Ep. 32: CRYPTIC Home & Auto Insurance Industry SCAMS, Practical Tips

Buyer beware of CRYPTIC-ness:  Home and Auto Insurance SCAMS! And great practical tips to help keep you safe from the continued lies and empty promises of such a snake-filled industry.

Today, we're diving deep into the world of home & auto insurance with none other than Brandon Smith, a seasoned expert in the field and Super Lawyer. If you've ever wondered how to navigate the often confusing terrain of insurance policies and claims, you're in for a treat. Brandon shares invaluable insights, real-life stories, and practical advice that can help you make the best decisions for your personal insurance needs. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

Usually lawyers that do personal injury cases like me get a bad reputation and they get called as like ambulance chasers. You probably heard that before. The insurance companies are very, very vigilant in post-wreck events. Not too long ago, my dad got rear-ended and the at-fault insurance company got my dad's number and called him, and he was shaken up. They called him that day, and they said, hey, Mr. Smith, we will offer you$500 for your personal injury case. And normally we don't give a big offer like this, And but we're going to give you five hundred dollars. Well, I mean, if you went to urgent care that day, it's more than five hundred dollars. I've had a client that didn't think they were hurt that bad. And then they were it turned out they were really hurt bad, but they had already settled their case because the insurance, the at fault insurance company had swooped in and made them an offer, which they thought was OK at the time because they needed the funds for their care and they were scared.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06

You're listening to The Jeff Opec Show, conversations with interesting humans.

SPEAKER_04: 1:15

Folks, today we're going to talk about an industry that I like to refer to as cryptic, right? The insurance industry. So I have an expert here who has worked on both sides, right? Both sides of the industry. And now you're a personal injury lawyer, Brandon Smith, which thanks for being here today. Absolutely. First off. But folks, this is going to be an opportunity to pull out your policies. Pull them out right now. You're going to learn stuff. I'm going to learn stuff about the insurance industry that's probably going to anger you, right? And I gave the example when we were talking before. I'm paying for a casket. I didn't realize that in my little line item. Year over year, day over day, month over month, year over year, decade over decade, a little piece of my policy is going to a casket. So I can't wait to dive in here today. Again, thanks for being here. And we're just going to have a great talk. All things insurance, start off. Brandon, tell us a little bit about your firm. What do you do? Why are you the expert in insurance?

SPEAKER_02: 2:16

Absolutely. You will need that casket. Just maybe not immediately. But I'll pay$80,000 for it, right? Yeah. So we are a personal injury, catastrophic, and death law firm. We help people that have been injured badly or have been killed at the negligence of someone else. And so insurance is a massive part of what we do every single day and effectively we go against the insurance policies and examine them and see what's available to help our people who have been hurt tragically recover to get through a really really hard process right and so we are here in Peachtree Corners I've got three lawyers and eight support staff very blessed by my team that believe in what we do our motto is to make a right out of a wrong and so in everything we do it is to see if wrong that's been happened, find out how to help people recover and make a right out of it best we can, which is usually impossible because you can't put all the pieces back together, but we do the best we can to help

SPEAKER_04: 3:21

them. How does the insurance industry, let's start all the way at the top, how does it work?

SPEAKER_02: 3:25

Sure. I mean, how long you got? We got a massive amount of companies that are providing countless policies, multi-billion dollar industry that is effectively providing providing coverage in different buckets. You can pick a winner. You can get insurance for just about anything. The most common is home insurance, vehicle insurance, life insurance, health insurance, medical. Those are the Yeah. Multi-billion dollar industry, many companies providing insurance for people all throughout America and the world to cover losses. So when you need it, insurance is great. And when you don't need it, insurance can be frustrating. But even when you need it, insurance can be extremely frustrating.

SPEAKER_04: 4:42

That's what I want to focus in on here because I've taken the last 60 days to deep dive. And when I deep dive, I talk to people. I try to talk to experts. I read books. I'm studying stuff. And it prompted me to go back to my last seven claims and what was the outcome of the claims. Now, nothing was enormous, catastrophic. We're talking about my wife had three windows smashed on her navigator and the mess that comes along with that. Flood in the basement. Those type of things that aren't life-changing. But the outcome is what I was prompted to look at. And the outcome on all of them, I had to write them down and then talk about the outcome and what the call was. And this is what I want to hear from you. It was always, well, that's going to make your policy go up. So you're better off just paying that out of pocket. Why do I have insurance then? That's what I, it's so darn frustrating.

SPEAKER_02: 5:38

Right. So if you make a claim and you use it, your risk profile goes up. And therefore, you become more risky to insure because if someone is filing a bunch of claims, the common perception is that your premium is going to go up in whatever bucket it is. And everybody in America that has insurance has an insurance profile. And so insurance companies will pull, Jeff– had a claim in 2018 had a claim in 2019 had a claim in 2021 so the next time you go to renew your premium or the next time you go to look at another insurance company to get a premium you are going to carry with you that baggage the baggage that says he has prior claims and therefore an insurance adjuster company is looking at it saying well man you know jeff family things are bound to go wrong. He's already had prior claims. He's going to be more expensive to insure across the board. And so there is a fear that is very common to people that says, I don't want my insurance premiums to go up. I'm not going to file a claim. If I file a claim, despite being faithful and paying the premiums for insurance, I don't want to file a claim when the time comes because I don't want my insurance premiums to go up. So they feel stuck. Right. Right. I don't know if I want to file a claim because I don't want my premiums to go up.

SPEAKER_04: 7:11

Right. And then you're thinking in the back of your mind, we're in the same age and stage. You and I is like, well, I got kids that are going to be driving and all these events. Are they going to start with multi thousand dollar policies? Because I file a claim to replace three windows in an SUV in 2024. And 10 years later, I'm in trouble. That's right. Yeah. All right. So there has to be some kind of there has to be some kind of solution. Right. So your life's good. You're out there shopping insurance. You buy all these things. Yeah, that sounds good. Oh, for an extra$3 a month or$5 a month, you get all these things. And then an event happens, right? Three years down the road, five years down the road. How do you even advise somebody when they're shopping insurances? What to stay away from? What is legitimate? What's not legitimate? Where do you start?

SPEAKER_02: 8:05

Absolutely. Yeah. You've got to look at the premium. And this is just because we're lawyers, but in our office and to everyone, we always say, read the document. What does the document say? What does the document say? What does the policy say with respect to what you're actually buying? Are you buying something that is going to cover certain things but not other things? Look at the exclusions when you go by the policy because there are a ton of exclusions that say, hey, we'll insure you for a million dollars. No problem. However, This is excluded from your insurance when you go to make a claim. So be savvy on what those exclusions can be with respect to who's operating Jeff's vehicle when somebody gets in a wreck. What's an example? Say you have a teenage driver who you don't have a separate insurance policy on and they go and without your authority, take your vehicle and you didn't authorize them to do it. You didn't know that they were going to do it and they have a wreck. Sometimes there are provisions within your auto policy that'll say, hey, I'm sorry, but they were not an authorized user of the vehicle and therefore they're not insured. There are policies that say that and we have to get policies from insurance companies in those scenarios. Or if there's an underage driver, an unlicensed driver, those are scenarios that there can be exclusions to your policy. So another thing that's really important, especially in Georgia, in your homeowner's insurance policies, there are usually contractual provisions that say in the event that you have a claim and you dispute the claim, And do not cooperate with the insurance company. Okay. Lack of cooperation, we can deny coverage. And that's not just in homeowners policy, but that's in auto policy. So another example, if you hit somebody with your car, insurance company tries to call you, get a hold of you, say, hey, what happened? And you're just not feeling good about the situation and you don't want to talk to them. And they send you a letter and you don't respond. They can deny covering you for the loss that you created because you didn't call them back. You didn't. You weren't responsive to

SPEAKER_04: 10:37

that. No way.

