Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer - Article

How Insurance Companies Profit from Your Injuries

In an ideal world, insurance companies would exist only as – well – insurance. They would collect reasonable premiums and promptly pay out benefits to policyholders when they are injured. The claims system would be fair, unbiased, and efficient, and insurance adjusters would put your interests at the top of their priorities.

In the real world, the picture is quite different. Insurance companies are exactly what they sound like: for-profit companies who happen to be in the insurance business. Premiums are calculated to increase revenue, and policyholders often find that their claims are delayed, denied, or simply buried beneath mountains of bureaucratic red tape.

The Insurance Business Model

Insurance companies run on a simple core principle. Profit equals the sum of the premium payments they receive, plus the amount of income from the investments they make with these payments, minus the amount of money they pay out to settle policyholders’ claims.

And therein lies the problem – the more money an insurance company charges for premiums, and the less money they agree to pay out on claims, the more money they wind up with at the end of the day. There is an unavoidable conflict of interest: does the company put its customers first and sacrifice profits, or does the company put itself and its shareholders first, and do its best to deter customers from making claims? Anyone who has ever filed an insurance claim knows the answer.

Of course, no insurance company could survive by admitting the dirty truth, and so they must strike a sort of profitable compromise. Premium payments are expensive enough to be profitable, but not so expensive that customers decide to leave. Claims are not outright ignored; they are processed, reprocessed, analyzed, approved, reviewed, and considered ad nauseum, until the policyholder has little choice but to accept a less-than-optimal payout.

Getting Your Insurance Company to Pay Up

If you have been injured in an accident, odds are your insurance company is reluctant to pay you the benefits you were promised. They can pull up an endless list of reasonable-sounding excuses to keep you from getting the full amount you are entitled to – what can you do?

Chicago personal injury lawyers Friedman & Bonebrake, P.C. can help. If you have been in an accident, they can help you demand compensation from the person responsible for your injuries, his/her insurance, and even your own insurance company. Call 312-466-8200 to get started today.