Report Highlighting Unethical Court Conduct Shows How Far Insurance Companies Go To Absolve Responsibilities to Accident Survivors
In light of a recent news story showing how large insurance companies use their vast resources to intimidate and bully medical providers and small businesses, the Michigan Brain Injury Provider Council (MBIPC) today called on state leaders to choose people over big insurance profits and end Michigan’s catastrophic care crisis.
The Nov. 23 Crain’s Detroit Business article titled “Judge boots lawyers in hardball insurance case” highlighted a “strongarm legal tactic” which drew a rebuke from U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Stafford, who found that insurance company lawyers “engaged in unethical conduct and used ‘scorched-earth tactics’ to try to cover their tracks.”
“Without a shred of evidence, the Insurance Alliance of Michigan, the well-funded lobby arm of the insurance industry, has painted a picture of medical providers that have gouged the no-fault system with unethical billing practices,” said MBIPC President Tom Judd. “Meanwhile, it is one of their members whose legal representatives have been determined to engage in unethical legal practices that amount to ‘substantive and egregious’ violation of legal rules.”
The use of strong-arm legal tactics is just one tool insurance companies have used for years in order to avoid payment of reasonable charges for post-acute care. Now they are hard at work lobbying against efforts to fix the unreasonable and illogical fee cap system that is ripping away access to rehabilitation services and disrupting the lives of their consumers who paid their premiums for the promise of quality comprehensive care.
Judd said the lengths to which insurance companies will go to absolve themselves of their responsibility to injured auto crash survivors is unconscionable.
“Hopefully this most recent example will raise concerns for legislators who have chosen to listen to big insurance lobbyists rather than their suffering constituents, families, and the ethical post-acute providers who want nothing more than to be able to provide quality services and care that all Michigan citizens injured in a car crash need and deserve,” Judd said. “It is well past time for the Governor and the Republican-led Legislature to come together and choose people over big insurance profits, ending the Michigan Care Crisis.”