The U.S. Chamber and Big Insurance: Leaving South Carolina Consumers in the Cold

If it were up to big insurance companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, consumer legal funding would just disappear in South Carolina.  When consumer legal funding began providing services in the Palmetto State, consumers had an alternative to big insurance companies’ delay tactics and low-ball settlement offers for injury claims.  People like Queen from Bishopville, South Carolina or Margaret from Clinton, South Carolina no longer had to worry about their daily living expenses and could finally stand toe-to-toe with the big pocketed insurance companies to fight for what they deserved, a fair settlement on their injury claim.

For too long insurance companies in South Carolina and across the U.S. got away with less-then-market rate settlements with consumers for automobile or on-the-job injury claims.  The insurance companies used notorious tactics to delay claims long enough that an injured consumer was financially in trouble, was out of work and without a paycheck, couldn’t hang on any longer and would take a much lower settlement then what they actually deserved.

Not until consumer legal funding products came along in places like South Carolina, could consumers finally stand up and say “enough is enough.”  With consumer legal funding, consumers who have an injury claim pending with an insurance company can obtain non-recourse funding to help pay for everyday living expenses like rent, 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.

Consumer legal funding couldn’t have been more helpful and important to Queen and her family, from Bishopville, South Carolina.  “[Consumer legal funding] really helped me because with the money, I could pay the rent and buy food for the kids.”  She said, “Thank you with all my heart.”

For Margaret from Clinton, South Carolina her situation was dire.  After months of waiting and still not having her claim settled, she had no other options but to seek a consumer legal funding company.  She was glad she did. “[Consumer legal funding] has helped keep a roof over our [families’] heads and food on our table.”   

The Insurance companies, along with their mouthpiece, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, want consumers, legislators or anyone else who will listen to believe consumer legal funding is bad for consumers and a serious risk to the future stability of the U.S. judicial system. 

These comments by big insurance and the Chamber are, of course, false.   These are merely PR tools they use as diversions to hide their true intentions, which include getting rid of consumer legal funding in places like South Carolina.  They prefer to return to their old ways of doing business, by forcing consumers like Queen or Margaret into less-then-fair settlement offers, saving insurance companies billions of dollars, while leaving consumers out in the cold.

    

Cornell Study Highlights Flaws of Chamber’s Survey of State Liability

Theodore Eisenberg, a Professor at Cornell Law School, in a 2009 study, questioned the validity of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Survey of State Liability.  The study, which was entitled, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Liability Survey: Inaccurate, Unfair, and Bad for Business , hits hard at both the Chamber’s methodology and conclusions.

 “Normally such a flawed study would not be worth evaluating. But the Chamber uses its large budget to promote the survey and, as noted above, the survey receives substantial attention,” Eisenberg states in his study. “The most damaging effects of the Chamber’s survey likely are not on the states the Chamber attacks but on our whole country’s fiscal and physical well-being.”

Eisenberg continues, “The Chamber’s survey violates the elementary principle that evaluation of legal system performance should be based on input from both sides to dispute. [T]he Chamber’s study is a caricature of what a serious evaluation of a liability system should look like.”

As the Chamber attempts to move its so-called “reform agenda” to state legislatures in 2014, the important thing to note about their Survey of State Liability is that they use this study as a centerpiece to criticize judiciaries to seek extensive legal reforms that would essentially benefit a few of their larger corporate friends.

Fortunately, Eisenberg’s study captures the dishonesty of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  A Chamber that has become a voice for just a handful of big corporations, spreading false claims and skewed studies to help enhance a few at the expense of many.  Nowhere is this more true than the Chamber’s efforts to attack consumer legal funding.

Now fast forward to 2013 where Thurbert Baker, Counsel to the Chamber is leading efforts against consumer legal funding companies.  Using similar legal reform tactics to hide behind true intentions of protecting a few large insurance conglomerates at the expense of consumer legal funding, he has stated on numerous occasions that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is concerned that the practice of consumer legal funding is harming consumers and is having a negative impact on our civil justice system.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Consumer legal funding has a tremendous history of helping those across the country who need it most by providing financial help.  It is through this financial help that consumers can then worry less about their daily living expenses and instead concentrate on finalizing their settlements with their insurance company in a fair and full manner.

Putting profit protection over consumer protection is the endgame for the Chamber’s efforts on consumer legal funding. Fortunately for consumers, we can thank this Cornell study for blowing the whistle on these phony surveys upon which so much of the Chamber’s so-called legal reform agenda is based.

Big insurance wants you to believe consumer legal funding is some monstrous organization that doesn’t care about the consumer.   Of course these are only desperate words being used by big insurance to try and protect their decades old strategy of deliberately delaying injury claims in hopes of settling for a less than fair market value with a claimant.

The tactic for big insurance is simple, find those claimants who are financially disadvantaged.  Often these claimants, like many Americans, are working paycheck to paycheck, do not have significant savings and have been in an automobile accident that has left them unable to work and without any money coming into the home.  Big insurance knows these people are the most vulnerable and most likely to settle for less if the claim process is delayed.

