Some people really think they’re smarter than massive companies and systems.

This guy had to deal with an annoying lawyer who thought he could out do an insurance company and get more money out of them. It didn’t work.

Find out how the lawyer ended up costing his client more money.

Lawyer makes post car accident worse for his client.

I used to work in the claims department for one of the top auto insurance companies in America.

I get a phone call from a lawyer looking to file a new accident claim for his client (his client is also my customer).

I explain that I can take the initial report from the lawyer but will be contacting the client to get his side of the story.

He could already sense the trouble…

The lawyer immediately tells me that I am not to contact the client because he is being represented by a lawyer.

I explain that until I have an official letter of representation on file I have every right to contact the client.

He wanted to get in touch with the client himself.

So anyway I proceed to gather all the details from the lawyer.

Once I finish filing the claim I generate a claim number and give it to the lawyer.

The lawyer was stalling me a little bit and I soon realized why.

He was using the time to get an official letter of representation on file so I couldn’t contact his client (also my customer.) Which he did and now I’m not able to speak with the client unless given permission by the lawyer.

He knew this lawyer was going to mess up!

The lawyer was a total kid and was definitely trying to throw his weight around just to show he was important.

He definitely thought he was putting me in my place.

He proceeds to tell me that the client has minor injuries such as back and neck pain and is going to see a doctor.

The lawyer wanted everything that wasn’t in the contract!

I explain that the client may see whatever doctor he wishes but that it’s best to have us get in contact with his doctor of choice as soon as possible so we can start using the coverage to pay for any medical bills.

The lawyer gets all huffy puffy with me and tells me that the client will go see a doctor and get all the medical help he needs and once it’s all done and over with he will send us a bill that we will be required to pay in full.

I explain it doesn’t work that way.

He tried breaking it down for the client…

Some doctors require certain payments from insurance companies up front or at least be in contact with the insurance company to confirm certain payments will be paid.

I also explained the client only had a certain amount of coverage that he pays for. We are not required as an insurance company to pay more than what the client has on his policy.

For example, if the client has $10,000 in coverage we would only pay half of a $20,000 medical bill.

He laid it all down for the lawyer.

I also explain that if the doctor hasn’t been in contact with an insurance company, they may charge the client and the client will have to go through a different, longer process for us to reimburse him than if we just paid the doctor up front.

Now I know this sounds like a bunch of corporate nonsense and it is but, I don’t make the rules. I’m really trying my hardest to make this as easy as possible for the client but the lawyer just isn’t having it at all.

The lawyer demands that the client will go to whatever doctor he wants and will receive whatever treatment he wants and that we will pay for it in full and the client will pay nothing out of pocket regardless of the cost of treatment.

He had given up with this weird lawyer!

I went back and forth with the lawyer but eventually you gotta understand that you’re just going in circles and it’s time to just take the loss.

So I do and we move on to the vehicle.

Lawyer says it’s damaged but the client drove the car from the accident scene to straight to the lawyer’s office.

The windshield was damaged and there was fluids leaking from the car.

I recommended that we tow the vehicle to a repair shop.

This is where it gets worse!

I explain the customer had towing coverage and we can get a tow truck free of charge.

The lawyer refuses and says the client can drive the car.

The lawyer also demands that the client uses a repair shop of his choice.

I explain to the lawyer that the client is absolutely allowed to use a shop of his choice but that we have to send an adjuster out to the car to inspect the damage and give a quote to the repair shop.

He knew that people always try to pull something malicious.

The reason we did this is a lot of times body shops will take advantage of insurance companies cause they know we will pay and the shops fix things that don’t need to be fixed and purposely buy more expensive parts to hike up the price.

It’s pretty much insurance fraud.

So we usually send an expert of our own out to assess the damage and write up a fair and legit repair estimate.

UH OH…

The lawyer refuses and says that he isn’t telling us the shop that the car is going to and once again we will get a bill once all the work is done and we will be required to pay the full bill regardless of the price.

I explain that we do not cover the cost of aftermarket parts. Only factory parts. It is listed in our contract. The customer agreed to this when he signed up.

Once again, corporate nonsense I know but I don’t make the rules and I REALLY am trying to help the customer out here so he doesn’t have a bunch of unnecessary crap to deal with.

This is where he knew he had to put his foot down for the better.

I argued with this lawyer for a long time about how things work and why the way he was trying to handle this was going to end up costing the client money.

The lawyer was on a path of destruction and was making every possible scenario worse for the client.

The lawyer wasn’t having any of it and of course threatened to sue and all that crap.

I finally gave in and let the lawyer do what ever he wanted.

He predicted what would happen to the client!

I knew the worst case scenario would come of this and figured I’d let the lawyer and client feel the consequences of their stupid decisions and the lawyer trying to assert his dominance.

I let him and his client do what they thought was best. I mean why listen to the professional right?

What ends up happening is the customer takes the car to some sketchy shop. They do exactly what we feared and jacked the price waaayyy up.

The lawyer ended up messing things up.

They put expensive aftermarket replacement parts on the car which we don’t cover. The customer had to pay out of pocket for a bunch of stuff to the repair shop.

The repair shop took longer than 30 days to repair his car cause the longer they have the car the more they can charge.

We only cover 30 days for a rental car so the client ends up paying out of pocket for a rental car too. Also the client had to pay some out of pocket expenses to his doctor.

They tried doing what they could on their end.

We ended up reimbursing him for the doctor bills but it was a long drawn out process. And very frustrating.

We did not refund him for some of the expenses at the body shop. Which amount to more than $1,000.

In the end the customer had a ton more out of pocket expenses and head aches because of his incompetent lawyer.

YIKES! This lawyer didn’t help his client at all!

Let’s find out what folks on Reddit think about this story.

This user suggests letting the customer know about the bad lawyer.

This user wants to know if the customer knew how the lawyer hurt them.

That’s right! This user knows that going to the company itself is the answer!

This user wants to know a technical question about car accidents.

That’s right! This user thinks the lawyer still won money.

The client should’ve talked to the insurance company himself.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.