AIG has been treating accident victims terribly for a long time. As an insurance lawyer who deals with every no-fault insurance company in Michigan, I have seen the way AIG treats their own insureds and auto accident victims, especially since AIG is an excess insurer for many large trucking companies. AIG has been almost notoriously difficult to deal with, exposing its own insureds and primary insurance companies by routinely offering pennies on the dollar until the verge of trial for many catastrophic truck accidents that have resulted in serious personal injuries or wrongful deaths throughout Michigan.

As personal injury lawyers who handle automobile negligence lawsuits, we normally write about car accidents and truck accidents in Michigan. But given the recent headlines regarding the national outbreak of swine flu, our lawyers wanted to pass along these important tips from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s our most sincere hope that our clients and friends are protected from this new strain of influenza.

Last Tuesday was “National Be Kind to Lawyers Day.” To me, a saying on one of my old, beat-up T-shirts epitomizes the importance of personal injury lawyers on this special day. On the front is a quote from Shakespeare’s Henry VI: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”  I have always worn this shirt as a badge of honor. But imagine my surprise to see that some of the more extreme front organizations for insurance companies, pharmaceuticals, big tobacco and others - who aim to restrict Americans’ rights to the courtroom and put even more restrictions on personal injury lawyers and lawsuits - have started a new campaign also adopting this famous quote from Shakespeare.

Our truck accident lawyers would like you to have the latest truck accident statistics from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. The 2007 crash statistics are unsettling, as they show a startling number of accidents occurring, and continuing to increase in Michigan and throughout the country.

In my practice and in previous blogs, I frequently warn Michigan auto accident attorneys that defense lawyers hired by insurance companies are looking at what car accident victims are posting on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Classmates.com and blogs. I recently came across the agenda for a large insurance defense firm seminar that drives this point home. One of the topics the defense lawyers and insurance adjusters discussed was, “Using Internet Social Networking Sites as a Discovery Tool.” Basically, they ironed out how to use Facebook, MySpace, blogs and Internet sources for discovery purposes.

Upcoming SafeStat Changes Sound Good, but the Devil is in the Details

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) SafeStat Web site is a valuable resource for truck accident attorneys. By simply logging on, a lawyer investigating a truck crash can access the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) “snapshot” assessment of a particular motor carrier’s regulatory compliance. This information is so valuable that the lawyers and insurance companies defending catastrophic injury truck accident cases have lobbied – successfully – for changes to prevent plaintiff truck accident lawyers from accessing all of the site’s data.

Ask any Michigan lawyer that handles attendant care cases, and he’ll tell you there’s been a terrible game at the hands of insurance companies going on for many years. When people suffer serious personal injuries from car accidents and truck accidents, they are entitled to attendant care — also referred to as nursing services — as part of their no-fault insurance personal injury protection (PIP) benefits. The problem is that many insurance companies responsible for paying for attendant care do not inform people they’re entitled to receive attendant care in the first place.

Our no-fault insurance lawyers would like to pass on a recent press release regarding a fake insurance company targeting people in Detroit. As always, we are happy to answer questions about important coverages, and which automobile insurance companies to avoid.

The press release regarding “Fender Bender Insurance Agency” was issued by the Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation this week. It states:

LANSING — The Michigan Office of Financial and Insurance Regulation (OFIR) is warning Michigan consumers that they may have unknowingly purchased fraudulent automobile insurance certificates from an entity claiming to be a Detroit-based insurance agency named “Fender Bender Insurance Agency.” OFIR Commissioner Ken Ross has ordered Fender Bender to cease and desist from doing business.

Recently, my dad Larry Gursten and I attended the Brain Injury Association of Michigan’s 11th Annual Spring Tribute Dinner and Auction at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. This was also an event that our law firm sponsored, because we are believers in such a worthwhile cause. The Brain Injury Association of Michigan is a non-profit organization that brings together people with brain injury, their families, friends and concerned professionals like our own TBI lawyers, to improve the quality of life that people experience after sustaining a traumatic brain injury.

For nearly all of Michigan’s automobile insurance companies, the simple request to cap their insurance rates to help struggling Michigan residents has been completely ignored. A collapsing local economy seems to matter very little to these insurance companies — clearly not as much as their record-breaking profits and accompanying greed. Yesterday, I wrote about how Gov. Jennifer Granholm asked Michigan auto insurance companies in her 2009 State of the State Address to cap their rates for just one year, while the Legislature works to enact new insurance reform. Not surprisingly, the vast majority ignored the governor’s plea. It’s hard not to think that these companies are solely out to make a buck. Although a dozen car insurance companies did cap — and our no-fault insurance attorneys give kudos to them — we are deeply disappointed in the nearly 100 Michigan no-fault insurance companies that refused to help.