Rising Premiums Due to Economy and Hurricanes, Not Injury Claims

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 sources and experts — attributable to:

• the recession
• investment losses by insurance companies
• hurricanes
• rising cost of auto repairs

There is no mention of liability claims losses as a factor in rising premiums.

But I bet by the time of the next legislative session the insurance industry lobbyists will invent a way to blame all premium increases on injury victims, lawyers and juries.

Ken Shigley is a trial attorney in Atlanta, Georgia who has been listed as a “Super Lawyer” (Atlanta Magazine), among the “Legal Elite” (Georgia Trend Magazine), and in the Bar Register of Preeminent Lawyers (Martindale), and is a Certified Civil Trial Advocate of the National Board of Trial Advocacy,. Mr. Shigley has extensive experience representing parties in trucking and bus accidents, products liability, catastrophic personal injury, wrongful death, brain injury, spinal cord injury and burn injury cases.  Currently he is Secretary of the 40,000 member State Bar of Georgia.