As a no-fault insurance lawyer, I have seen many, many dishonest tactics insurance companies employ to avoid paying benefits to very injured car accident victims. But this is by far, one of the most appalling. In the published Michigan Court of Appeals case Roberts v. Farmers Insurance Exchange, Farmers Insurance unilaterally scheduled a mandatory insurance medical examination (also known as an IME), for a child with a traumatic brain injury. The insurance company did this without first checking to see if the appointment date and time would conflict with the child’s working and indigent mother’s schedule.

Young drivers account for more than one-third of all car accidents. To put that into perspective, drivers ages 16-24 were involved more than 34 percent of all traffic crashes last year, according to SEMCOG. This fact came as no surprise to me, because as an auto accident attorney, I sadly see car crashes at the hands of teen drivers on a regular basis.

Just last month, we received a $2 million jury verdict in Lenawee County for a client who was hit by a teenager with a car full of girlfriends. The teen was speeding and trying to pass our client’s truck on the gravel shoulder, because she didn’t want to wait a couple of extra seconds for traffic to clear.