The Boyk Brief
Go into chambers with attorneys Chuck Boyk, Mike Bruno, Zac Shaffer, and the attorneys of Charles Boyk Law Offices on The Boyk Brief, as we talk with interesting personalities from the legal world, celebrities, experts, business & community leaders, and other engaging people about a variety of topics.
The Boyk Brief
What is Personal Injury Law?
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In this episode, we sat down with veteran Attorneys Chuck Boyk and Mike Bruno to try to answer the question, "What is Personal Injury Law?" Because we deal with so many auto accidents, we are intimately familiar with car insurance. Chuck sat down with his personal insurance agent, Nicole Bloomer, to talk about the types coverage available with car insurance and which ones actually make sense.
Welcome to the Boyk Brief. I'm Desmond Strue, Marketing Director at the Charles E. Boyk Law Offices located in Toledo, Ohio. The Boyk Brief invites you to go into chambers with the attorneys of Boyk Law as we explore real legal cases, talk to fascinating people in our area, raise awareness about community initiatives, and share helpful information about protecting yourself and those you love. In the first part of this episode, veteran attorneys Chuck Boick and Mike Bruno attempt to help me understand what personal injury law really is. In the second part, Chuck talks to his personal insurance agent, Nicole Bloomer, about car insurance coverage and how hardly anyone, myself included, truly understands their coverage. They also discuss the devastating consequences that can have if you're involved in a car accident. Today, we're going to start at the very beginning and try to answer the question: what is personal injury law? I'm joined by Chuck Boyk, owner of the Charles E. Boyk Law Offices, and by Mike Bruno, one of our lead attorneys. Both are strong champions for their clients and share a deep respect for personal injury law. Gentlemen, thanks so much for being here. Thanks, Desmond. You're quite welcome. So, Chuck, how would you define personal injury law?
SPEAKER_02Personal injury law would be the area of law to help individuals recover for their physical or psychological injuries as a result of usually a negligent action by another automobile driver, motorcycle driver, truck driver, doctor negligence, premise liability situation.
SPEAKER_00Chuck, you mentioned a negligent action. Tell me more about what that means.
SPEAKER_02So under Ohio law, there is a duty of care to act like an ordinary, reasonable, prudent person under the circumstances. So for example, an auto case where there's a red light and the other driver runs the red light, they would have a duty of care to obey the traffic safety devices. And if they run the red light, they would be negligent and we would attempt to recover for any injuries or lost wages or permanent conditions that were approximately caused by the violation of the standard of care.
SPEAKER_00So, bottom line, someone was not doing what they reasonably should have been doing, and it caused another person harm. I think I'm starting to get it now. So, Mike, how does that differ from an area like medical malpractice?
SPEAKER_01Sure. What we do is we um examine cases where either a doctor, a therapist, or a hospital performed some sort of procedure below the accepted standard of care.
SPEAKER_00So, Mike, how is negligence shown in a medical malpractice case?
SPEAKER_01It's really subject to an expert opinion. In other words, Chuck and I can't say whether or not a certain procedure was done correctly. We're going to require some sort of a consult with a medical doctor and say, here's the procedure, here's how it should have been done, here's what and in fact happened here, and there was resulting harm. So if there's resulting harm, uh then you can pursue a case for negligence. Negligence, again, is uh substandard medical care.
SPEAKER_00So a doctor might say, well, sometimes things just don't go as planned. Sometimes things go wrong in surgery, and maybe it's nobody's fault. How would you respond to that?
SPEAKER_01Right. And there's always going to be the possibility of bad outcomes, especially when we're talking surgeries. I mean, there's no guarantees that a surgery is going to work, but there are rules in the medical profession, and uh the doctors uh need to observe those rules, and when corners are cut and uh costs are are cut and those rules are not observed, then uh there may be an opportunity to pursue a legal claim.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's a bit scary, honestly, Mike. Well, I certainly hope none of us are ever in a situation like that. So, Chuck, shifting gears a little bit, how long does it take for a case to go from initial contact to a resolution?
