How Lowball Insurance Offers Hurt Real People (Part 2)

Part 2 of insurance companies lowballing people. (You can read Part 1 here.)

This time, it was Allstate.

My client was involved in a serious wreck in 2017 when another motorist hit her on her driver’s side door. She was taken to hospital by ambulance. She had a bruised spleen.

A few weeks after being at home on bed rest, she noticed her foot was still hurting. She went to a podiatrist and was diagnosed with a broken toe. She had to have surgery to repair a deformity that developed after it healed.

Total medical bills were $49,000. The liability insurer for the other driver paid its policy limits of $50,000. Our client had $250,000 in uninsured motorist coverage with Allstate, which would kick in if the at-fault driver’s $50,000 was not enough to fully compensate our client.

Allstate’s top offer? $5,000.

The Allstate adjuster claimed our client was fully compensated by the liability settlement and that our client’s doctors and medical records showed that her broken toe was not related to the wreck.

That statement was 1000% false. Our client’s treating podiatrist testified in his deposition that the wreck caused the broken toe. Allstate deliberately ignored it and misrepresented what the actual evidence was.

Allstate then disclosed an expert who was allegedly going to say that our client did not break her toe in the wreck. But in his deposition, the Allstate expert actually agreed it was more likely than not she did break it in the wreck.

So did Allstate re-evaluate its position, consider all the evidence, and make a fair offer to its own customer?

Nope.

Allstate instead withdrew its expert because he agreed with us. Allstate then paid its lawyers to go to court and argue the wreck didn’t cause the broken toe, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Allstate also claimed our client—its own customer—was not credible.

The result of the court case? A $347,000 verdict in 2022.

Our client—an honest, hardworking woman—had to go through five years of litigation and be called a liar by her own insurance company just to get treated fairly. And the only way that happened was by a jury hearing the case and deciding it.

And Allstate? It made a $1.2 billion net profit in the third quarter of 2024.

Does that make sense to you? Join the conversation with me on LinkedIn.