I was driving a fellow worker to the Portland Oregon airport a few years ago via our furlough.
We had been working for Brandenburg in Boardman Oregon at a PGE ash plant we were demoing.
An idiot was driving his white pick up on the sidewalk and left the sidewalk to avoid hitting a light pole.
When he left the sidewalk he totaled my 2016 Ford Escape
I didn’t have a dashcam at the time so it was my word against his but I did have a witness in the car with me.
He did have a dashcam which according to his side was not working at the time.
Both our insurance companies (his Geico and mine Progressive) get involved and my insurance Progressive did not investigate and support me the way they should of.
In fact my insurance Progressive took his side without a thorough investigation of the facts or checking his driving history.
And he had different stories to cover up what happened which Progressive knew and still took his side.
He originally said he was in the pullover lane and when I investigated the location there was no pullover lane so he had to change his story that I hit him.
He had a history of driving into a Portland Airport airplane when delivering food. The food company fired him.
The first attorneys representing me said we couldn’t use any of that in that you cannot bring a person’s driving history into the litigation or court.
Later I find out those accident attorney law firms were owned by agencies outside the US, one in France and another in Mexico who have law agencies here in the US and they like to make deals with their client below the value of the accident. (Property damages, injuries)
The one owned by a Mexican woman has two men on the cover of her firm pretending to be her. And when I was in therapy I overheard the doctor saying that agency had not paid the bill for their client.
Auto attorneys will promise you the world to get on board but the truth is that there are good and bad accident attorneys out there.
In projects fellow workers showed me pictures of their cars totaled and took a settlement way below the damage and injuries because their lawyers convinced them they couldn’t get a better deal.
I told them they made a bad decision and they would tell me “How would you know? You are still going through your accident legal wise and don’t know how it will turn out.”
I had faith!
There are attorneys who will try to get you to settle for 4k to 6k saying you will be lucky to get that when the damage alone is around 12k to 14k and that is apart from injury and physical therapy.
There are also attorneys who will not take your case because you fired some attorneys. Keep on making phone calls.
I fired a few of those low ball attorneys till I found Merkel & Conner.
They got me 18k apart from the Attorneys and therapists getting paid.
Before I go into the next car accident readers need to understand most people pay for basic liability which covers 22k. That is if the person who hit you even has insurance
Then your insurance in theory should cover whatever the balance is.
So when you see these false commercials saying I was offered this much before ______ and _____ got me 50k those are not realistic commercials. And you should avoid attorneys offering something they cannot fulfill.
I switched to National General over that last car accident and National General has been good to me.
September 11, 2024 I was at a stop light. A Toyota Corolla drives into me full force and totals the front of his car and there was no damage to the Ford Sports Bronco Big Bend though there was damage to me.
As he was backing up after hitting me my dash cam got his license plate.
Next day I filed my DMV report and called Merkel & Connor and their plate was already full of cases but they referred me to sean@burtinjury.com Sean Burt.
This guy also had Geico insurance when we investigated the license plate.
Geico kept denying getting the video footage so we kept sending it till they quite saying they never got it.
If you every had any Chase bank lawsuits involving the CT Corporation you will go through something similar in denial that we never got the summons.
The man had basic liability, (22K), I received 18k of that apart from what the attorney and therapists got paid.
I additionally received almost another $1,450 from my National General insurance making up what the Geico liability didn’t cover.
This page is dedicated to stories like these, your insurance companies, accidents, and how it turned out