In an effort to help you the consumer be more aware of what really happens with your insurance premiums, I want to make sure you understand what happens when the real world collides with the insurance world. 

Hypothetical, or Example:

Suppose you are in South Carolina driving your beautiful wife and young child to church one morning when suddenly and without warning a drunk driver passes out at the wheel behind you and plows into your vehicle causing serious personal injuries. The drunk driver stumbles away from the scene but is later found at the convenient store nearby trying to buy beer. The police come do an investigation as you and your family are taken off by EMS to a nearby hospital and you eventually get to talk to the trooper that investigated the collision. The trooper indicates the driver was arrested for drunk driving (the driver’s 4th), driving under suspension and disorderly conduct. He will probably be released from jail soon since no one died and since he doesn’t really have any money, the fines will be a moot point. Drunk driver has no insurance on the vehicle because he could not afford it and lives in a van by the river (so no assets). 

Question:

1) Who pays for the medical bills, damaged property, permanent scarring, surgeries, and months on end of an altered lifestyle all because of this idiot?

2) Do you think the EMS transportation, medical services, car dealership, towing company, plastic surgeon, therapist, and rental company all will work for free out of the kindness of their hearts?

 

Answer:

1) In the state of South Carolina the law is that every driver must carry liability insurance and uninsured insurance to drive on the roadways in the state. That is it. Any additional coverage is up to you and what you are savvy enough to get with the right insurance company and agent.

So using the hypothetical above, the family injured would have to file a claim against their own automobile insurance company to try and be reimbursed and brought back to the position they were in before the drunk driver ever struck them.

Do you think that means your own insurance company will bend over backwards to help you OR do you think that means your own insurance company that you pay the premiums on will stand in front of the drunk driver and work against you to minimize what you receive?  Let me answer that for you…the later.

What if you have to file a law suit? Who represents the drunk? Well your insurance company provides an attorney that will look to be representing his interest and would actually sit at the drunk’s table in front of the jury at a trial. 

That is why it is important to get a good insurance company focused on its members instead of a poor insurance company focused on their bottom line. In my opinion the top poor insurance companies are Allstate, Esurance, Safeco, and Direct General. It doesn’t mean your insurance company is great if I didn’t just list it, these are just the worst. 

2) No those services are not free and they will send you to collections if you do not pay them within 90 days regardless of who is at fault. They provide services and they want their money for those services. 

 

Stay tuned for more real life scenarios. To better educate yourself on insurance read these posts. 

 

"Full Coverage" Automobile Insurance

 

How Do Insurance Companies Make Money?

Tags: Coverage, liability, Uninsured, uninsured liability coverage
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Photo of Trey Mills Trey Mills

Floyd S. “Trey” Mills III knows that suffering a personal injury through no fault of your own can be a nightmare for the victim and his or her family

Mr. Mills was born on April 24, 1978.  His parents, Floyd S. “Butch” Mills,

…

Floyd S. “Trey” Mills III knows that suffering a personal injury through no fault of your own can be a nightmare for the victim and his or her family

Mr. Mills was born on April 24, 1978.  His parents, Floyd S. “Butch” Mills, Jr. and Patricia Yarborough Mills, were originally from Newberry, South Carolina, and soon after the birth of Mr. Mills, his parents brought him back to be raised in the same county they grew up in.

Education

Mr. Mills attended Newberry Academy from grades K-3, Gallman Elementary 4th grade, Rikard Elementary 5-6th grade, Mid-Carolina Middle School 7-8th grades, Mid-Carolina High School from 9-12th grades, Clemson University, and Walter F. George School of Law at Mercer University.

Health Crisis

While Mr. Mills was a junior in high school he was chosen by his school to be a representative to Boys State.  This was a great honor and would have been an even better experience except, while at Boys State, Mr. Mills became unusually ill with blackouts, night sweats, and back pain.  Fortunately for Mr. Mills, his mother was an ER nurse at Lexington Medical Center, but unfortunately, for Mr. Mills that did not change his diagnosis of Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia.  Along with his diagnosis, Mr. Mills received a prognosis of two weeks.

Obviously, Mr. Mills has been blessed with his second chance at life and those who have been wronged by health care insurance companies and other types of insurance companies can feel confident in knowing that Mr. Mills can not only empathize with them but fight fervently for their side.  Mr. Mills’ cancer experience and his mother’s arduous yet unsuccessful battle against lung cancer were very trying times.  However, those real-world battles and experiences were nothing compared to the administrative and billing wars he had to encounter with Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Insurance. It seems BCBS would deny any charge over $1,000 without rational reasoning therefore prompting Mr. Mills to go to law school and carry the torch for those that were too ill to fight for themselves while the school yard bully beat them down.

College

Mr. Mills went on to Clemson University where he was very active in student activities along with academic accomplishments.  Mr. Mills was invited to join Calhoun Honor’s College, Sigma Pi fraternity, Golden Key National Honor Society, Student Government, IPTAY Student Advisory Board, and Tiger Brotherhood. Mr. Mills also worked as a student employee with IPTAY Scholarship Fund under the direction of Bert Henderson, formerly the Associate Athletic Director of Planned Giving at Clemson University.

Early Life

Mr. Mills was unsure of where his hard work and life experiences would best provide an adequate return to the outpouring of kindness he received during his cancer experience. Having received many blessings from the American Red Cross, Mr. Mills went on to be an Apheresis Donor Recruiter under the supervision of Barry Pollard at the American Red Cross Blood Donor Services in Columbia, SC after graduating Clemson University.

Running from his true calling, Mr. Mills fled to Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico to Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).  Having spent a semester of college in Madrid, Spain, Mr. Mills thought he should be assisting foreign countries. Mr. Mills was certified by the Vancouver Language Centre in Guadalajara for his TEFL training.  Mr. Mills was in Guadalajara only a few months when September 11, 2001 occurred and helped him focus on his life priorities.

Law School

Mr. Mills went on to law school at Mercer University and clerked each summer trying to determine how he could best serve those less fortunate.  The corporate law firms never truly provided him with that personal feeling of assisting the common person in need.  It wasn’t until Mr. Mills became the first law clerk of the South Carolina Trial Lawyers Association under the supervision of Linda Franklin and lobbyist Michael Gunn that he realized where his education, life experience, drive, and hard work could truly benefit those who have been personally and directly affected by the negligence of another.  Mr. Mills wanted to be a coveted and much needed plaintiff’s trial attorney.  More importantly Mr. Mills realized the power of the faceless insurance companies, misinformed legislative members, and the true power of money and lobbyist in dictating laws.

What’s the one service you pay for all your life but you are actually penalized if you ever have to use it? Insurance.

Trammell & Mills

Mr. Ernie Trammell gave Mr. Mills his big break at leveling the playing field against the faceless and heartless insurance companies.  Mr. Mills works tirelessly every day in an effort to bring justice to those who have been wronged.  Mr. Mills has worked on both sides of the law and has been through some harrowing life experiences.  Mr. Mills has been tested and tried by many of the more traumatic events that life has to offer and now provides his services to the public.

Who would you rather have on your side? Someone whose resolve has been tested and tried? Or someone who has intertwined their morality and greed in such a way that they can’t tell one from the other?

Why haven’t you hired Mr. Mills to be your attorney yet?

Would you listen to the devil on how to get to Heaven? Then why listen to insurance adjusters?

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