Speaker 1: Yeah, ripped up.
Speaker 2: News need advice, so.
Speaker 3: You don't have.
Speaker 1: Come running.
Speaker 2: Just as fast as we can, the Shooter's gonna help coming. Man.
Speaker 4: This is the Troubleshooter Show, now Tom Martino.
Speaker 2: Not Tom Martino, but this is John Fuller filling in
Speaker 2: for Tom Martino and the Troubleshooter Network. Today is Wednesday,
Speaker 2: April thirtieth, and we have an exciting three days to
Speaker 2: look forward to. We're gonna cover a lot of ground.
Speaker 2: Update on Tomm. He's doing great. He texted me this morning.
Speaker 2: He's doing better than even yesterday, and so we're all
Speaker 2: excited to hear that and look forward to his speedy return.
Speaker 2: My name is John Fuller. Many of you know me.
Speaker 2: I'm a personal injury attorney here in the Denver area
Speaker 2: and have been for oh, I don't know, twenty three,
Speaker 2: almost twenty four years now, and I am a plaintiff's attorney.
Speaker 2: I only represent people that are victims of car crashes
Speaker 2: in their claims against the ad fault drivers and their
Speaker 2: insurance companies. And so we you know, you guys frequently
Speaker 2: hear from me, and it's all one sided and from
Speaker 2: the perspective of the guy that's going after the insurance companies.
Speaker 2: We have a really special guest today that's going to
Speaker 2: add a somewhat different perspective to it. Dan Mahony is
Speaker 2: with us. Say hello, Dan. Dan is with the Insurance
Speaker 2: Group of Denver. Dan is an independent insurance agency, right,
Speaker 2: and so as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 2: What that means is he's not beholden to any particular
Speaker 2: insurance company, and that affords you the opportunity to really
Speaker 2: try to come up with products that best suit the
Speaker 2: customers needs and kind of act more independently and less
Speaker 2: you know, one size fits all that you might get
Speaker 2: at a branded insurance agency or something along the way.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, you know branded agency is the agents there actually
Speaker 5: work for that carrier. When you call a direct carrier,
Speaker 5: the person you're talking to on the phone works for
Speaker 5: that direct carrier. As an insurance broker, we actually work
Speaker 5: for you. We represent you, and we look through the
Speaker 5: market to find items for you or products for you
Speaker 5: that work best.
Speaker 2: So we are going to talk about all sorts of
Speaker 2: stuff today about you know, the different options you have
Speaker 2: for insurance, how that insurance comes into play in the
Speaker 2: event that something bad happens to you, Whether you're a
Speaker 2: victim or even whether you happen to make a mistake
Speaker 2: and cause an accident, and that unfortunately happens to listeners
Speaker 2: as well. And I get those calls all the time,
Speaker 2: and it's sometimes a pretty difficult call because people are
Speaker 2: shocked to hear what their insurance companies actually will and
Speaker 2: won't do for them when that you know, when that
Speaker 2: event happen. And so we encourage your calls here on
Speaker 2: the Troubleshooter Network. We solve problems, answer questions, take complaints.
Speaker 2: We are here to help you and work through all
Speaker 2: of your issues. We have a couple of deputies in
Speaker 2: with us today, Deputy Doc longtime OBG y N doc
Speaker 2: in Denver and a valuable member of the team. And
Speaker 2: we have our ever popular Dmitri who is just a
Speaker 2: master of all things and here to chime in as well.
Speaker 2: So call us up. We're here to help. We look
Speaker 2: forward to your calls no matter the issue. If you've
Speaker 2: been ripped off, taking advantage of anything along those lines,
Speaker 2: we are here to help and we are looking for
Speaker 2: your calls, so we will get started in that. How
Speaker 2: let's check in with our deputies here. How's things going there? Dmitri.
