Articles Posted in Insurance Law

The insurance industry always winds up blaming injury victims and their lawyers for premium increases that result from investment losses and hurricanes.  However, there is a revealing article this week in the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Increases of car and insurance rates of 5% to 11% in Georgia this year are — accordnig to insurance industry…

As an attorney representing people with serious injury cases in Georgia, I have to keep an eye on the solvency of the insurance companies that are contractually obligated to pay legitimate liability claims against their policyholders.  For most of my career, the solvency of insurers was seldom if ever a big concern. In today’s economy, however,…

  There’s a disturbing report out of Washington that has nothing to do with truck accidents or litigation, but about which I’m writing anyway. Reportedly the Obama administration is considering a proposal to bill veterans’ private individual insurance carriers for treatment of service-related medical conditions at Veterans Administration medical center.  Currently the VA bills insurer…

Kudos to my State Senator, Judson Hill (R-Marietta), sponsor of Senate Bill 94, which if passed would allow adult offspring to maintain coverage under their parents health insurance up to age 25, regardless of school enrollment status. In the current economy, jobs of any kind are tough for young people just out of school to…

Trucking is a dangerous occupation. A lot of my work as a trucking safety trial attorney in Georgia involves representing injured truck drivers and survivors of truckers who are killed due to someone else’s carelessness. An often overlooked factor is that a lot of trucking insurance policies include substantial uninsured motorist (UM) insurance coverage. That means…

As a Georgia trial attorney handling serious injury and wrongful death cases, I have grown up with the understanding that tort law and insurance law are two peas in the same pod.  Fifteen years ago, in fact, I was chair of the Tort & Insurance Practice Section of the Georgia Bar. Since automobile insurance became widespread…

If you have spent much time driving on the metro Atlanta expressways you have probably seen ladders and mattresses that had fallen from pickup trucks and car roofs.  Occasionally there are cases of catastrophic injury or death caused when people traveling at expressway speeds encounter such random obstacles. Of course it is seldom if ever…

Georgia automobile insurance companies have been required since 2001 to “include an evaluation of diminution in value in its standard assessment of damages, just as it evaluates other elements of damage, and to adopt a suitable methodology for doing so.” State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Mabry,  274 Ga. 498, 556 S.E.2d 114 (2001).…

As a trucking accident trial lawyer in Atlanta, I’m watching the news and wondering what will be the implications in the trucking and insurance sectors. High fuel prices, dependence on foreign oil, hurricanes, the subprime mortgage meltdown, the economic rise of China and India, the ongoing cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and deferred…

This is over the top, but it contains a core of truth. Insurance Company Rules http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoAm6cTgAXA Ken Shigley is a former chairman of the Georgia Insurance Law Institute and the Tort & Insurance Practice Section of the State Bar of Georgia.  A Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy, he is…