insurance question

[¥ UltraMan ¥]

Here's a clue - keep your mouth shut, moron.

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:42:45 -0400 from mm :

I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think that is accurate. No one will "put a lien on your house".

The law makes a distinction between secured and unsecured debt.

** A secured debt is a debt that is backed by a specific asset: if you don't pay, the creditor can seize the asset and sell it. (If the proceeds don't cover the debt, you still owe the remaining balance.) Typical secured debts are car loans and home mortgages. ** An unsecured debt is money that you owe but is not tied to any specific asset. Typical unsecured debts are credit-card balances. If you buy a big-screen TV or even a car with your Visa card, and you don't pay it, Visa cannot repossess what you bought.

Now, court judgments are like unsecured debts. If you lose a liability case, there will not be a "lien on your house" as several people have posted. In other words, it functions the same as a court judgment over an unsecured debt. You have to pay out of your general assets, and how you pay is up to you. If you don't or can't pay, there are supplemental proceedings. The judge can order specific assets sold or ultimately you can be forced into bankruptcy. But in bankruptcy your primary residence is usually protected.

How much liability insurance do you need? The answer isn't simple, but is a blend of how large your assets are (so you won't be forced into bankruptcy) and what size judgments are typical. You can't protect against a worst-case scenario because that's essentially infinite. So you protect against maybe the 90th or 95th percentile. As I've already posted, the marginal cost of coverage goes down as the policy limit rises. For example, if you raise your deductible from $250 to $500, you can probably buy many thousands in additional coverage with the saving in premium.

[Stan Brown]

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:57:36 -0400 from mm :

In the US, truth is an absolute defense against an action for defamation (libel or slander). If you confine yourself to facts, then as a matter of law you have not committed libel or slander.

A sufficiently pissed-off individual might sue you, but if you have stated only facts you will win.(*)

However ...

Even if you win a court case, getting sued is no fun. In the US, with rare exceptions each party pays its own lawyers. So it may be better not to attract the attention of some company with deep pockets and lawyers on staff, because you have more to lose from being sued if you win than they have to lose if they lose.

(*) Okay, there's the occasional horror story about a case that's decided wrongly. But those are notorious (like the McDonald's coffee case) because they're highly unusual. Ordinary folks don't need to worry about something like that, as a practical matter.

[VAXman-]

... and what recourse is there if the bringer of such a suit _does_ lose? I am being sued for stating my strong opinion that I wouldn't deal with a particular company in a discussion of this company in a usenet newsgroup.

[still me]

Good advice, but you can also counter sue for attorney's cost.

Read the facts and testimony of the McDonald's suit. It was fair and properly decided. If you don't think so, you likely have not read the case. I'm not suggesting that there are not frivolous cases and bad decisions - there are, every day - but that's a bad example of a bad decision.

[trader4]

This is incorrect advice. First, what exactly is your definition of "ridiculously low"? A party that is seriously injured and looking at $1mil lifetime expenses isn't going to settle for $200K, if the defendent has a $200K policy, (which most people wouldn't think isn't ridiculously low), but also has another $500K in assets and a high paying job. And the fellow with the $800K house could be in that category.

Second, only a couple states had extremely generous and unlimited bankruptcy exclusions for homes. One was Texas, where you could keep your home, regardless of how much it was worth. There people used it to shield million+ ranchs. I'm not sure Texas even has that now, as it was an obvious loophole that deadbeat skunks used. The rest of the states have limits on how much equity is exempt, with around $100K being typical. The idea is to avoid making people homeless, not to allow them to shield an $800K asset from creditors.

No, first they are gonna figure what the potential total damages and award would be if they went to trial. Then they are gonna look at how much insurance the defendant has, their available assets to satisfy a judgement, and what their income stream is. Then they will make the decision. They're not gonna settle a $1mil case for $50k, if the guy has another few hundred thousand they can get.

Not just likely, it's absolutely going to be less. But amounts in those ranges are rarely addressed in an auto policy. They are usually covered in an umbrella policy that protects against high limits above your regular liability insurance in areas beyond the car as well.

[Vic Dura]

On Sat, 28 Jul 2007 12:05:04 GMT, VAXman- @SendSpamHere.ORG wrote Re Re: Liben and slander (Re: insurance question):

Need more info. Can you state some facts of the case?