SPEAKER_02So um we're asked that usually by almost every client. And initially, what I tell the client is Um I need you to finish treating first. And I don't want you to um hurry up. I want you and the doctor to make an informed decision and you get all the treatment that you need, or at least all the medical treatment that you and the doctor can agree what the prognosis is. And why is that? The reason for that is um we have to make a demand for settlement. If the client is still treating, uh then we can't really make an informed, intelligent decision. Once we settle the case, the client is stuck with um that settlement forever. So realistically, once the client is done treating, um, it may take 30 to 60 days to get all the medical records and reports that are going to be necessary to prove the client's case. Throughout the entire process, we have a whole team of legal assistants that are order up all the medical records and lost wages as the client finishes with each individual doctor. So, in answer to your question, typically within 60 days after the client is finished treating, we can send out a demand for settlement. And then after that, typically within 45 days or so, we're going to get whatever the offer is from the insurance company. So at that period of time, we have a in-depth discussion with the client and we make a decision whether settlement or filing the lawsuit uh is in the client's best interest.
SPEAKER_00So, Chuck and Mike, let's get a little more philosophical. We've spoken about what personal injury law is, but I'd like to hear from both of you about what it is that you do. So imagine you're at a cocktail party post-COVID, of course. How would you describe to the guests of that cocktail party what it is that you do? Mike, why don't you go first?
SPEAKER_01I do a couple of things. I speak for people. In other words, um not everybody can navigate the legal maze that's out there. And so um through our training, through our years of experience, good lawyers really do a nice job of talking for people, explaining their rights, and helping them through a difficult process. So that's kind of what we do here. Got a lot of help too, a lot of assistance. But I like to think of myself as a helper who does, you know, some talking for people.
SPEAKER_00That's very insightful, Mike. And I appreciate uh you sharing that. I think that really also speaks to who we are as a firm and who we are uh as individuals. Let me also add my absolute praise and admiration for the legal assistants and paralegals who work here. They do amazing work day in, day out. And you can tell that everyone in this building truly cares about the people that we are serving. So, Chuck, how would you describe what you do every day?
SPEAKER_02I think we're problem solvers. Um, we're individuals who our job, in effect, is to tell the client's story to an insurance company, um, to a jury. Um we're storytellers, but really we're the people that we try to work with the client as a team so they have some sort of control. Um, you know, think about it. You're injured, you're in physical pain, you can't support your family because you can't go to work. Um, our job is to be there and be part of their team so they feel like they have some control of their life and their future, and that there is some justice in the world. Uh, we 99.9% represent individuals. And um, I think that's the the fun thing about our job. We represent people one at a time um in order to help them solve some of the more serious problems in their life. And I know Mike and I take it as um a very big blessing in our life that we get to help people one at a time.
SPEAKER_00It really is amazing to see the way that you all have changed so many people's lives. And while the wrongs can't necessarily be completely righted, there are so many things that we can do to make people's lives better. Chuck, you and I have spoken about a case where your client was catastrophically injured, and we were able to really come through for him. Can you tell me about that?
SPEAKER_02Over the years, we've represented a large number of uh police officers um that have been injured in the line of duty. A recent example of a case that we resolved in 2020 was an area police officer who was run into by an over-the-road truck driver who crossed the center line, and there is an argument that the individual was under the influence. We represented the police officer both on a workers' cop claim and a personal injury claim. He has been off work uh for the last two and a half years, and his treating neurologist indicates that he would never be able to return to work as a police officer based on the uh traumatic brain injury as a result of that. Uh, we were able to get him compensation through Ohio workers' compensation. Uh, we were also able to reach a confidential settlement that would help him make up, at least financially, for some of the loss. Uh the difficult thing about this individual was that his childhood dream was to be a police officer. And as a result of this, um, he had to uh step down as a police officer and will have to try to uh pursue another career. Um, oftentimes in a case like that, it's to our advantage that we can represent the uh client both in the personal injury case and the workers' comp case, so we can uh help the client obtain initial compensation to support themselves, and we can also help on the medical treatment and make sure they're able to go to the best doctors possible.
SPEAKER_00So actually, can you tell me a little bit more about that? So when you say you're pursuing a claim for a workers' comp and then for personal injury, tell me that what the difference is between the two.
SPEAKER_02So if an individual is injured in the scope of employment, meaning uh they're on the clock at the time, um, we can pursue both a personal injury claim and a workers' compensation claim. Eventually, out of any settlement on the personal injury claim, there's a formula that we have to pay back a certain percentage of the money paid by the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation. But the advantage of that is that you have two potential claims. One of the things that people are always upset about settling a personal injury case, they'll say, Oh my God, what happens if I have future problems? Well, if it's also a workers' compensation claim, you can settle the personal injury claim and you kind of have the insurance policy of the workers' compensation claim if they ever need medical treatment or are off work uh because of the work injury.