SPEAKER_02: 10:38

Or you didn't report the claim, okay? So it's a matter of contract, Jeff, and the insurance companies know that, and so they lace in provisions that say in the event this happens, you must do this. If you don't, no coverage, or this is excluded. One hot-button issue in Georgia particularly are with those homeowners' claims where they say if you have an event at your home, and you don't file a lawsuit against the insurance company within one year, then you waive any potential ramifications that that has on your claim and recovery. So flooded basement, that's not done in a vacuum. That's not a two-week fix. You might potentially have mold. You might potentially have other issues. It's months and months and months. And so if X insurance company says, you know what? We think we've paid out on the claim. There's nothing else to do. And you disagree and you have a provision in your homeowner's policy that says if you disagree, you must file a case within a year. More likely than not, a court will look at that and say it's an issue of contract. Jeff agreed in his policy when he purchased it and signed for it that if a dispute arose, he would bring a case within a year. He didn't do that. Jeff's case is waived. Jeff's claim is waived from here forward. And you may have hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages ahead of you and not be able to recover for those damages. Just by missing the window. Ordinarily in Georgia, there are statutes of limitation for any kind of case and claim that we have to pay attention to. If it's a personal injury case in Georgia, it's two years. If it's a contractual case, it can be six years or four years. In a case like that where you disagree with your insurance company, that would normally be a contractual case. However, if you have contracted in a contract to say it doesn't have to be six years, it can be one year. A lot of people don't know that, which is why I say read that document. Listen, multi-billion dollar industry. It's State Farm Arena downtown, not Brandon Smith Law Arena. Right. For a

SPEAKER_04: 12:50

reason. Somebody's making all the money.

SPEAKER_02: 12:52

And that's okay. That's a great point. But you need insurance. It is a useful tool, but you have to know what you're buying. You have to know what you're getting. And more importantly, what you're not getting when push comes to shove, when you really need it.

SPEAKER_04: 13:06

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SPEAKER_02: 13:50

There's no doubt. That's exactly right. Yeah, absolutely. And listen, they do so because... Again, people think that if something goes wrong, I'm going to need insurance. And it's a brilliant strategy. And I'm not here to say the insurance company is the devil or evil or something like that. But you just have to know what you're getting. And you have to know what effectively you're purchasing. So insurance companies will take your premiums. And you'll be faithfully paying your premiums month after month for pet policies or casket coverage or whatever. Pick a winner.

SPEAKER_04: 14:25

Pet loss coverage, which we pay for.

SPEAKER_02: 14:27

Things you don't even know until you take a hard look like you did because you're wise. They will use your premiums month after month. Oftentimes, we'll throw that money in the stock market and see a return on your premiums. The thing that's tough is that when it's time to pay out on a claim and they don't want to pay full value when they've been earning interest on your premiums, that's where it's really tough for people to grasp and to stomach because you're like, I've been faithfully paying thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars over time. Now it's time for you without any claims. Now it's time for you insurance company to come pay me for my loss.

SPEAKER_03: 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 15:11

And oftentimes, they're willing to do that, but they're not willing to do that for full value. And a lot of times, Jeff, that's why people engage my firm is because usually on property damage, insurance companies are pretty good. So if you are in an Audi and you get in a wreck, insurance company will go on and say, okay, what's Kelly Blue Book for an Audi? And you say... They say it's X. And the replacement value is this. When it comes to personal injury, catastrophic injury, like what we do, that's where I have to get engaged because there's no Kelly Blue Book when somebody loses a leg. There's no Kelly Blue Book when somebody has to have a neck surgery because of somebody else's negligence. They can't go on and say, oh, that Because it's not a piece of metal. And that's where I have to advocate for them. But even in those scenarios, the insurance company is wanting to save a dollar. Sure. And multiply those dollars saved over time. Because meanwhile, they have an investment strategy with the premiums and everything else. So the money that

SPEAKER_04: 16:18

we're paying is actually, say that one more time, the state farm or whoever it is, they're using that money to then invest.

SPEAKER_02: 16:27

By and large, yeah. I'm not in the corporate office of State Farm, Allstate, USAA, but it is common knowledge that a lot of the premiums that we use, they don't just go to sit in a bank account. Not the premiums that we use, but the premiums that we pay don't go sit in a bank account. insurance company's bank account, right? Because they're wanting to beat inflation just like we are. If it's sitting in a bank account, it's losing whatever, 4%. So instead, take those in, invest in the market, earn 12%, 12%, 15% off of your premiums. The other hard part about that is premiums are going up in America every year, no matter what. So back to your earlier question, when someone says, hey, I don't want to file a claim because my insurance premium is going to go up. I always say to clients that have that concern is, Insurance premiums are going up every day in America, whatever the insurance company is. Okay. And what's hard is insurance companies oftentimes want to reduce the limits, the minimum limits that are available.

SPEAKER_04: 17:35

Yeah. So is that the 100%, 300%?

SPEAKER_02: 17:37

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Like for the state of Georgia, there's a minimum limits for all drivers to have$25,000 in interest, which is just not enough. But there's a strong effort and advocacy to say those minimum limits need to be even lower. And we're not going to change the premiums, you know, the amounts that you're paying, but the limits we want to be lower, right? Because that helps their bottom line ultimately go up.

SPEAKER_04: 18:07

But that hurts the driver, though, or the insured.

SPEAKER_02: 18:12

It hurts the insured, for sure.

SPEAKER_04: 18:13

They're looking at it going, yeah, get it lower, get it lower, get it lower, but they probably don't realize what's really happening there. They're getting less coverage in the event they hit somebody or hurt somebody or… hurt their, or destroy their own vehicle or whatever. Is that what's

SPEAKER_02: 18:28

happening? Right. Yeah. So, and it's a tragedy because there are, there are cases Jeff that I have where the insurance company is, or there's minimum limits, you know, and someone was, you know, inebriated and then gets behind the wheel of a car and goes and hits a 16 year old driver who's completely innocent victim. And there's only$25,000 for recovery. And that, that innocent victim dies because at the fault of a DUI driver. I've had that case. I have those cases. You've had that case. Of course. And so I have to call the parents and say, listen, that driver that was inebriated, that killed your son or daughter only had$25,000 in insurance. And that is the only recovery that you can have out of this incident, which that is a tragic call to have to make. But in the vehicle world, I can nerd out a little bit with the different types of insurance that there is. There's something called uninsured motorist coverage and something called liability coverage. The 130 or the 100-300 that you're talking about, that's a type of policy that you have, right? So you'll have a policy for that amount of insurance.

SPEAKER_04: 19:42

So let's talk about this concept of self-insuring. Sure. I learned that it's a little bit different than what what I thought it was, right? So as I dug in, like who self-insures, why do they self-insure? I thought that meant just like, I'm going to just do my own insurance basically. Like I don't need any of this. I'll just handle it over here. What do you know about, what do you see from your side about self-insurance? Who does it? Why do they do it? Is it even advisable? Do you like it? Do you dislike it? Let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_02: 20:15

Yeah, so I think for me, we can deal with just about anything, whether it's self-insurance or a million-dollar liability policy or umbrella policy. We can understand that. The important thing is that there is insurance. They're called SIRs, self-insured retention. Usually, you see this in the trucking industry and or you'll see it in the big box companies. Okay. Okay. You don't really see SIRs in the personal context. Usually you'll see a minimum limits policy or you'll see a lot of insurance that you buy and then someone self-selects to say, hey, I just don't feel like that's enough insurance. If something really bad happens, I want some more. And you can go buy that insurance and have a policy beyond just the baseline policy that you have.

SPEAKER_04: 22:04

Attach it, like almost bolt it on or something.

SPEAKER_02: 22:05

That's exactly right. And usually if you do that, you have to have– a certain layer of insurance before you can get the umbrella insurance, which is important. And look, I hope you don't hear me knocking the insurance industry today at all. I think it's just an eyes wide open thing, like know what you're getting and having an understanding of what that is and how the system works. But I'll tell my own family, go get as much insurance as you can afford. Know what you're getting, but go get as much insurance as you can afford. Because back to the vehicle context, if somebody does hit you or your family member that's only got minimum limits of$25,000 and causes this catastrophic event in your life, you can, Jeff, you can buy a policy for yourself, for your family, what's called uninsured motorist coverage that you can have to to go on top of whatever the liability coverage is. And we're getting a little granular with some of that stuff. I didn't realize that. This is great. But if you have, and you may look at your policy and say, oh, I only have$25,000 in uninsured motorist coverage, I would, as your friend and your lawyer, I'll be your general counsel for the OVEC, go get as much UM coverage as you can afford.

