Larry Dent wrote:
>
> Interesting comments, and I don't really disagree, since Calif. has
> always marched to its own drummer in more ways that legal,
Since I don't know where you live, I don't have any snide remarks to
make about it.
> BUT, I would caution one thing about assuming the policy will pay for
> your legal defense.
If you are an insured under the policy, they would fail to defend at
their very great peril.
> The caviet here is that if you are one of a body of named parties to a
> suit, the legal defense may be predicated upon ideas that are NOT in
> fact to your best interests.
If there is a conflict of interest between some defendants and others,
the carrier has to duty to provide each party, or set of similarly
situated set of parties, with separate counsel. Most major carriers
know this as a matter of course. The more scrupulous carriers not only
provide separate counsel, but they also split the file; i.e. each of
the separate attorneys reports to a different adjuster, and ideally the
separate adjusters are located in different branch offices.
> I would consider it mandatory, if I were involved in a major suit as a
> named party, to obtain my own council, and in most cases, this would not
> be paid for by the policy.
Then why even have insurance? Your premium dollars would be as usefully
used if you just arranged them in a loose pile and set fire to them.
Unilaterally doing that probably would let the carrier off the hook for
paying for any settlement or judgment since you have deprived them of
the rights to select counsel and control the litigation. Now if you
want to have an attorney monitor the defense you're providing, you
certainly can do that, and it will be at your own expense. If the
lawyer you select to do this isn't experienced in defense of claims of
this type, you would probably be wasting your money.
> Again, as I said, the lawyers smile.
If they don't bite the first time, troll again. No, thanks.
> I don't mean that as a slam at the legal profession, it is simply the
> way things are with the present legal system.
Right. The connection of this to the issue of the behavior of insurance
companies is obvious.
--
Tom M.
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