Confrontation. Confrontation. Photo: Fizkes/Shutterstock.com

Longtime Danbury attorney Alan Barry said he wasn't surprised when an insurance adjuster almost taunted him about filing a lawsuit during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The adjuster, Barry said, knew jury trials might not occur until 2021, and that plaintiffs are often anxious about receiving money they believe they are due.

Barry, of Alan Barry Associates, said the adjuster in a personal injury case asked him: "What will you do? File suit?"

"He told me the courts are closed and I couldn't go forward with it. I told him, 'Good luck and have a nice day,"' Barry said. "I don't tell them I will file suit, I just do it. … You can't avoid but be frustrated with their behavior. You can't let it get to you. It's just business."

Barry and other personal injury attorneys say insurance attorneys and adjusters have always played hardball. But now, they say the 2020 health pandemic has spawn new negotiation tactics.

Insurance attorneys and representatives, though, say such accusations aimed at them are unfair.

"Plaintiffs attorneys have an incentive to extract as much from insurance companies as they can. The accusations being made here that insurance companies are being nasty, nasty jerks has been made for decades and made inaccurately," said James Lynch, chief actuary and senior vice president of research and education at the Insurance Information Institute, a national industry association. "By and large, can there be individual cases where what these attorneys are describing is true? Yes. But there are also plaintiffs attorneys in individual cases that don't behave the way they should."

 

'Insurance companies are getting hammered'

Plaintiffs lawyer Andrew Garza has been on both sides.

He once represented insurance companies in personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Now, Garza, co-owner of Connecticut Trial Firm in Glastonbury, goes up against them as a plaintiffs lawyer.

He agrees that the companies often don't speed the litigation.

"They will wait you out, even more so during the coronavirus," Garza said.

But Michael Menapace, an insurance attorney and partner in Wiggin and Dana's insurance, cybersecurity and class action practices, agreed that claims of deliberate stalling were untrue.

"It sounds off because insurance companies are getting hammered right now. There are so many new suits being filed and so many claims coming in," Menapace said. "It tells me that lots of people are submitting claims and filing suit, and it doesn't make sense that someone is having a reaction that insurance companies want to delay this. They don't want to delay because they are already underwater with claims and lawsuits. It just doesn't make sense."

Bound by law

But some personal injury attorneys, such as Barry, say their experiences paint a different picture.

"With COVID-19 there is a new level of excuses," Barry said. "The insurance companies believe that because of the economic circumstances people are in, that low-balling is more effective than ever. Most attorneys are playing hardball with insurance companies. Most attorneys are saying that—as your attorney—we don't recommend you accept this offer."

But insurance industry representatives, such as Lynch, said this is not the way the sector operates.

"Insurance companies are bound by law to settle claims fairly for all involved," he said. "Insurers have an obligation to their policyholders to do right by them. That is not to say that there aren't times when negotiations can become difficult."

In terms of how they analyze claims, though, Lynch said the companies have not changed litigation strategies.

"I don't think there is any significant changes in how insurance carriers do business pre- and post-COVID," he said. "The vast majority of claims are adjudicated, from the insurance companies point of view, fairly and with the interest of all of the stakeholders involved."

 

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