SPEAKER_04: 23:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_02: 23:25

Right. So because if something bad happens, then. I didn't see

SPEAKER_04: 23:29

that in all the stuff that I have been reading. I didn't see anybody hit it from that angle. Especially in Atlanta. Get as much. What was that nugget? Get as much UM.

SPEAKER_02: 23:37

UM insurance as you can afford. Hmm. Because again, we're in Atlanta and oftentimes there are folks that don't have insurance or enough insurance to cover a loss. Right. And so that's a big deal.

SPEAKER_04: 23:50

Okay. How do you approach the deductible process? piece of it let's look i guess we'll focus on auto for now sure there's so they'll give you a quote and they'll say well if you do this deductible or that deductible or it seems like what i've learned from experience they they cut off at around five grand but they don't talk about the ten thousand and the twenty thousand right and and i want to i want you i want to hear your thought on it like first fundamentally how do you approach that but isn't there a point where if you're doing well enough in life, you can have that deductible a lot higher and sort of that difference there.

SPEAKER_02: 24:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 24:30

They refer to that as self-insurance as well. Like you're self-insuring the difference.

SPEAKER_02: 24:34

Yeah. So your deductible is within any policy and depending on what kind of, if you want to go auto, um, you, you have property damage happen to you based on what your policy says. Your deductible may be like you said, thousand, 5,000, 10,000. Right. And that's going to impact your premium. So it's an adjustment that the actuarials in the insurance company are literally sitting in a dark room, not literally sitting in a dark room, but they're not far off. They're doing the math. They're mathing the math and how, and how that's going to look like for your insurance, your risk profile for you as a human being, right? Your specific DNA as an insured. And so you'll, you can pick, you can say, Hey, I'd like to have just a thousand dollar deductible and You may pay more on your insurance premium, or I'll have a$10,000 deductible, and you may pay less on your insurance premium based on what you want in the event that something bad happens. Again, if it's the fault of someone else, back to the auto context, and say they don't have property damage insurance. And you do with your UM because you were smart. You went and bought UM insurance, property damage and injury and an injury. You go to your insurance carrier and say, hey, I want just to deal with you. I'm going to file a claim. Do it because you've been faithfully paying the premiums.

SPEAKER_03: 25:55

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 25:55

And then your insurance company will say, hey, well, you got to pay the five thousand dollar deductible to do that. And you'll say, well, you know what? I'll do it. I need a vehicle. I need to take all my kids everywhere. Yeah. So you do that. Right. And then if it's at fault, the person that hit you, if it's their fault, your insurance company, you will deputize them to go back against that insurance company for the loss. And in doing so, a lot of people don't know this, they are bound to go get back your deductible. So you go.

SPEAKER_01: 26:29

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 26:29

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 26:30

Okay. That's something big to know because if you want to just deal with, who's your insurance company?

SPEAKER_04: 26:37

Country.

SPEAKER_02: 26:38

Okay. Country

SPEAKER_04: 26:38

Financial.

SPEAKER_02: 26:39

Okay. So you go to country and say, hey, look, like somebody just hit me bad. I think he's got insurance. Will y'all go, you know, go against him and I'm okay, but my car is a wreck, you know, and they'll say, well, if you got to hit your 5,000 deductible and you're like, you know what? Do it. I need a car, right? So they'll go get the incident report, the police report. They'll go get, you know, they'll call that guy. They'll find out his insurance company. And then what they'll do is they'll go back and say, hey, we had to pay out for our insurer, Jeff. Y'all have to reimburse us because it was your fault for the wreck. Oh, and by the way, Jeff had to pay out$5,000 on his deductible. Send us that back, too. And then they– a lot of people don't know this because they don't ask for it. They'll send you back your deductible for your property damage, right? So the country in that scenario will and should do that for you. Oh, my goodness. Are we good, by

SPEAKER_04: 27:38

the way? We're just rolling? Okay, cool. All right. Here's where I struggle. The same– The same insurance company who has your best interest in mind, and we talked about what best interest is, that means they have floors and teams of lawyers who write contracts that go against you and I who are out here, right? Operating our vehicles and expecting that we have these good policies. That same company, right? Coming back with a quote to go, Here's where we think you should be. 1,000 deductible, 2,000 deductible. I struggle now what I know. And maybe I'm just being skeptical. Is that really what's best for me? Or maybe now, because you've opened my eyes, is that what's best for them? And should my response back to them be, I want to look at other deductibles?

SPEAKER_02: 28:40

I don't know. Yeah, for sure. No, it's a great thought. I mean, you're next level in your thinking just as a human being. But what if we ask these questions on every endeavor that we do in our lives, right? Just generally speaking, like, what am I doing and why am I doing it? And specifically within the insurance context, you have to ask those questions because you have to know that more likely than not, they are making money. And they're making money off of insured. Otherwise, if they were paying on policies all throughout America or overpaying on policies, what would happen? They'd go out of business. They're not doing that. They're making tons of money. So your skepticism is correct and accurate. It's not cynicism, but it's skepticism to say, What am I actually getting? And so you're good to push back. And I'd encourage all people to push back and shop around. But the insurance industry has made its mantra on you only pay for what you need. Like a good neighbor, you're in good hands. I can't tell you how many times my clients have not been in good hands when they've gotten hurt really bad and I've got to fight to help make them whole. Right. Or I can't tell you. They don't want to pay. Because they don't want to pay. Or they

SPEAKER_04: 30:00

want to pay the least amount.

SPEAKER_02: 30:02

They don't. And I see this. You talk about the lawyers on the other side. I mean, I feel the reason I feel as though I can have a good balance and understanding with respect to the insurance industry, but also the needs of people that have been hurt really bad is because I've worked on both sides. I've worked as a defense lawyer for a thousand lawyer firm. you know, all throughout the nation. And then I have my own law firm now. And I help you... Working on the other side. Working on the other side. Absolutely. Working on the other side. So I've been on both sides of the V to see the goods and bad. And there's plenty of goods and bad on both sides of the V. We try to do the next right thing in everything that we do. Sure. But there's plenty of things where it's like, well, this contract was absolutely written in favor of the insurance company, not the person, right? Or this exclusion is... a little bit ridiculous because this was a contemplatable event that would occur, but the insurance company got in there, wrote an exclusion, you're uninsured. I think it's important for folks to know that in a catastrophic injury event that's going to have a lot of insurance, the mantra or the playbook is for the insurance company to say, it's not our fault. Or this isn't an insurable event. And then I get engaged in a case. And then I prove. It's my burden to prove. So I prove that it was their insurance fault and the insurance company is liable. That's step one. Step two is the insurance company says, well, it was not just our fault. It was somebody else's fault. So they pull in somebody else to say something else contributed to this, making it not an insurable event. And then I go prove it. That's not right, that it actually is an insurable event. Third stage is if, you know, in an injury context, if it's an injury claim, they'll say, your client was not hurt. Or they'll say, they weren't hurt that bad. Or they'll say, They were already hurt before this happened. And so we have to get into that and fight through that web because they start at zero. They start at zero. They don't wake up. I wake up in the morning looking to recover as much as I can for other people that have been hurt really bad. They wake up in the morning thinking everybody's getting nothing on an insurance claim. And that's why there has to be lawyers. And so tort reform is such a hot topic in Georgia and in every state. But I will say one thing about Georgia. Georgia really strikes a great balance between the insurance industry, which has a huge lobbying effort and a huge presence about changing the laws. But Georgia's still the best place to practice. For me, it's been the best place to practice. It's the best place to do business. The verdicts are generally fair. I can say as a small business owner, this is a great place to own and run a business. Not every state's that way. I think Georgia does a good job of balancing the concerns that are had sometimes by the insurance industry and the concerns that we have that say, you know, we want to make sure that people are taken care of.

SPEAKER_04: 33:28

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm driving down the road and let's just say I get rear ended. I've heard there's right and wrong things to do. There's things that you can do the next steps that can put you at risk of not like not getting the claim or not getting the right reimbursement. Walk me through it. I just got hit. Rear-ended. What is the very first thing I'm supposed to do?

