Navigating Insurance Companies

How Mann Law Navigates the Insurance Company’s Process of Evaluating Your Case

You’ve been in an accident now what?

After you’ve reported your car accident to the insurance companies a claims adjuster is assigned to your claim to handle the resulting property and physical damage. Sadly, from day one you become just a number, and to evaluate your claim most insurance companies use a computer program, and an algorithm determines how much you should be compensated.

What is Colossus and what does it have to do with my injury claim?

Colossus is a computer software program that calculates the settlement value of your car accident claim. Colossus standardizes claims and was originally used by Allstate in the 90’s as a means to save money on payouts.

Colossus was first licensed and popularized by Allstate in the 90’s. Allstate turned to Colossus because they wanted to standardize their claims. Allstate also turned to this program because it was billed as a means to save money on payouts. The system also identifies those lawyers who will not file a suit and are willing to settle for the best offer that they can get.

There are two similar products widely used by insurance companies: “Claims Outcome Advisor” (made by Insurance Services Office) and “Claims IQ” (made by Mitchell International.) Mitchell also sells “Mitchell Decision Point,” a similar software program that helps insurance companies determine if they should pay the doctor’s entire bill in PIP/Med Pay claims.

Colossus’ system has a hidden and secret rules-based system to convert a series of inputs about the nature and severity of injuries into a relative numeric score of conscious pain and suffering. There is nothing wrong with this in theory. All civil claims are about reducing the human experience of suffering into a dollar amount. However, using Colossus to evaluate personal injury claims can be unfair to personal injury victims.

A computer program designed to streamline personal injury case assessments evaluates your claim and tells them how much your case is worth. And in determining this they do something called ‘set a reserve’. After an accident, Mann Law sends a letter to the insurance company to alert of representation. The insurance company asks about injuries and accidents and this info helps the insurance company set a reserve representing how much money the insurance company thinks they will have to pay out to the client. Reserve is based on what the lawyer is telling them at face value. The client needs to make sure their reserve is set appropriately though the adjuster is the one who sets the reserve. If the characteristics of the case change, for example, the client needs more and unforeseen medical care, the reserve is changed.

The insurance company always wants a low reserve earmarked to save the insurance company money, so they may set the reserve lower than you want. The reserve includes legal costs.

Mann Law can make sure the appropriate extent of the accident is communicated effectively so the reserve is set higher than someone who does not have experience working with the insurance companies. That initial conversation about damages is really important. Keep in mind reserves can easily decrease but not necessarily increase. Chrissy Mann, Mann Law’s principal attorney, previously worked for a firm that defended insurance companies so she’s adept at understanding how to best negotiate this critical aspect of your case.

Insurance defense may involve a broad spectrum of legal issues relating to insurance policies and claims.