Are Retirement Funds Protected from Lawsuits?

[Anonymous]

OP here. The reason this whole subject came to mind is that an acquaintance of mine was "bumped" by another driver. Since then, she's continued about her business - continues to work, drive to her family's beach house in Duck every other weekend, etc.

But apparently her sister convinced her that she could get a bundle from the driver and has contacted a lawyer, who is taking the case. I have no idea what the lawyer said to her, but she called me excitedly last night (which is how I heard about it - I haven't seen this woman in more than a year) and told me she is hoping to come away with enough of a settlement to quit her job and retire. (She has an injury from years ago that she is blaming on this recent accident.)

That scared (and disgusted) me. Hence the concern about umbrella surgery. All it will take is one litigious person to turn a minor fender bender into a major claim, and ruin my life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The reason this whole subject came to mind is that an acquaintance of mine was "bumped" by another driver. Since then, she's continued about her business - continues to work, drive to her family's beach house in Duck every other weekend, etc.

But apparently her sister convinced her that she could get a bundle from the driver and has contacted a lawyer, who is taking the case. I have no idea what the lawyer said to her, but she called me excitedly last night (which is how I heard about it - I haven't seen this woman in more than a year) and told me she is hoping to come away with enough of a settlement to quit her job and retire. (She has an injury from years ago that she is blaming on this recent accident.)

That scared (and disgusted) me. Hence the concern about umbrella surgery. All it will take is one litigious person to turn a minor fender bender into a major claim, and ruin my life.

Take what she said with a grain of salt. Personal injury plaintiffs with minor injuries have a tendency to wildly overestimate what they might recover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The reason this whole subject came to mind is that an acquaintance of mine was "bumped" by another driver. Since then, she's continued about her business - continues to work, drive to her family's beach house in Duck every other weekend, etc.

But apparently her sister convinced her that she could get a bundle from the driver and has contacted a lawyer, who is taking the case. I have no idea what the lawyer said to her, but she called me excitedly last night (which is how I heard about it - I haven't seen this woman in more than a year) and told me she is hoping to come away with enough of a settlement to quit her job and retire. (She has an injury from years ago that she is blaming on this recent accident.)

That scared (and disgusted) me. Hence the concern about umbrella surgery. All it will take is one litigious person to turn a minor fender bender into a major claim, and ruin my life.

Take what she said with a grain of salt. Personal injury plaintiffs with minor injuries have a tendency to wildly overestimate what they might recover.

Thanks. She sure is dreaming big, though.

[Anonymous]

Once her lawyer gets her medical records and finds out that the injury pre dated the accident, s/he may no longer be her lawyer. And as the pp said, she is likely way over estimating what she could recover. Since she can still work, she likely willl not get a significant award. In fact, this case (if it isn't thrown out) would likely be settled by the other driver's car insurance company before trial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once her lawyer gets her medical records and finds out that the injury pre dated the accident, s/he may no longer be her lawyer. And as the pp said, she is likely way over estimating what she could recover. Since she can still work, she likely willl not get a significant award. In fact, this case (if it isn't thrown out) would likely be settled by the other driver's car insurance company before trial.

I hope so....the scheming around this bugs me....particularly since I'm the honest type. I had some little metal appliance fall off the wall at a fast-food restaurant and hit me in the face near my eye. I got bruised, went to the eye doctor to check the eye, and asked the insurance adjuster to reimburse me the $75 co-pay, $400 for the missed day of work, and another $400 for my discomfort. Boy, did he sound relieved. I hate when people see a major payday for a small injury.

And now I have hijacked my own thread.....

Back to umbrella insurance. If we are only talking about $250 (a PP mentioned that figure), it would be worth it. I also assume I would be "buying" the legal defense since I assume an insurance company wouldn't want to just hand over $1 million. It might be worth it for the legal defense portion alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The reason this whole subject came to mind is that an acquaintance of mine was "bumped" by another driver. Since then, she's continued about her business - continues to work, drive to her family's beach house in Duck every other weekend, etc.

But apparently her sister convinced her that she could get a bundle from the driver and has contacted a lawyer, who is taking the case. I have no idea what the lawyer said to her, but she called me excitedly last night (which is how I heard about it - I haven't seen this woman in more than a year) and told me she is hoping to come away with enough of a settlement to quit her job and retire. (She has an injury from years ago that she is blaming on this recent accident.)

That scared (and disgusted) me. Hence the concern about umbrella surgery. All it will take is one litigious person to turn a minor fender bender into a major claim, and ruin my life.

Take what she said with a grain of salt. Personal injury plaintiffs with minor injuries have a tendency to wildly overestimate what they might recover.

Thanks. She sure is dreaming big, though.

I ran into something similar. My wife bumped someone; impact was s o minor, there was no mark on either car. She sued, for 100K (less than my liability limit). Insurance, after looking at everything, including her history of suing, offered her the cost of her ER visit, $440. She was told that they are collecting information regarding possible insurance fraud. I do not know what the final settlement was for, but it was low enough that my insurance did not ding me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. The reason this whole subject came to mind is that an acquaintance of mine was "bumped" by another driver. Since then, she's continued about her business - continues to work, drive to her family's beach house in Duck every other weekend, etc.