SPEAKER_00We help many people who have been involved in car crashes because of that. Motor vehicle insurance is very top of mind for us. Our firm owner, Chuck Boyk, sat down with his personal insurance agent to chat about what people really need to know about car insurance. They also spoke about how having the right vehicle insurance can be the difference between recovery and disaster.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm very pleased to have with us today Nicole Bloomer. Um, I first met Nicole as a client on a rather interesting case that I represented her on. She was a fantastic client, and then I got to know her as a state farm agent. She has fantastic experience and knowledge as a state farm agent. And uh, based on her knowledge, I switched all of my personal insurance, all of my business insurance, and all of my kids' car insurance to Nicole. And she is somebody that I trust and I think is very knowledgeable about uh personal lines of insurance. And I thought that she would be the perfect person to explain that to uh our audience.
SPEAKER_03Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Nicole, why don't you explain what you do and what your background is in personal insurance?
SPEAKER_03I have worked for State Farm. I actually just celebrated my 20th anniversary in July. I can't say I ever knew I would be in the insurance game for that long, but it's kind of all I've ever lived and breathed. My mom has been a state farm agent. And I started there as high school just helping out, filing papers, doing what I could do. And the more I learned about it, the more interested I became. I think the thing that fascinates me the most about my job is how little people truly know about their insurance. This is something we all pay for and spend good money on every month, every year, and truly have no idea. And so we're very passionate at our agency about making sure people not only have the proper coverage in place, but understand why that coverage is important, what their coverage can do for them, and how we can protect them properly and protect their family and their legacy.
SPEAKER_02So I think, Nicole, uh, the basic insurance that most people have would be auto insurance and then potentially homeowners or renters' insurance. And I also want to talk about umbrella policies. So typically, my problem as representing somebody is the guy comes into my office and says, Well, I have full insurance coverage, and I say, Well, what does that mean? And they have no idea what that means. So under Ohio law, the mandatory minimum limits are like $25,000. But you can buy millions and millions of dollars of insurance coverage. So why don't you explain to the audience what is the minimum limits that an average single person or a married person with a job or have a house, what should they have in automobile insurance or uninsured motorist coverage?
SPEAKER_03Sure. So as you mentioned, the state minimum being $25,000. So just a really quick insurance lesson. What that means is if I hit somebody and I injure them, if I had state minimum coverage, I would only have $25,000 per person for bodily injury, up to a total of $50,000 for the accident. Well, let's do the math quick. If there's two, three, four people in the car, you have three or four people splitting 50 grand. Well, that's not getting you in and out of the doors of an emergency room these days. Medical bills, medical costs have skyrocketed over the last however many years. And so I prefer to not have any. I mean, there's probably five clients who I could name by name in our entire book of business that have state minimum because I'm extremely passionate about that not being okay. Just because it's what makes it legal, it doesn't have you protected. And why waste your money on something that's pretty much gonna do you no good? So I think that a big misconception is that to have better coverage, to have the proper limits in place, to have an umbrella, I think people think that that's gonna cost them so much they can't afford it. And that's just not true. The average umbrella is $100 to $200 a year. They're not expensive.
SPEAKER_02So explain to the average lay person what an umbrella policy is, because I think most of us think uh an umbrella is something you carry when it's raining outside.
SPEAKER_03Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But that's a perfect way to think of it, Chuck. I mean, an umbrella literally is something you're carrying around. They start at $1 million and it's an extra $1 million, $2 million, $3 million. You can have it to most whatever limit you need of liability protection that follows you around. It follows you in your vehicle, multiple vehicles, it protects you at your place of residence, anything you could be held legally liable for. So when I when you ask, what do I think someone's state minimum or somebody's minimum insurance would be, I believe every person needs to have an umbrella, even if it's just the one million basic umbrella. And the reason for that is this it doesn't matter if you're a 25-year-old kid making minimum wage or you're an established doctor, lawyer, wherever you are in your life, you have a value because we live in a wage attachable state. So you have an earning income. Even if you don't have assets that you think you need to protect yet, you have your free future earning ability. And for a few extra dollars a month, I want to protect that on your insurance policy rather than you pay for an accident. An accident's just that. It's an accident. Why would you want to pay for that the rest of your life?
SPEAKER_02So you get some companies, like I see the minimum limit companies would be like uh Safe Auto, Permanent General, e insurance. And whenever whenever I see that my uh tort visa, the person responsible for the accident has that, I always cringe because I know it's gonna be a minimum limit policy. So typically, in order to have an umbrella policy, you have to have a certain minimum limit. Is it like 250,000?
