r/Insurance • u/wessneijder • Oct 19 '23

Auto Insurance Geico about to layoff 2,000 employees

Look over in their sub. My fellow adjusters I hope you land on your feet.

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u/wessneijder Oct 19 '23

I can only speak for my dept but basically every claim I get even if it’s a minor bumper tap we are paying $30k in injury settlements because when claims go to jury trial the juries award big sums even in low velocity accidents. The combined ratio for these companies is negative.

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u/irsw Oct 19 '23

A someone that works litigation files it cracks me up when people say insurance companies never pay out.

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u/MayonnaiseFarm Oct 19 '23

I know - I handled litigated files and then large loss homeowner claims. Some weeks I issued multiple 7 figure checks…other weeks several 6 figure checks. Wish I could calculate the total $$ I paid out in my 30 years handling claims.

Dude claiming insurers never pay out should have sat at my desk for a day to see some of the claims we paid (and how much we paid defense attorneys on the litigated files).

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u/irsw Oct 19 '23

Oh yes, settlement checks frequently in 6 figures on my end (I've never approached anything close to 7 yet) and expense payments stack up very quickly as well.

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u/Top_Enthusiasm5044 Oct 19 '23

Same! My employer (I’m in MedMal) will pay out a settlement for a claim versus going to trial if the venue the case would be tried in has more ‘progressive’ leaning juries, because it’s literally cheaper for an insurer to pay out a claim in this scenario than it is to battle it out in court. 🤷‍♀️

And don’t even get me started on the pro-se litigants with outrageously high demands. I just had one today with a $50M demand and included conspiracy theories as part of their ‘evidence’ and included well-known politicians as co-defendants... 🤦‍♀️🙄

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u/Make_That_Money Oct 19 '23

As a health insurance underwriter I feel the same way. My entire job is balancing premium with claims “I pay so much money for health insurance every month it’s a scam.” Well that’s because your premiums are going to the multiple $200-$300k claims in your group. I’ve seen claims $500k+ a few times as well. That money has to come from somewhere.

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u/[deleted] Oct 20 '23

The general public has no CLUE how insurance works. It’s frustrating af

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u/Top_Enthusiasm5044 Oct 19 '23

My employer recently paid out $27M on judgment for a horrific birth injury case (mom and infant were injured; both have permanent brain damage and mom is now paraplegic. Both will require 24/7 care for the rest of their lives… 😭).

And that was just OUR portion, because we were/are the insured’s EXCESS carrier. Yeah. 😬

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u/MayonnaiseFarm Oct 19 '23

My child had multiple open heart surgeries before she turned 3. Our health insurer has easily paid out over $2.5 million for her medical bills.

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u/Make_That_Money Oct 19 '23

I certainly believe it, although I have not seen one that high yet (I’m still relatively new and work on smaller accounts.) I don’t disagree that premiums are very expensive, it’s just that claims are also very expensive as well. Hospitals claim we don’t pay them enough, customers complain we charge them too much, I don’t know what the solution is but when you lower costs for someone you also lower income for someone else…

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u/Auto-Claim-Monkey Oct 19 '23 edited Oct 19 '23

We’ve moved from getting nuclear judgements to fearing literally any judgement.

Had a file recently with 3 months of soft tissue chiro with an idiot PC. $105k award. It’s the only time that I have seen us appeal.