SPEAKER_02: 33:57

Absolutely. I hope that never happens. In that scenario, you will call 911. Police will come. They'll respond to the scene. They'll do a report. Should I

SPEAKER_04: 34:09

move my car?

SPEAKER_02: 34:10

You should stay put. You should stay put. It depends on what's happening in the traffic. If there's a lot of traffic, it's advisable to stay put. If there's not a lot of traffic and you want to get out of the way, you can do that. Which is kind of contrary to public opinion. You think if there's a lot of traffic, I should probably get out of the way. A lot of fraud happens, unfortunately, and you know, sometimes people are susceptible to safety issues and concerns when, you know, they're, they're hit. And there's a lot of literature and events and news and all that stuff about that. But when, in the event of a wreck, call the, call the police. And sometimes I tell, I tell, My clients, I don't get involved until later, but ask the operator, do you think I should move my car? Do you want me to move my car? I'm on 85. What should I do? And they'll say, well, you know what, sir? Move it to the shoulder in that spot or something like that. Because sometimes they know more. They can see more. They're communicating more with what officers are doing and so forth. So you call it in. Police comes. You want to make sure that you get the information of the other driver. And you want to make sure that you stay calm. You describe everything that happened to the officer. And that you also want to make sure that if you were hit from behind, that you were not at fault for the incident. Because if you were at fault for the incident, you would get a citation. You'd have to appear in court and handle that. After that, police comes, gives you an incident report. The incident report won't be ready three or four days. They'll give you a by-crash number that says, here's your ticket. In three to four days, it'll be available. You get that. And then after the wreck, though... Soon after the wreck, you call your insurance company and say, hey, I was just involved in a bad wreck. Somebody hit me. They were at fault. I need your assistance. Please look into it. Insurance company will say, who's their insurance company? And you'll tell them because you've collected that at the scene because you've gotten the driver's information. Exactly. And the officer will give that to you as well. And then they'll say, well, do you want to open a claim? And you can do two things. You can either open the claim with them and have them go pursue whoever hitches insurance, or you can say, no, not for now. I'm just going to go against the other insurance company. So you can open a claim with their insurance company and that's what you do. And then on the medical side, I always say, if you've taken a high impact, Yeah, yeah. I feel like I got hit by a bus and I'm sore and I'm stiff and that kind of thing. So usually it's good to make sure that you're listening to your body and making the right decisions for, you know, your future because we only get one of these. We can replace the car.

SPEAKER_04: 37:09

Is the 911, when you call 911, is that, just curious, is that recorded?

SPEAKER_02: 37:14

Oh yeah, 100%. For

SPEAKER_04: 37:15

you, I mean, to access. I know they can access it. Can you access it if you needed to and did you ever have to?

SPEAKER_01: 37:22

Oh, absolutely. A

SPEAKER_04: 37:23

little file to go. No, my client asked if they should move and they said they should move. And now the insurance is saying, well, we're not paying it because they did move.

SPEAKER_02: 37:32

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 37:33

Does that really happen?

SPEAKER_02: 37:35

We get 911 audio and dash and body cam of the officers in every rec case. And there's a way to do that. It's just open records request. So I get that data and we review it to have a full understanding because usually what, you know, You describe the things that are happening as they happen and memories change, evidence changes or gets lost or people change their position. I've had plenty of cases where somebody went up to one of my clients at the scene and said, hey, I'm so sorry I caused that wreck. And then five days later, they change their tune and say, oh, that wasn't my fault. I'm not paying for that. That happens. So that's why I go get the 911 of the at-fault person that says, hey, I made a mistake and I hit somebody because a week later they may change their tune and say, you know, Jeff was check, you know, brake checking me the whole way. So it wasn't my fault or some other car swerved out. So I get the 911 audio that says, Well, why didn't you tell the operator that somebody swerved in front of you before? And listen, I've had wild stuff on 911 calls and dash and body cam that we get. So, you know, the scorpion cams that every officer will wear, you know that well. And that records live what's happening, what people are saying. And that's very vital to my investigation process and trying to help folks because stories change, evidence gets lost, unfortunately. And we try to get that evidence because really we're on a fact-finding mission in every case to see if the case is insurable and see if we can recover for people that have bought insurance for a situation like that.

SPEAKER_04: 39:08

So at a point, then their insurance company, so the at fault, they're going to contact you and say, hey, we want to make you an offer. They're going to make you an offer. You got two parties. The at-fault insurance company, they're going to try to give you a lowball offer, aren't they?

SPEAKER_02: 39:36

Is

SPEAKER_04: 39:36

that the way it

SPEAKER_02: 39:37

works? I

SPEAKER_04: 39:39

got that before. I had that before.

SPEAKER_02: 39:40

I was going to ask you. No, that

SPEAKER_04: 39:43

doesn't even sound right.

SPEAKER_02: 39:45

Usually, lawyers that do personal injury cases like me get a bad... reputation and they're they get called as like ambulance chasers you probably heard that before sure you know you're just chasing an ambulance to find a wreck i've never chased an ambulance i never will in my life um they are when i say they the insurance companies are very very vigilant in post-rec events okay and offers like you said not too long ago my dad got rear-ended I thought it was initially really, really bad. The at-fault insurance company got my dad's number and called him. He was shaken up. They called him that day. They said, hey, Mr. Smith, we will offer you$500 for your personal injury case. Normally, we don't give a big offer like this. And, but we're going to give you$500. Well, I mean, if you went to urgent care that day, it's more than$500 and he did. Right. So it's just, that is happening. So, and I'm not saying that insurance companies are ambulance chasers, but they call, you know, plaintiff's lawyers. A lot of times what I do that, but usually they're the ones that are boots on the ground trying to, give a cut rate offer to someone so they'll settle the case. And tragically, before I've gotten involved, I've had a client that didn't think they were hurt that bad, and then it turned out they were really hurt bad, but they had already settled their case because the at-fault insurance company had swooped in and made them an offer, which they thought was okay at the time, and they needed the funds for their care, and they were scared. They were like, I need funds for my care.

SPEAKER_04: 41:33

So they took it.

SPEAKER_02: 41:34

So they take it, and then they sign for it, And it's deposited. Okay. Case is over. So I get involved and I'm like, there's nothing I can do. You know, this is a, this is a million dollar case, but you settled it for$5,000. That happens. Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04: 41:49

And if the case there, there's no case. Okay. On the personal, it's going to be one of the greatest YouTube short clips that we cut out. That's going to go unbelievably viral. So I want to go through this one more time.

SPEAKER_01: 42:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 42:02

This, this happened to me several times in my life.

SPEAKER_01: 42:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 42:06

Several times.

SPEAKER_01: 42:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 42:07

And now, as I understand, I almost fell for that. I almost fell for the insurance company. But then another thing happened. The people who lived across the street from us, whose son hit me, it turned out, right, how crazy that is. And it wasn't like in our neighborhood. It was out and about. They relentlessly called and tried to settle with me. Not a bad way. They weren't pushing me. But it was like, hey, we really want to keep this off insurance. He's 16. Our policy, their policy, the whole family policy is going to go through the roof. So I want to start back from the beginning one more time. If you or somebody out there gets hit, we're just using a rear-ending. You get rear-ended. You're going to get a call most likely from an insurance company to go, we are so sorry. Here's a check. And it might be actually like it might be two grand maybe if they know it was like a$60,000 deal, right? They'll sweeten it. So they're going to come and go, hey, here's two grand. If you accept that money and it ends up that it has the potential to be a giant case, the case is over.

SPEAKER_02: 43:25

That's right. Absolutely. You nailed it. And that's the great tragedy. Now, if an insurance company is calling somebody that has counsel already, that has me engaged, then they can't talk to them. They can't talk to that innocent victim that was a victim of a car wreck.

SPEAKER_04: 43:39

Would they know that they already have that in place?

SPEAKER_02: 43:42

Yes, because I would write them. So in other words, after a car wreck, and usually I don't get involved the day somebody gets hurt. Usually it's a couple days after. But in that window where somebody gets hurt and they don't know what to do. Yeah. And they know that there's insurance. And the insurance company at fault knows that they have some coverage to help. They may call and say, hey, we'll pay for your medical bill today. And that person may have a fractured vertebrae in their spine. And they don't know that because they haven't gotten any imaging yet to see what's going on. It's like, why is my back tingling? And why do I have leg radiculopathy?