SPEAKER_03Correct. So instead of that state minimum of $25,000 per person, $50,000, the minimum required to qualify for an umbrella is $250,000 per person, $500,000. So automatically you have 10 times what a state minimum person has just in your underlying auto policy. And then we add that $1 million umbrella to it.
SPEAKER_02So what would be the difference? Let's say a single person, um, the difference in premium from having your $25,000 policy versus the $250,000 policy.
SPEAKER_03As long as you have a pretty good driving record and you're not out there crashing stuff up all the time, we are gonna, you know, the difference in coverage on your auto is probably between $100 and $150 more per year. And then the difference, and then the cost of the umbrella itself is one to $200 a year. It's not that expensive.
SPEAKER_02So you're saying the difference of $500 a year can get you the difference between $25,000 and potentially an umbrella policy.
SPEAKER_03Correct. So instead of that $25,000, $1.25 million for you usually in the range of $500 a year.
SPEAKER_02And you know, the important thing to me is I see on a weekly basis horrific cases where there's no insurance coverage. So for example, I currently have a case now. My client has had three surgeries and is paralyzed, and we're still hunting, and I have found no insurance coverage so far. So, you know, every time I talk to the family, I cringe because I don't have good news. Um, and think about that. For 500 bucks, you could protect yourself and your family. And you're not just uh protecting yourself from somebody suing you, you're protecting yourself if the other guy doesn't have adequate insurance coverage. And that's why for 500 bucks, it's to me, it's an absolute mistake if you don't have that. Um maybe talk about uninsured motors coverage and what that is.
SPEAKER_03So really quick before we describe what it is, the the minute you take whatever limits you have for the other guy coverage, that 25,000, 50,000 or the recommended 250,000, are honestly anywhere in between, because my goal with all my clients is to get you to an umbrella. If you can't do it today, that's okay. But instead of 2550, let's get 5,100, let's get something better until we can afford it. I can put the best insurance plan in the world together for you, but if you can't make the payment every month, I also didn't do you any good. So but uninsured motorists the minute you increase that other guy coverage from 25,000 to 250,000, now your uninsured motorist increased. So uninsured uninsured motorists means if I'm driving around, somebody hits me and they have no insurance or they don't have enough, they have that state minimum. Now my policy will step in and pay for me and the people in my vehicle's injuries under my uninsured motorist coverage to whatever limits I'm carrying. And we live here, I mean, in Lucas County, we're one of the highest uninsured motorist counties in the state. And we don't rank too high on the list for the country either. So we have to be responsible as adults. You know, we always talk about defensive driving. Well, I think having good insurance is just as much a part of defensive driving as anything else because you can be doing everything right. But if the guy who hits you only has that state minimum 25,000, who's gonna pay your medical bills? Health insurance no longer has to participate in anything related to a motor vehicle accident if they don't want to.
SPEAKER_02And one of the reasons I respect Nicole is I deal with insurance companies on a regular basis, and I see large amounts of other um well-known insurance companies where the agents have given my client policies that sometimes they waive uninsured motorist coverage, or they have half the limit of the uninsured motorist coverage where their insurance companies, without naming any names, they almost instruct the agents to protect the company. So the agents are really not looking out for the individual client. Like Nicole says, you need to have the most liability insurance and the most uninsured motorist coverage that you can afford. And if you use it once in your lifetime, it'll pay for itself a hundred times.
SPEAKER_03And I think same thing there. I think uninsured motorist people companies that waive that are people who take it off because it's not required. I mean, you're saving yourself 10 bucks a month, maybe. You know, it's not an expensive coverage. You're not, it's it's pennywise pound foolish, right? And that's the same thing with state minimum coverage. You're saving a few dollars a month on your insurance. But paying an extra five, 10, 20, whatever it costs you to have the umbrella, f in some cases it's gonna be $50 more a month than you're paying. I mean, if you had very basic coverage. But that being said, $50 a month is never gonna financially devastate you. But having a car accident where you injure someone and you owe them hundreds of thousands of dollars and all your insurance pays is 25, that is going to financially devastate you. You can't recover from that.
SPEAKER_02What else do you think that the average lay person doesn't know about insurance that you think they should know about?