[Kurt Ullman]

Of course they will. As you noted in the part I snipped, others may have a prior claim, but the lien would put them in line for anything over and above what the secured debtors gets. In other words, while the mortgage company may have first dibs, the lien is placed to get them in line for any equity I may have when (if) I sell. It also makes it pretty much impossible in real life for me to go out and get additional secured debt, so I can't all of a sudden get another loan and hide the equity somewhere in the Caymans, so to speak.

[dpb]

Those would be "creditors", not "debtors"...

--

[Kurt Ullman]

Thanks. If you will excuse me I am going to get another cup of coffee (that's my story and I'm sticking to it)>

[George]

Exactly, for an eye opener anyone should have a look at:

Most of those limits look like they were set 30 years ago.

[valvejob]

No, it was not.

The jury was obviously prejudiced agaist big corps and should have found for McDonalds.

[Deadrat]

Stan Brown wrote in news: [e-mail]:

I'm not either, but your advice is suspect. Bankruptcy may not wipe out debts owed through judgments, especially those connected to torts like negligence. A primary residence may be protected by homestead provisions of state law. Some states, like Florida, are notoriously generous to the debtor; others, not so much.

[Deadrat]

Stan Brown wrote in news: [e-mail]:

It is worth noting that the facts must be "legal" facts, i.e., you must be able to prove the assertions true. "Actual" truth may not be much help if you can't convince the jury.

The only reason that the McDonald's coffee case is "notorious" is that people like you don't take the trouble to find out about it. McDonald's kept their coffee at temperatures beteen 180 and 190 degrees F, even though liquid at that temperature is dangerous enough to cause 3rd degree burns within second of contact. McDonald's had known about the danger for years because of accidents, complaints, and other law suits.

The plaintiff was found to be 20% at fault.

Ordinary folks don't need to

[Kurt Ullman]

They also were, unofficially as it were, punished for not paying the nice little old lady the much smaller amount she originally wanted to cover medical expenses.

[Edwin Pawlowski]

So, some people like their coffee that hot. Most people don't put it in their crotch when driving or sitting down. That case will never be "settled" in people's minds because each side has their opinion and is not changing it.

[Richard J Kinch]

So your objection is that the future is unknown, and therefore we cannot precisely prepare for the eventual outcomes, so we have no moral obligation to prepare.

Accidents are a statistical process, as is insuring against them. One can never know how much insurance is enough. You make a judgment based on what it costs versus the level of confidence.

Think of auto accidents as a random enemy, like a burglar. You do what you can to stop the enemy. The fact that an enemy may someday come that overpowers your every preparation does not mean you should not prepare at all, or make minimal preparations. You have to make a balancing judgment between the likely enemies and how much you can afford to prepare.

You have no right to harm others with an auto accident and then not compensate them. You net worth is irrelevant.

Saying that whatever limit you choose is never enough, because there is always a rare calamity to exceed it, is like arguing Zeno's paradox. It doesn't mean that insurance with a limit is a bad idea, or that insurance won't pay off. It's just an excuse to cheap out on insurance and justify keeping the premiums you should be paying. This fallacy is popular because most people never have a serious accident and the outcome is happy despite the mispreparation.

That's the "negative lottery" game. You bet against a big, unlikely loss instead of betting for a big, unlikely win. You keep a little money by not buying insurance instead of spending a little money on lottery tickets. You lose big if you have a rare accident, instead of winning big if you hit the rare numbers. It's a mirror image of the lottery. Most people don't lose big in the auto accident game, like most people don't win the Powerball.

[mm]

My question above wasn't so good. I thought you meant they bought insurance with low liabilty limits.

They set their own liability low, because they don't want to pay. Governments still think of themselves as the king, as the successor to the king, that no one could sue and might get in big trouble for even complaining.

While the time limit for filing lawsuits against anyone else might be a year, in NYC or NYS, you have to file a 30-day notice of claim or you can't get anything. I'm sure loads of people lose their claims because they don't know about this requirement. AFAIK, other cities and states are similar.

The US Court of Claims exists I think because before it was created, one couldnt' sue the US at all, and even now, I believe it has extra rules that don't apply to suing individuals or corporations.

I'm sure there is a lot written about why all this is fair, but I haven't read it. It seems to me that it stinks.

[mm]

You God-damned jackass. Wait until they do this to your mother, you stupid piece of crap, and then you'll know what a dung-ball you are today and maybe everyday.

>

[dpb]

Deadrat wrote: ...

The problem w/ that "logic" is that most coffee is brewed at roughly those temperatures. The real problem w/ the case is that the idiot who spilled it wouldn't own up to her own stupidity and the jury didn't have enough sense to send her packing...

--