Thanks LK! Yes, I was unaware of that (diminished value) until doing some research the other night. That is definitely on the list )
There are a couple possible advantages to having your health insurer pay now and then paying them back when you get a settlement on the auto insurance. 1. My experience has been that the health insurers negotiate very favorable deals with the doctors and hospitals, much better than an auto insurer who deals with them infrequently. Therefore, whatever is paid now is less than it would otherwise be, and thus less to reimburse. 2. This will probably drag on for three or more years. The health insurer wants some money and will settle for less. I had over $70,000 in payments made on my behalf by my HMO. When it came time to settle, they took $20,000. I got a $100,000 settlement with one third going to the attorney. If the HMO had not settled for less, I would have gotten nothing. In fact, I ended up with $47,000 in my pocket.
The disadvantage,especially in Fl.is that any group insurance -particularly HMO's is very restrictive on treatment,diagnostic tests and therapy.The advantage is that they,unlike the insurance company, will want you to win- so they will send you to "patient friendly" doctors.
UPDATE- I have retained the services of a lawyer to handle the personal injury end of the claims (very well known lawyer too ) ) They recommended we handle the property damage claim ourselves (they will assist if we want them too of course for a fee if they handle it). I made a mention of diminished value while talking to one of the lawyers about getting the car fixed and his reply was basically you don't get diminished value in Florida you just get the repairs. What?!!?? I tried searching for some info on the web about it and haven't found anything that says we can't. Does anyone know anything about this or can point me in the right direction?