SPEAKER_03I think one that gets skipped over a lot is medical payments as well. Um, medical payments is a coverage you buy on your policy, and it covers you and the people in your vehicle at a per person rate for an accident that you are at fault for. So we always talk about liability, and everyone always seems to know their life. If they know nothing else, they know what they've got liability-wise. They know they've got 2550 or 100, 300, they can at least say those numbers. But lots of companies, as you were mentioning before, the Geikos, the Progressives, the Safe Autos of the World, they waive medical payments coverage for people, I think often without even telling them, because it's not a required coverage, it's not a mandatory coverage.
SPEAKER_02And let's talk about what does 5,000 in med pay cost per year.
SPEAKER_03So 5,000 in med pay per year is probably 20 bucks.
SPEAKER_02And like Nicole says, I see that on a lot of the companies that she mentioned, that for 20 bucks, they waive that. Now, another thing that just drives me insane because when we're involved in the situation, we help our clients negotiate their property damage at no charge, is when the agent has not sold rental coverage to my client. So I'll see it have a situation where my client has $500,000 or $300,000 in uninsured motors coverage. So the agent did a great job, but there's no rental coverage. So they need a rental car for 20 days. And if you want to upset somebody, have a situation where your car is in the shop, uh, the other side doesn't have insurance, and they have to pay for a rental car, and then my client goes insane.
SPEAKER_03Oh, absolutely. Because I mean, 20 days of a rental car at 30, 40 bucks a day, I mean, that's a huge out-of-pocket expense that a lot of people plus you're stuck on your deductible probably too, and it meant it ends up being uh a lot. And rental car coverage, you guys average it's two to three dollars a month on your policy. It's cheap. The things that people say no to, I think we all need to learn. If you take nothing else out of this, learn to ask questions. Learn to ask how much extra is that? Because maybe you don't want to give it up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I mean, rental coverage. So for $35 a year. So hypothetically, if you use it once in your lifetime, it's worthwhile to have it. Um, and my clients will just go nuts when they realize they don't have rental coverage. So uh, you know, what I always tell them is I think you should call your agent today and scream at them of why didn't you sell that to me?
SPEAKER_03Whenever somebody denies it and says I don't want it, I reiterate, are you sure? It is $2 extra a month. Are you sure you don't want it? Let me break down why for that $2 you should have it. And almost always they go, Oh, I had no idea. Yes, yes, please put it on my policy. And stepping back real quick to the medical payments, as you said, um, lots of the companies wave it or the the lower level companies we were talking about, they don't even have $5,000. Maybe they have a thousand or two thousand. Well, we're back to that same situation. What does a thousand or two thousand or even five thousand dollars get you in your emergency room? So we didn't used to have to worry about it because health insurance, nobody had giant deductibles and and they could rely on their health insurance, but you can no longer rely on your health insurance to pay your medical bills. So I will give State Farm a huge amount of credit in that we're one of the only companies that offers a hundred thousand medical payments per person. So instead of that five thousand that most of you have on your policy now, we have a hundred thousand. Well, we call that friends suing friends, family suing family. My very best friend might be riding in the front seat of my car. But if she has $50,000 in medical bills and I say, well, here's five, what's gonna happen? She loves me, but she's going to sue me because why should she be out $45,000 for something I did that was my fault? And again, like I said, the $5,000 in medical payments is maybe, you know, $20, $30 a year on your policy, increasing it to $10,000 or to excuse me, to $100,000 or $10,000, $25,500, go any number you want. Go something better because it's we're talking pennies. It's a couple extra dollars based on what you get in return for that.
SPEAKER_02So, Nicole, could if if somebody in the audience um would like to uh talk to you, have you evaluate their insurance policy and brainstorm with them some improvements and give them personal service, how would they contact you?
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. And of course, any consultation quote, anything like that is completely free of charge. And our office is located on Roachden Road in Perrysburg, Ohio. And you're welcome to reach me on my cell phone at 419-297-3001, or you can call our office at 419-873-0100.
SPEAKER_02And just the name of the agency.
SPEAKER_03Yes, sorry, it's my mom and I. It's Patricia Bloomer, Kirkpatrick, State Farm Agent on Roachden Road in Perry'sburg, and I'm Nicole Bloomer, and I am her daughter and her office manager and the jack of all trades.
SPEAKER_02Thanks uh for coming in today, Nicole. And once again, she has my personal recommendation. Um, that's who I do business with.
SPEAKER_03Absolutely. Thanks, guys.
SPEAKER_00This has been the VoIC Brief. Thank you so much for listening. If you have any thoughts, comments, or suggestions, please shoot us an email at marketing at charlesvoikenlaw.com. And if you like the podcast, please leave us a review. We'd love to hear from you.