UNKNOWN: 44:21

Sure.

SPEAKER_02: 44:21

And they go and see, and the doctor's like, hey, you're going to need a six-figure surgery to help repair your neck. But the insurance company will swoop in and say, hey, we'll pay for your urgent care bill. The case will be over. In fact, for your trouble, we'll give you an extra couple hundred dollars and be done in that window. And that does happen. That does happen. Now, there are cases where, because lawyers are expensive, where somebody will come to me and say, hey, Brandon, you know, I got in a wreck. Here are my damages. And I'll say, that's something I really believe that you can handle by yourself. And you don't need to pay me a fee to go do that. So go take care of that, right? Two visits. I went to a chiropractor, whatever. Went to my orthopedic, my primary care physician. I'm feeling good. In that event, sure, go deal directly with the insurance company. Hopefully they'll treat you fairly. If they don't, call me, right? But it's those cases where sometimes people don't know how bad it is, and usually you don't know how bad it is until a couple days after the incident. For

SPEAKER_05: 45:25

sure.

SPEAKER_02: 45:26

Because high-impact collision takes a toll. That's a really sweet spot for insurance companies to come in and flash a shiny object and say, hey, we're going to open up our wallet here. Darn. when it's the case is a million dollar case that the insurance company settles for five thousand dollars and it's gone exactly

SPEAKER_04: 45:46

no chance oh my goodness

SPEAKER_02: 45:47

that's right

SPEAKER_04: 45:49

all right what what are the mistakes that people are making out there let's we'll stay focused on the road right now and then we'll move into the other insurance let's let's stay focused on auto what are the biggest mistakes i know we went through a period of like texting and driving what's what's sort of happening out there now that you're seeing i'm sure that's still common

SPEAKER_02: 46:06

Absolutely. You mean things that are leading people to get into wrecks? Yeah. So, I mean, distracted driving is huge epidemic. And I mean, there's ways now with technology that we can avoid that where that shouldn't be an issue anymore, but it still is an issue. What's an example? So texting and driving, streaming content, you know, while you're driving, whether it's a social media app or Netflix. I had a tractor trailer driver that was streaming Netflix and hit somebody's aunt in front of them. and caused her horrible injuries. So that's

SPEAKER_04: 46:40

distracted. What is that called?

SPEAKER_02: 46:41

Distracted driving. Distracted driving, yeah. So if you're streaming. That's right. Tractor trailer companies are generally good. I mean, they're like no... absolutely one, one violation and you're done if you're streaming or looking at your, which is the right thing to do. So you'll see that on the road, you'll see driver inattentiveness, you know, especially during the holidays, you'll see people that are just working way too much. They get tired, fatigue, distracted. Um, and so we always say, make sure you're getting enough sleep, make sure you're doing the best you can to be alert, you know, on the roads. traffic is usually bad and terrible during the holidays, especially. So looking out for other people. Um, and I always, I have teenage drivers. And so I always say, look out for the other guy, just like, you know, make sure you're, you're doing the right thing. So I think within the car, making sure you're staying focused on the road, I'm really intrigued by the Musk aspect in the next, you know, five to 10 years, kind of the automated cars that will impact our industry one way or the other. Um, and what I do, but I think just, you know, Distractive inattentiveness, we see that a lot. Unfortunately, we do see a lot of cases where somebody has imbibed too much, gets on the road, and hits somebody with a BAC above the legal limit.

SPEAKER_04: 47:49

I'm guessing it's simple for you to tell if somebody was texting while there was an impact, while they hit somebody.

SPEAKER_02: 47:55

We get that data as well. Yeah, for sure. What

SPEAKER_04: 47:57

are you seeing? Are you seeing the actual second a text went out? How do you know if they were actually texting? Yeah, so

SPEAKER_02: 48:02

you get that data. Yeah, so... Man, in any case, we get all the records to understand what happened in that event. So if you're actually still framing everything that was going on in retrospect, we go back. So to do that, dash and body cam 911, like we talked about, incident report, photos, videos, statements of witnesses, anybody that was on scene, we get all of that, right? But with respect to the texting issue, that always comes up. We may or may not be privy absent a lawsuit to what someone's carrier is. We may have the cell phone, but not the carrier. We have ways to find a carrier. So you subpoena AT&T and you get a log sheet. And the log sheet gives you timestamps down to the millisecond. I mean, it's granular down to what they were doing on the phone, who they texted to, who they called, were they on the phone at the time of the wreck. You have an understanding of when the wreck happened, right? Exactly on this date at this time. And then you match them up. And plenty of times we see people that say, I wasn't on my phone. Okay, well, look at Verizon Wireless and what they have to say, given what you were doing on your phone. And I get to depose them, right? I'm like, is this your phone number? Yes. Is this your carrier? Yeah. Okay. Is this the time of the incident? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Were you texting at the time of the incident? No. No. Were you on the phone at all at the time of the incident? No. You weren't talking? Of course not. Where do you keep your phone? Well, I never keep it up front in the front seat. It's always in my backpack in the back. So I lock all that in, right? And then it's... Here's the Verizon, right? Well, remember you just testified that the wreck happened at this time. Yeah. This is what Verizon says. And it's satellites that are in outer space that are, you know, collecting your data. This is what they say. So are those wrong? You know, when it says that you're texting at the time or you're calling at the time of the wreck, you're distracted. And that's part of our fact finding mission, you know, and sometimes people aren't on the phone, but. When they are and we find out about it and they hit somebody and hurt somebody really bad and then later deny that because they think I'm not going to find out, that's when it's a problem for

SPEAKER_04: 50:23

sure. What is that considered then when you catch them straight lying like that? What is that in court at that level?

SPEAKER_02: 50:29

Uh, it's, it's going to be in, it's what's called impeachment testimony, you know? So if I take that case to trial, which if I'm that person's lawyer, I'm like, Hey, we're going to settle this case. You know, if that happens in a deposition, but, um, so we'll take that case to trial and then, you know, that testimony will come in front of a jury.

SPEAKER_04: 50:45

Yeah. Are there any times where you, where you depose a, whoever it is, AT&T Verizon, the list goes on and they don't give you record? Do you have to hit a minimum threshold? Like there has to be a certain amount of damage in an accident or are there thresholds or just you being a lawyer deposing them, they have to give it to you?

SPEAKER_02: 51:06

Subpoena power of the court, right? So I get in a legal case, I get a subpoena power from the court that I'd send to Verizon AT&T and in response to that subpoena power of our judicial system, which is great. I believe in it. They are required, compelled to produce documents and information to me for my case.

SPEAKER_04: 51:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 51:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 51:30

What are the situations we hear with Apple? I don't know the law and I don't know what the gray areas are. Sure. We'll hear headlines like Apple refuses to give password. There was a big case. I forget which one it is now. They couldn't get the login of the person's cell phone. Right. And Apple wouldn't give it up. Is that something– What's going on there? Are they just making strong and they don't have to do

SPEAKER_02: 51:56

it? They'll definitely push back. They will push back. The subpoena power is not unfettered access to all kinds of stuff. If you're looking for health records or what your smart watch is saying about how many steps and heartbeat and BPM, there's medical data on all of us. Companies, if I were advising corporations myself, I would say be wise and deliberate in what you're producing and what you're not producing in those scenarios. Apple Apple, I don't think they're just huffing and puffing and we're bigger than you. We're not going to give it to you because we don't want to. I think sometimes lawyers, even in my position, will overreach. We try not to overreach, but some lawyers will say, give me everything. And Apple's like, I'm not going to give you everything. Why would I give you everything? Specify. And even a court would say, a lawyer needs to specify what they want. But if it's very limited data, and it's not infringing on HIPAA or health, they'll send it. And then there's scenarios where we have to get granular with the court, like, hey, this is why we need it, that kind of thing. But they'll send it. I mean, as you know, data is oil. And so Apple and every massive company is collecting that data, oil, to use it.

SPEAKER_04: 53:07

And a real good example of that data piece is my insurance company offered a discount if I share my location with them.

