Protect Your Legal Rights If an Insurer Denies an Injury Claim

WXYZ TV - Webcast with Attorney Mark Bernstein
March 19, 2008

Commentator Warren Pierce:

And you were talking earlier, Mark Bernstein, too, about the impact this has on someone’s life.

Chances are those who were affected by the accident, whatever the scenario, whatever the context, could be Social Security, could be defective products, it could be cruise ship accidents. They were coming in from Easter break. Chances are, they really haven’t had to hire a lawyer. This may very well be their first experience in seeking out someone, like yourself; to help with the problem that you’ve explained can put them in dire straits.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

Absolutely, you know, frequently, someone’s injured, they’re severely hurt, no fault of their own, and they don’t know where to turn.

The law is complicated. The way the law applies to their facts is unknown. They’ve just gone to the hospital, now they have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon or a doctor or a physical therapist or a chiropractor.

And they’re overwhelmed. And on top of all this, they’re in pain. And so the law, sometimes, is an afterthought.

We encourage people to protect your legal rights. It’s absolutely essential and appropriate to explore those rights, explore your rights, to see if you potentially have a case to hold this person accountable. You know, our firm, and this is actually very important, has in our 40-year history never pursued a case personally against a defendant.

If somebody drives negligently, a drunk driver causes an injury to somebody, flips their life upside-down, literally in many instances.

The only source of compensation from that case, and it’s something people don’t really widely understand, is from the insurance company of that driver. It’s not from the personal estate or the personal bank account, so to speak, of that drunk driver.

Commentator Warren Pierce:

Well that’s why you buy insurance, to pay something. Whether it’s life insurance, whether it’s car insurance, homeowner’s insurance. You do that just in the rare case that you’re going to need.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

Exactly and there is the issue. The insurance industry, the insurance companies in many instances, and there are some that are different than others, but in many instances, they don’t want people to pursue those rights because it immediately and directly affects their bottom line, immediately and directly.

So they’ve created this image of ambulance chasing and self-important profiteering attorneys, when our role in this process is to get our clients the insurance proceeds that they deserve, that the other person has been paying for to protect them, to compensate somebody for those injuries.

So if someone has been seriously injured in an auto accident, in an accident involving a semi-truck, or a dog bite, or nursing home or some type of abuse at a nursing home, those are cases that our office handles frequently.

We work, obviously, very hard and we’ve had tremendous success in those cases. They are not simple cases, you need to talk to someone who’s experienced and understands this area of law. And we’ve been doing this for 40 years.

It’s also essential, when you talk to lawyers, and we encourage people whether you call our law firm or any law firm, that you have competent legal representation from an experienced trial lawyer who’s handled these cases before in the past.

Commentator Warren Pierce:

Because the people representing the party that injured a client, for example, or an insurance company that is on contract for the individual, they are certainly going to have their legal staff standing by.

Attorney Mark Bernstein:

Well, what I tell people all the time, you know, is when they contact us and say, “Should I pursue this?” I say, “I can guarantee you the insurance industry is working on this case right now. I guarantee you that they are working on their defenses.”

We have a book that we have on our own website, at callsam.com, that lists, very clearly, over 80 defenses that insurance industry representatives and attorneys use to defeat the claims of accident victims.

So we have a lot of, we have tremendous resources that back up all of our cases and all of our clients. We go to the wall for our clients time and time again. We get, what we believe, are very good results for our clients.