But apparently her sister convinced her that she could get a bundle from the driver and has contacted a lawyer, who is taking the case. I have no idea what the lawyer said to her, but she called me excitedly last night (which is how I heard about it - I haven't seen this woman in more than a year) and told me she is hoping to come away with enough of a settlement to quit her job and retire. (She has an injury from years ago that she is blaming on this recent accident.)

That scared (and disgusted) me. Hence the concern about umbrella surgery. All it will take is one litigious person to turn a minor fender bender into a major claim, and ruin my life.

Take what she said with a grain of salt. Personal injury plaintiffs with minor injuries have a tendency to wildly overestimate what they might recover.

Thanks. She sure is dreaming big, though.

I ran into something similar. My wife bumped someone; impact was s o minor, there was no mark on either car. She sued, for 100K (less than my liability limit). Insurance, after looking at everything, including her history of suing, offered her the cost of her ER visit, $440. She was told that they are collecting information regarding possible insurance fraud. I do not know what the final settlement was for, but it was low enough that my insurance did not ding me.

OP here. Interesting. This acquaintance has sued before, so I assume that will be easy to ascertain. (And the woman I'm talkimg didn't even go to the ER. It was that minor.) I'd say the cost of her doctor visits, fender repair, and a few hundred bucks sounds right to me. She is playing this for all it's worth, though; she told me that she is in so much pain that she needs a handicapped placard - and the doctor gave it to her! (That's another area of abuse.)

She was out of breath when she told me the story (on the phone). When I asked her why she's breathing so heavily, she told me she was on her treadmill.

[Anonymous]

Get the umbrella insurance in any case. If you have a teen (especially male) driver it will be a bit more, but still worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Once her lawyer gets her medical records and finds out that the injury pre dated the accident, s/he may no longer be her lawyer. And as the pp said, she is likely way over estimating what she could recover. Since she can still work, she likely willl not get a significant award. In fact, this case (if it isn't thrown out) would likely be settled by the other driver's car insurance company before trial.

I hope so....the scheming around this bugs me....particularly since I'm the honest type. I had some little metal appliance fall off the wall at a fast-food restaurant and hit me in the face near my eye. I got bruised, went to the eye doctor to check the eye, and asked the insurance adjuster to reimburse me the $75 co-pay, $400 for the missed day of work, and another $400 for my discomfort. Boy, did he sound relieved. I hate when people see a major payday for a small injury.

And now I have hijacked my own thread.....

Back to umbrella insurance. If we are only talking about $250 (a PP mentioned that figure), it would be worth it. I also assume I would be "buying" the legal defense since I assume an insurance company wouldn't want to just hand over $1 million. It might be worth it for the legal defense portion alone.

Exactly. An insurance company is a veritable army of lawyers. If there's a way to destroy a claim against you, they will find it. Get an umbrella and rest easy.

And to the person recommending it for young male drivers, yes; males between 16 and 29 are the most likely to be involved in fatal crashes of any group under 80:

http://www.thecarcrashdetective.com/2016/01/how-dangerous-senior-drivers-compared-teenagers.html/

[Anonymous]

Definitely get more insurance than you think you need - both your liability and umbrella policy. Also most people overlook the importance of uninsured and underinsured coverage (UIM). You have that so that if you are hit by a cheap driver carrying the minimum insurance and your injuries are severe (long hospital stay, amputation, brain injury, paraplegia, etc.), your own UIM kicks in to provide additional coverage. It's not enough to rely on medical/health insurance either. UIM could help you cover lost wages, out of pocket expenses not covered by health insurance.

[Anonymous]

Completely agreed on the legal defense being worth it alone -- that was as much our reason for buying it as the settlement coverage.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks everyone. I'm convinced. Small price for peace-of-mind.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thanks everyone. I'm convinced. Small price for peace-of-mind.

We have $3 million and I think we pay about 350-400 a year. It let's us sleep better.

[Anonymous]

To OP: I was on a jury for a minor fender bender. It took three days. The jury mostly was extremely disgruntled because they thought no way this case should have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone take up that amount of time clogging up the courts. We had a couple of jurors, however, who were sympathetic to the claim of whiplash, which oddly required a lot of dental work.

Lawyers for both sides were terrible. We had jurors who wanted to reward nothing. As a compromise, we requested an adding machine and added up all the medical bills submitted. We rewarded that exact amount down to the penny. Around $10,000 as I recall.

No big bucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To OP: I was on a jury for a minor fender bender. It took three days. The jury mostly was extremely disgruntled because they thought no way this case should have seen the inside of a courtroom, let alone take up that amount of time clogging up the courts. We had a couple of jurors, however, who were sympathetic to the claim of whiplash, which oddly required a lot of dental work.

Lawyers for both sides were terrible. We had jurors who wanted to reward nothing. As a compromise, we requested an adding machine and added up all the medical bills submitted. We rewarded that exact amount down to the penny. Around $10,000 as I recall.

No big bucks.

OP here. Thanks....glad to hear it. These frivolous lawsuits are driving up the premiums and rewarding schemers.