SPEAKER_02: 53:17

Oh, yeah.

UNKNOWN: 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 53:18

I don't know. I don't even know how to interpret it. Yeah, absolutely. It doesn't feel right because once again, now I have a different lens to look

SPEAKER_02: 53:26

at

SPEAKER_04: 53:26

me. Being able to sit here and having the good fortune of interviewing you, I have a little bit different feel now.

SPEAKER_02: 53:33

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 53:34

These aren't people that are on my side. I'm just going to keep giving this visual. Right. I'm seeing a building full of lawyers that want to write contracts that work against me and not for me as a consumer. So now I'm thinking– The same insurance company, back to what I said before, the same insurance company that has our best interest in mind, right?

SPEAKER_05: 53:54

That's

SPEAKER_04: 53:55

writing these contracts. I now want to believe them when they go, yeah, we just want you to share your location with us. It's not a small discount. It's 10%.

SPEAKER_05: 54:03

That

SPEAKER_04: 54:06

seems significant. What do they ultimately want?

SPEAKER_02: 54:10

data so they want but to use that i mean unfortunately i think that you want to use some of that to weaponize you know the your premiums right or to not pay you so um and not to be cynical but yeah it's true like yeah we see i see every single day you know an insurance company or their lawyers try to get out of a case for as little as humanly possible to save the insurance company the most amount of money at the end of the year. I see that every single day. That's why we exist. That's why we try to help people. So whatever data, great question by you, and it's so astute because whatever data or fact that can be used to not pay as much as they want to pay out or to make your insurance premiums go up, they're going to do it. right? It's evidence for them to build a case to say, Hey, look, like we'd love to give you a lower premium, but you know, this GPS thing showing that you were doing 65 and a 45, you know, last week when you were late to ballet practice. Right. And so they're, they're using that info to say, you know, your risk profile is going up higher. You're, you're, we're able to see now, look, privacy is dead by and large. Right. So if I wanted to find somehow where, My nephew's friend was, on a certain date, I might be able to do that just because we have pings from satellites. But insurance company, I think, if you go in with eyes wide open to see why are they wanting to put a tracking device on my vehicle that may already have a tracking device or software or something like that, I would always say, why do they want to do that? Is there some ulterior motive when they're trying to sell you a policy that you may or may not ever use?

SPEAKER_04: 56:01

That's what I'm thinking

SPEAKER_02: 56:02

now.

SPEAKER_04: 56:03

But here's me. So I'm going, well, what if they see that I drive under the speed limit? Can I get less? Will they lower my premiums? Because I'm one of the few that actually does. So when I had my government training, Secret Service. Totally. One of the things we did was we did high, like driving school. Right. It's called driving school. But driving vehicles as fast as they can go. I mean, all sort of cool stuff. And I'll never forget an instructor. This was back in 2002. They had correlation back then to every mile you went over a speed limit increased your risk of an auto accident. And I don't know why that stuck with me, but it did. I'm probably one of the few people you're going to meet who got pulled over actually driving too far under the speed limit. I actually did. It's a true story. I don't know why, but

SPEAKER_02: 56:59

again, it's

SPEAKER_04: 57:02

10 miles under the speed limit and got pulled over. But so I'm curious now, can they come back to you and go, We just noticed over the last couple months that you're over the speed limit all the time. We're raising your policy. Or is that too abrasive? Am I taking this too far?

SPEAKER_02: 57:25

No, you're not at all. Do you think they do that? I haven't seen a scenario because I don't think people tend to drive under the speed limit as religiously. So I haven't seen a scenario where they'll say, oh, great job, Jeff, going 500. They're not going to do that. You should pay less every six months. That's not on a topic of the boardroom conversation within the insurance companies. But I do think that they are using your data if you're going over the speed limit to say, look, the risk profile is up. just like your military or just like your, your training. Yeah. It's that's to use that as leverage to say, Hey, we're, you know, cause if you come back in six months and say, why are you increasing my policy? They need something to answer to say, well, let's talk about that. You know, you had a little property damage claim here or you hit some, you know, you hit a deer or, but the, the GPS, there's some devices that are not just GPS for location speed, but also for events like event recorders. So if you hit a curb, And it sends us shocks like, oh, what was that? You just hit a curb. You took it a little too close in the parking lot. So there's these event recorders as well that can show Hey, Jeff's not as safe as we thought he was out there. His premiums need to go up because he's expensive to insure.

SPEAKER_04: 58:40

And you think proactively they can just come to you and raise them? Or are they sitting there, they have to wait until you ask to revisit your policy? Or can they just come and go, we noticed all this stuff. We're raising your rates.

SPEAKER_02: 58:53

If you push back, in six months, you're going to see a premium increase.

SPEAKER_04: 58:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 59:00

You are. And call me if you don't. Like, cause I'll use whoever you're using, but right. But, but, you know, if, if in the event that you do go to them and say, Hey, why is this going up? I'd be interested to see what they say. Yeah. And if they say it's because your GPS, you know, we were monitoring your GPS. I'd be interested if that's what they said as well.

SPEAKER_04: 59:21

So I'd be curious also to know now you, but you've opened my eyes even more. If my vehicle's in places that are considered higher risk, I don't know, shopping centers that have more break-ins, is that where we're heading?

SPEAKER_02: 59:35

Kind of the geo-fencing of car insurance? I don't know. I don't know if they're doing those analytics. I don't know if I can speak to that. I do know that they're using any and all information they can to assess how much. Let's

SPEAKER_04: 59:51

flip over to let's cover let's cover home. Right. So homeowners, I mean, the gaps are they're giant. Right. You go out and you get a get a get a quote and you might get anywhere from a thousand to five thousand. On the exact same house, just two different companies, depending on how they interview you, I've noticed. Recently, I was asked if I have pets, which yes, got two Siberian Huskies.

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:23

Are they insured?

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:25

Outside of your home policy. I found out they're not insured, but he's looking at my policy going, you're paying– To have them replaced.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:57

Is that even fair? Like$3 a month goes to pet replacement month over month, month over month, month over month, year over year, year over year. If I'm paying a$6,000 policy, I think somewhere the math doesn't make sense that I need help buying a new pet if he dies in a fire.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:19

Right. That's right. What

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:20

the

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:20

heck? What's going on? Yeah, you're right. Why am I spending money on things that I'll never use or need ever? But you are. That's the thing. We are, especially in the insurance industry. I think everything, as you know, revolves around trust, like having a strong trust relationship with the people you do business with, with the people in your life, family, etc., But you can find an agent that is an expert in this space. I'm not an agent. I'll never be an insurance agent ever. Yeah, for

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:50

sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:51

But you can find those that are trustworthy and they're not going to make you pay for something that you don't want, that you don't need, that you'll never contemplate. And they'll give you a bullet list of, hey, these are all the things that are included. Here are the things that are not included. They'll give you just kind of a menu of– Just so you know, you're paying for a pet or you're paying for a casket or you're paying for something you can never imagine. And they'll be able to form fit. A really thoughtful agent will be able to form fit. Okay, for Jeff, what do you need and what do you not need? What should you be paying for and what should you not? Find that and if you don't want to do it yourself when X insurance company comes and says, hey, here's a 110-page policy as to what you're getting ready to buy. enjoy reading it on Sunday afternoon. If you want an agent or an advocate for you, there's some good ones that will advocate and say, hey, on your home, you have a nice place. You need this, but you don't need that. So you're not unnecessarily paying because those things compound. And they know that. And your everyday American may not know that. Those things compound in interest. That's right. They come out of our pocket. We're spending$15 a year. We could ourselves be investing it, that kind of thing. And a lot of people just are not either– they don't even either care. They're not sophisticated enough to read their policy or they just– They don't think that anything like that could ever be included when a tree falls down and you're like, wait, the tree caused the damage, but I had rain come in, but you're saying the rain's not covered. Just the trees. There's different idiosyncrasies within every policy where they're like, we'll cover some things, but then the aftermath we won't cover. And it can be a headache for people that are trying to recover.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:44

What are mistakes that people make in homeowners, whether it's overbuying insurance, setting deductibles too low or too high? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 1:03:55

I think financially it's what makes sense for your family, right? Because insurance companies are taking a risk on you, but you're also taking a risk on them in a sense that if there's not enough insurance or the deductible is too high, I may be financially strained, right? So I think it's what makes sense for your family, what you feel comfortable with, and that's a very personal question. I would say making sure you know in the event that something bad happens, like you have coverage. I'm not buying an extra hurricane policy. you know, in Atlanta, you know, in Peachtree Corners right now, but there are tons of trees in Peachtree Corners and it might make sense to make sure that there's tree, if there's tree damage, wind damage, that kind of thing. So I think it's knowing what you're buying, understanding what you're actually getting and then being, you know, having a palette for some risk to the extent that, Hey, I may not be buying the most expensive policy or I may be buying a policy with a very high deductible, but I know that going in, as long as you know that going in and that's the policy you select, um, That's on you. I mean, people really do need to read their insurance policies. You can't fault an insurance company for you not reading your policy. So that's where people are so frustrated. This insurance company is just totally leaving me out to dry. But sometimes I ask, did you read your insurance policy when you got it? Well, I'm sure I got it somewhere. But you need to read it. So I think that's the biggest mistake is understanding what you're getting. The financial aspect of what you feel comfortable risk-wise is incumbent upon to that person.

