A plan in Tennessee that Hurts Working Class Citizens, While Helping Large Insurance Companies
If it were up to big insurance conglomerates like State Farm or D.C. advocacy groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the business of consumer legal funding would not exist in Tennessee. In fact, there is legislation pending in the Tennessee legislature that would do just that, shut down the consumer legal funding industry for good in Tennessee.
When consumer legal funding began providing services in Tennessee, consumers finally had an alternative to cowering to big insurance company’s delay tactics and low-ball settlement offers for injury claims. Hard working citizens like Conis from Goodlettsville, Tennessee or Benjie from Madisonville, Tennessee no longer had to agonize over their daily living expenses or be intimidated by billion-dollar insurance companies. Instead they could fight for what they deserved, a fair settlement on their injury claim.
For too long insurance companies in Tennessee and all across the United States have gotten away with less-then-market rate settlements with consumers for automobile injury claims. Insurance companies, such as State Farm, use anti-consumer methods to delay claims just long enough that an injured consumer becomes financially desperate, cannot wait any longer for a payment claim, and end up taking a much lower settlement then what they actually deserve. These trademark insurance company tactics prey on innocent working class citizens who are injured, unable to work and are without a paycheck.
With consumer legal funding, consumers who have a pending injury claim can obtain non-recourse funding to help pay for everyday living expenses such as rent, utilities, transportation and food. These small amounts of funding help alleviate the worries of the consumer’s daily financial lives and allows them to pursue a fair settlement for their injury claims with powerful insurance companies.
Consumer legal funding was critical in helping Conis and his family from Goodlettsville, Tennessee through some challenging times. “[Consumer legal funding] helped a great deal. If it weren’t for [consumer legal funding], we would be on the street.”
Benjie from Madisonville, Tennessee, simply said, “[Consumer legal funding] helped pay my bills.”
Insurance companies, along with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, whose chairman is conveniently the CEO of State Farm Insurance, will spend millions of dollars to tell a tall tale to consumers, legislators or anyone else who will listen that consumer legal funding is a product that is bad news for the consumer.
These misleading campaigns by the insurance industry, through the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are, of course, false. These are merely desperate diversions to their true intentions, of eliminating the consumer-friendly services of consumer legal funding in Tennessee in hopes of going back to their old ways of doing business.
It is time for Tennessee legislators to tell the large out-of-state insurance companies and Washington, D.C. based advocacy groups NO, and instead stand up for working class Tennesseans like Conis and Benjie to preserve the services of consumer legal funding.
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