Big insurance has been utilizing these delay tactics on the financially vulnerable for decades.  In contrast, consumer legal funding has provided a lifeline to those who need financial assistance and want to get a fair settlement for their injury claim.

Consumer legal funding helps level the playing field with big insurance, especially those who are financially vulnerable.  Instead of settling for pennies on the dollar, a claimant can now pursue non-recourse funding through a consumer legal funding organization.  Through this funding a consumer can access funds to help pay for everyday necessities such as housing, transportation, utilities and food. These funds help keep the consumer’s daily life going, while they wait for their claim to be settled in a fair manner.    

Cristy from Georgia, who was involved in a terrible accident, is a prime example and just one of the millions of claimants who would have been held hostage by the outrageous delay tactics of big insurance if it weren’t for consumer legal funding. 

“I was unable to work and had [gone] thru all my savings,“ Cristy said. “I tried to refinance and since I didn’t have employment [due to the accident], no one would give me the money and I needed money to pay my mortgage and buy groceries.”

Cristy goes on to say, “I am still [waiting for my claim to be settled in a fair manner] and am thankful [a consumer legal funding organization] gave me the money when no one else would.”

Thanks to consumer legal funding, Cristy has a financial lifeline that will help get her daily life back on track and will allow her stand up to big insurance and their delay tactics.     

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a free market is defined as “an economic market or system in which prices are based on competition among private businesses and not controlled by a government.”   

Tom Donohue, President and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce “seems” to agree with this philosophy in a recent op-ed stating, “American businesses and consumers are being buried under an avalanche of rules from a system that is increasingly opaque and unaccountable. Since 1976, we’ve added 176,000 regulations to the books. Federal agencies are churning out another 4,000 every year.”

But at a November gathering of top insurance legislators, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, on behalf of large insurance companies, was actively seeking government intervention to regulate the business of consumer legal funding.  These burdensome set of anti-free market price control regulation guidelines were designed for state legislators to use as a template in crafting legislation that would help handcuff and end the consumer legal funding industry. 

The issue for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and large insurance companies is how the consumer legal funding business is impacting the way large insurance companies prefer to deal with automobile and on-the-job injury claims.  The typical strategy for a large insurance company is to utilize long delay tactics against a claim, dragging settlements on as long as possible, in hopes the claimant becomes desperate enough to settle for pennies to what is actually owed.  

On the other hand, consumer legal funding is a service that offers a claimant a counter to the large insurance companies’ delay tactics.  With consumer legal funding, a claimant has the opportunity to acquire non-recourse funding to help pay for essential items such as food, rent or other daily necessities.  This non-recourse funding can help sustain the needs of a claimant’s everyday expenses while allowing them to pursue a full and fair settlement regarding their injury claim.

The bad news is the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce suspiciously talks about free markets and de-regulation policy when in the public eye, but is actively seeking anti-free market price control regulations that would endanger businesses such as consumer legal funding behind the scenes.

The good news, however, is that the group of legislators at the November meeting decided to decline action on the U.S. Chamber’s anti-free market legislative proposals.  A win for all small businesses who are increasingly faced with competing industries running to the government to try and impose burdensome anti-free market regulations to help solve their problems.  

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce needs to stop pushing for anti-free market, government intervention type regulations to protect a select few businesses, and instead start pushing for free market policies that benefit ALL businesses.    

According to an Allstate Financials Life Tracks Poll, nearly half of all Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.  They rely on those paychecks to cover their essential monthly bills, with minimal-to-no money left over for anything else.  At a time where every household dollar counts, the family budget in America has become very fragile.

Moms and Dads who are prevented from working due to a sudden injury or accident, strain to keep the family budget intact.  Those events can send shockwaves through a family’s finances while they wait for a fair and just settlement, along with getting back to work and providing for their family. 

Unfortunately, some in the Big Insurance industry are taking advantage of these fragile family budgets.  They are using their knowledge of the family’s struggling financial situation to bolster their negotiating position in hopes of gaining a quick, and cheap, settlement.

Luckily for families affected by these uncontrollable events, Consumer Legal Funding is available as a resource to help strengthen a family’s budget while they await a fair settlement.  Consumer Legal Funding is a way for consumers to access a financial lifeline to pay for essential bills, along with putting food on the table for their families while their case is being processed in the vast wasteland called “the claims process”.

Those same Insurance companies are taking advantage of those struggling financially by trying to limit and eliminate the practice of Consumer Legal Funding. 

Eliminating the access to Consumer Legal Funding would create a huge disservice to the many Americans who rely on this service every day. It is the Big Insurance Industry’s way of saying “we are the ones writing all the rules and we do not care that you cannot feed your family. We are going to drag this out as long as we can to get what WE want and not what you are entitled to.”

Everyone deserves to be treated fairly and with dignity. Consumer Legal Funding ensures they will get that chance.