UNKNOWN: 1:05:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:32

That makes sense. I want to get your opinion on this. I did find a couple really interesting nuggets as I was shopping and talking. There are insurance companies now. I don't know which ones they are. I just know the one that I got a quote from. We got all the way up to sign in the new homeowner's policy. He reached out to me. He goes, hey, our underwriter asked what kind of dog you have this is a true story and this just happened

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:06

they want to know the husky

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:07

and it's a husky and guess what happened guess what the outcome was they won't write my house now

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:12

because of the husky

SPEAKER_04: 1:06:13

because of the husky and i said why now pre-interview i had my notion you've opened my eyes once again i'm thinking the big insurance company who's got our best interest who's got the team i'm going back there going why wouldn't they write a husky They're the sweetest breed there is. They're not inattacks. And if anybody has and knows one, yeah, they look fierce. But they're the ones, the husky's the one that if somebody breaks in your house, they'll help the robber find the safe. They'll take them to the safe. That's their loyalty. They don't attack. They're not known to attack. You don't hear them in the news. I'm just curious now. Do you have any feedback on? Have you ever heard that

SPEAKER_02: 1:06:58

before? Did they say we're not insuring your home because of your Husky?

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:03

Yeah. I haven't writing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:04

So it wasn't that we're not insuring your husky or something like that. It's we're not insuring your home altogether. They're

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:11

not writing

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:12

the home policies. I mean, I would love to know. I mean, obviously, what they're looking at are, like you said, violent propensities of animals. Has there ever been a report, a claim, that kind of thing for your specific animal? Because if you had like a Yorkie, a toy Yorkie, you'd get an insurance policy probably no problem.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:30

So it makes you a little bit– In their eyes, it makes you a little bit bigger of a target because you have a bigger dog, maybe, that might knock somebody over when you're on a walk and they come after you. Yeah. That is about as far-fetched as I could possibly imagine. I know the exact type of dog that you guys own. They're phenomenal. Hold on

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:52

because I got some more good ones

SPEAKER_02: 1:07:53

for you. That's only the first one. You're really going to get me going because I'm like, that's a little absurd.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:00

Here's what he said. I'll just go by what he said. That's in writing. That prompted us to get on the phone. I go, I need some kind of understanding. I respect the decision and I know I can't override it. I got that. Help me understand. Like, do you have an opinion on this? Do you know? Cause he's not the owner of the, of the, uh, the agency. And he said, actually I do. He said, we had an email that alerts have gone up from Amazon drivers going to homes with Siberian Huskies.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:29

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:30

I go, wow. So to me, now I know I have this all wrong to me, uh, If I'm writing insurance, if I go out and start an insurance company tomorrow, I want homes that do have Huskies because I know they don't attack. I know they're not known for attacking. And I could tell you that probably 80% of the people that make a turn into our driveway and see my Husky at the front door, the first thing that comes to their mind is, I don't want to go near that door. So they're a safety mechanism more than they're anything else. So the Amazon drivers, we'd see it in the news if they were getting attacked. Is it OK for the Amazon driver to say, I feel afraid walking up to a house because that dog? I mean, they're not going in our house. Who cares if he's at the front door? He's fierce. He looks absolutely like a wild animal, no question about

SPEAKER_05: 1:09:20

it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:22

What's happening though? Like if they're not getting attacked, because again, we don't see that anywhere in the news. They're just going, the Amazon driver's just going, I feel afraid. And now the insurance company's going, well, let's not write the policy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:34

That seems a little touchy. There's more to it. Yeah, there's got to be more to it. So did he send you any of those data points or did he just say we're seeing an uptick? I'd want to see the data points. I'd just say, hey, send me that data that you're relying on. I'd love

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:46

to know

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:46

it. Yeah, absolutely. I would too. Yeah. So I've had that case, though. I mean, I've had the case. It wasn't a Husky, but I've had a pit bull literally jump through a door, a front door and attack a delivery service driver and like bit into her head, ripped her hair out like horrible, horrible thing. Yeah. And, you know, she didn't have the means. We had to find means to help her do that. You know, had to get plastic surgery on her face, all that. Yeah. So we had to go for surgery. A home policy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:19

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:20

Now, what's interesting is sometimes– this is when it gets interesting– is there are times when an owner of a pit bull, in that instance, that are known violent propensity dogs, not like Siberian Husky, but the owner won't tell the insurance company that they have that dog. That dog gets out. Homeowner insurance company says, we're denying the claim. We're not– paying for anything on this claim because the insured didn't tell us that there was a violent dog in the house or if they come clean with it and disclose it then their insurance premiums through the roof because we know pit bulls will you know yeah run through a glass door so this

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:03

isn't this is a situation where i feel good defending and taking the side of the insurance company going right

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:11

yeah

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:12

That's fair. If they don't disclose it, there's a reason they didn't disclose it. I'm curious. I wonder if AI is not going to start to bridge some of this, like tying orders together, like when you're ordering dog food. And they're the big ones. They're not the little ones for the little dogs. You have a big dog here. It's not on your policy. That's such an easy bridge to write. Yes. Now in AI. And I would love to know if we start seeing application of that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:39

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:39

Where insurance companies can easily pull that data together and go, no, he's got multiple dogs. He's buying six bags of dog food a month. Right. Yeah. And they have one on their policy.

SPEAKER_02: 1:11:47

It's not for personal use. It's not a new delicacy. Oh, my gosh. This is great. Yeah. I mean, they may be able to link that stuff. I mean, I would be not be surprised.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:58

Yeah. Okay. Cool. So there's more. So I've learned more now. I then got denied on my home. Now I have homeowners, but I'm looking to shop it. I then got denied because my roof is the original roof, which is literally perfect. No water stains anywhere on any room of any floor of our home. But they said you have an original roof, which is not that old. But we wanted to see at least one roof replacement in that period of time. It's 28 years.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:34

Okay. If nothing at all is wrong with your roof, are they just looking at it? It seems simple that they're just looking at it going, well, you probably have in a year or two, something's going to happen. Yeah. Or is that.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:46

No, I mean, based

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:47

on what you. They wouldn't write it. They wouldn't write it. They said, we're not writing it.

SPEAKER_02: 1:12:50

They're getting into your kitchen. You know what I mean? Literally, like they're getting into your kitchen, telling you that you need to remodel parts of your home and not have certain kinds of dogs or else we're not going to insure you. Right. So, I mean, how much. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:27

Because somehow they found it. So it was multiple communications. Again, it was getting ready to go to underwriting. And they said, we have two conflicting reports. Which one is right? We see new roof, and we see original roof. But they couldn't break out the square footage. We had a call it 30 by 30 addition put on that required a new roof. So that hit, I guess, in their records. So they were seeing new roof, but they also saw on the records original roof.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13:59

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:00

Them calling and me explaining that caused a denial claim. And I look at it and I'm going, I'm paying$6,000 a year faithfully, never made a claim, year in, year out, year out. I mean, I'm a homeowner for 20 years. Right. Right. This is the same

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:39

policy that you're trying to get?

