Blogs

Lie to your insurance company = no insurance coverage

I posted an opinion of a judge from the Circuit Court of Virginia Beach in our library. Basically, Ms. Rogers had sued for the injuries she received in a car wreck.  The insurance company for the defendants said, "We don't have to provide insurance to these guys because they lied when they applied for insurance."  The court agreed with the insurance company, and the result was that Ms. Rogers could not get any insurance coverage from them. The defendants were responsible for paying for her injuries out of their own pockets.

I posted this article for two reasons:
1.  Never, ever lie when applying for insurance coverage.  The defendants in the Integon case I posted in the library may have lied to save money on the premium.  (They did not disclose a youthful male driver in the family.)  The insurance company said it would have probably provided coverage even with the knowledge of the additional driver but it would have charged a higher premium.  Instead, the court said it didn't have to provide coverage at all. You don't ever want to be in a position where your insurance company can deny coverage for damages you cause.

2.  Things are not always what they seem.  If you are hurt by a careless driver, it takes an experienced Virginia insurance lawyer to figure out what insurance coverage may apply to cover your injuries.  Insurance companies are different; they have different provisions in their contracts.  Each automobile insurance policy is really several contracts that have different rules and definitions and time limits.  An experienced Virginia insurance lawyer can investigate the facts and figure this out for you.

Injured plaintiff lies and hurts claim

Talking to a potential client for the first time is the best chance for us to get to know each other.  Is he going to trust us?  Are we going to trust him?  Will we be able to work together?

We give the potential client lots of information and lay out our rules.  Yes -- we have rules that clients must follow if we are going to be able to help them with their case.

The first rule:  TELL US THE TRUTH.  Every case has good facts and bad facts.  We can only deal with the facts that we know about.  So, if a client doesn't tell us something because he thinks it will hurt his case and nobody will find out about it, he's right about the first point -- it'll hurt his case -- and wrong about the second point -- the other side will always find out about it.

I recently read an article by a friend of mine who practices in Washington State who had a client who lied about his inabilitiy to do ceretain physical activities.  What did the defense attorney discover?  The plainitff had put photos and a video of himself all over his Facebook page snowboarding and going off jumps at high rates of speed. 

That sure didn't help convince a jury that he was badly injured.  Heck, I wouldn't even believe the guy. 

If he had told his lawyer about this snowboarding escapade in the first place, the lawyer could have dealt with the truth.  But the client's lie didn't give the lawyer the chance.

I have written a book about the Five Fatal Errors That Can Destroy Your Virginia Accident Case (And How to Avoid Them).  Telling your lawyer the truth is the first rule. 

You can get a free copy of the book from our website www.WRSattorneys.com, or by calling us at 703-273-9500 and asking that one be sent to you or you can fax your request to 703-273-9505.  It's full of valuable information.