome: a courtroom.
So, by all means keep reporting your experiences with insurance companies. I think it’s valuable because it catalogs the universal experience. But if you want to be treated fairly in connection with a Pennsylvania insurance claim then you need to make sure the insurance company knows that you can take them out of their comfort zone and into a courtroom.