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:40

Just my homeowners. I'm trying to shop my homeowners now as I'm learning. And this is the feedback you're getting. Yeah, this is the feedback that I'm getting. So this didn't happen to me, but it did happen to a very close friend of mine, and I know that you know him. He's a perimeter guy. Water heaters now, they cut not a year or two, but they cut the term of your water heater in half. So they're requiring a replaced water heater. I want to say the number is 20 to 10 now. Is this just because the insurance companies are running out of money that they have to do this?

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:20

I have no idea. I haven't seen the water heater, but I wouldn't put it past them. I mean, in everything that you just described, it's the insurance industry saying almost, hey, you need a new roof? I think, you know. We think that you need a new roof. Oh, we think that your dog is not the right size. Oh, we think that your water heater, we're going to cut it in half. At some level, I would say back to my insurance company, oh, I didn't know that you were a dog trainer. Or, oh, I didn't know that you were a commercial roofer company. Because how do they inject themselves onto you that you've been living in the house, interacting with your neighbors, seeing how amazing your dog is, seeing how your water heater is just fine. And they don't want to write the policy because ultimately they don't want to pay out on it. So I think in a lot of times I see that as well, like an insurance, an insurance adjuster in the bodily injury claim will say, well, Brandon, you know, we, we don't, we don't think your clients that hurt. And I'll say, remind me what, what medical school you went to again, you know, insurance adjuster. And they're like, good one. You know, none. I didn't go to a medical, but I do this kind of work. Right. The doctors that are putting hands on the actual people see that they're hurt and how bad it is. You as a homeowner are living in your house seeing how great things are, how fun, how an issue that they're raising is not really an issue. And so it's kind of this depersonalization by the insurance guy of these things that matter to you and in my case, my clients.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:55

It goes down to like this all reminds me of I always thought you were a good customer if you went into a car dealer and said, I'm paying cash. Like no financing.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:05

But you're not. No. That's another thing. I know it's outside of the insurance, but it's that change now. I'm changing what they might want. Maybe they want people that do claims.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:18

Right.

UNKNOWN: 1:17:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:20

I don't know. We'll know. Maybe we'll never know that answer. We'll sit here and think. But my eyes are so open now after our talk today and then all this stuff that I've got going on. But I do want to move in now. So we've covered some auto stuff. We've got into some homeowners. This Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare, right?

UNKNOWN: 1:17:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:45

I don't know. The way it appears is he's going to a meeting just like anybody else going to a meeting that day. I don't know what happened the day before. I don't know what happened the week before, the year before. But the point is something's so off that it warrants a shooter to board a train from Georgia to New York. And I know there's a lot to this story. What's your opinion? What's going on in New York? that world, that

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:11

healthcare world. Yeah, I mean, I think anytime there's a loss of life, you know, it's a tragic thing, you know, and in this case, I don't know the circumstances. More will be told over, like you just said, over the coming months. I think a good summary of our conversation today is like the insurance industry is highly, hotly charged. People, both the insured and, you know, the companies. I mean, it's just such a hot button issue. The loss of life is always tragic. But just seeing the passion around it is real, both in the health context, but also in what I do every day. So denials are, you know, justice delayed is justice denied is one of our favorite quotes is if you can deny justice, you know, and if you can delay justice, you're denying it. So whatever that looks like in any industry, obviously there has to be fact-finding, investigation, all those things. However, if you can delay those things out as long as possible while you're continuing to collect premiums, whatever the venue, that just is a very frustrating thing for people that are insured. Now, don't know anything about the facts. Time will tell related to that case, what happened, what he knew, motivation, murder. is obviously inexcusable. And that whole deal hopefully we'll have some truth to and a better understanding to. But I think it is a microcosm a little bit of the passion that's around the insurance industry and the sense of victimization sometimes or that folks are being taken advantage of. Sometimes they are, sometimes they're not. And sometimes people just need to read their policies and do their homework. And I think a good summary of this conversation is do your homework. Be an intellect with what your policy says and understand what you're paying for. Why would I give you, Jeff,$6,000 to go do something I didn't know that you were going to do in exchange? And people are doing that every day with their insurance, not knowing generally what they're getting, but not knowing the specifics of what they're going to get in exchange. And the result of that delta between the frustration and the lack of knowledge causes... a massive amount of either disappointment or anger yeah and that's why you see that's why you see that delta give rise to unfortunately you know different passions and horrible things that happen

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:39

i mean my my heart goes out as it relates to health care my heart goes out to the family out there that's just doing the best they can they're they're paying their bills They're probably working three or four jobs amongst two folks. They're doing the best they can with their kids. They're out there and they're grinding just to put food on the table. And then one after another, the claims, no, we're not paying this, we're not paying this, we're not paying this. But it doesn't stop there. It grinds me when they get on the phone. Now you got to get on the phone and sit on hold and that whole process. It's like, gosh, they just want to like continue living their life. Now they're bogged down with something that's not going to get paid. And then you got people over here, which is my school thought is no is just no. That's just no once call back and talk to somebody else. Now, all of a sudden you find that you get a different answer. So then it's like, well, what am I supposed to do? Sit on the phone for three hours a day and call? Unfortunately, that's where we are. Because I know like what my Verizon bill I've called, they wouldn't do anything. Second one wouldn't do anything. The third person said, oh, no, we have a loyalty discount. We're gonna apply that and I get$25 off my bill every month. But I had to ask for it. Back to the health insurance, what does that person do? What do they do?

SPEAKER_02: 1:22:09

Yeah, it's a tragedy of... Back to what we were talking about, justice delayed is justice denied. If you can just delay it and keep it off and be convoluted in the channels that people have to go through, just enough. You've been there when you've been on the phone where if you'd like this, dial four, and then the automated says, oh, you dialed five? Is that correct? And you're like, no, I dialed four. And you get disconnected. And you get disconnected. You have to call back. So there are fallacies that lead to frustration. In the industry. And I think for those that are trying to make it every day, trying to understand what they have, trying to understand what their premiums are, what's covered, what's not covered. Yeah. You know, an extra hour on the front end will save you hours of frustration on the back end. Yeah. And I'm hopeful that, you know, folks will do that both with whatever the vehicle is with respect to insurance policy, whatever vehicle it is, a home, auto. health that they have under a deeper understanding of that

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:10

yeah all right well this has been incredible

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:12

thank you so much thank you

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:14

for having me thanks for taking the time to come over here today i appreciate it so much so the three the three major nuggets and if you have anything else please add to it but the three that i wanna i wanna really stress out there is look at your exclusions there you get people in a lot of trouble So that's helped me now because I don't even know my exclusions, never looked at them. So look at your exclusions. Get as much UM insurance as you can afford. Yes. Am I saying that the right way? Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:43

Okay. UM, uninsured motorist coverage. Okay. As much as you can buy.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:47

It doesn't matter what state you're in?

SPEAKER_02: 1:23:48

No.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:49

States. Okay. Yeah. So get as much UM insurance as you can afford. And I approached that the opposite way and got as leased. So I'm going to change my policy today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:23:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:23:57

I'm changing my own policy. And then I think just generally, read your policies. That's what I'm hearing from you. Yeah. You're not, the insurance companies aren't always wrong.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:06

So read your, read your policies.

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:07

That's right. And trust,

SPEAKER_04: 1:24:08

but verify

SPEAKER_02: 1:24:09

that whole thing. Like, like if insurance companies calling and saying, Hey, we're going to, you know, you've got a loss, we're going to give you 10,000 for that loss. Yeah. I mean, trust, but you need to verify like, or should I be getting 15,000? Should I be getting 20? Should I be getting 50? Right. I mean, in that case that I told you about where The insurance company said, here's$5 million policy. I trust that there's$5 million, but I'm going to verify that there's not more. And so you want to always be trusting and verifying what they say, knowing that, you know, you are out for your own best interests. Yeah. you have to be for your family's best interests. The insurance company doesn't wake up thinking, how can we be for the best interests of Brandon Smith or of, right. They just don't. Right. And so, but you are, and so be a student of that, you know, awesome. So, all right. Thanks for having me, man. Thanks a lot. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:25:04

Thanks for watching the Jeff Opec show. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on all socials.