Speaker 6: Good John, you know, I'm glad you brought up how
Speaker 6: things are going, because we do have an interesting case
Speaker 6: that came up a couple of days ago, and I've
Speaker 6: been thinking about it and i'd like to get your
Speaker 6: input on this, because even though you're not a contract's
Speaker 6: attorney per se, I think most of your job is
Speaker 6: dealing with contracts and contractual.
Speaker 2: Relationships to an extent.
Speaker 6: So a few days ago, lady by the name of
Speaker 6: Haley called this. She and her roommate rented a downtown
Speaker 6: apartment at an eyewatering price of three thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 6: Everything went well until she and the roommate had some
Speaker 6: kind of a falling out. And I guess it was
Speaker 6: a serious enough falling out that the roommate had either
Speaker 6: applied for a protection order or got one. It wasn't
Speaker 6: very clear from the phone call. But that's not the
Speaker 6: actually important part. Okay, The important part is this, This
Speaker 6: now estranged roommate went to the apartment manager's office and
Speaker 6: presented them with this problem that she's personally having with Haley,
Speaker 6: and the apartment manager let her out.
Speaker 2: Of her lease.
Speaker 6: Oh and unfortunately for Haley, that resulted in Haley being
Speaker 6: stuck with the entire three thousand dollars a month rent
Speaker 6: plus utilities, which she can't afford. Now, with the mistake
Speaker 6: I think that we possibly made during the show a
Speaker 6: few days ago, is we evaluated this matter from the
Speaker 6: perspective of the lease. What does the lease say? And
Speaker 6: sure says that she's jointly and severally responsible. But I've
Speaker 6: been thinking. Brad O'Brien confirmed that, of course, right, that's
Speaker 6: an easy one. But I've been thinking about this for
Speaker 6: the past few days, and I think that we may
Speaker 6: we should have and tell me if I'm right or
Speaker 6: wrong here, if this is the right approach, I think
Speaker 6: we should have evaluated this matter from the perspective of
Speaker 6: simply a contractual relationship, which is this, there are three princes.
Speaker 6: There are three principles, right, the landlord and each of
Speaker 6: the two tenants. Now, each of the two tenants entered
Speaker 6: into a contractual relationship between all three of them with
Speaker 6: the understanding that each of the two tenants will sign
Speaker 6: and perform their obligations under their lease. And everything went
Speaker 6: well until Tenant one and a landlord got together without
Speaker 6: ten two's knowledge or permission, and decided that Tenant one
Speaker 6: is no longer obligated to perform her obligations under this
Speaker 6: lease that was done. The effect of that was to
Speaker 6: the financial detriment a tenant number two. So if we
Speaker 6: look at it from that perspective, is it then fair
Speaker 6: and equitable to hold tenant two responsible for both of
Speaker 6: these obligations even though the only reason she entered into
Speaker 6: this contractual relationship not the lease, but the contractual unwritten
Speaker 6: relationship between the three parties, with the understanding that tenant
Speaker 6: number one will be equally responsible.
Speaker 2: How in the world did the tenant convince the landlord
Speaker 2: to let her off the lease? How did that happen?
Speaker 6: Well, so what we infer from what Haley said is
Speaker 6: tenant one went to the landlord and said, hey, this
Speaker 6: is now becoming a physically dangerous and vironment. I mean,
Speaker 6: I infer that because Hailey said that there was mention
Speaker 6: of a protective protection order. So so so the landlord
Speaker 6: I assume, Now there are a lot of assumptions in
Speaker 6: this assume. Well, you know, we're not we're gonna let
Speaker 6: her out because she claims to be in danger and
Speaker 6: she gets murdered, we don't want to be responsible for that,
Speaker 6: right but I think how she convinced the landlord is
Speaker 6: to me irrelevant.
Speaker 2: It's it's just a yeah, it's a tough situation. Let's uh,
Speaker 2: let's kind of dive into that as soon as we
Speaker 2: get back from the first break. To the callers out there,
Speaker 2: the number to reach us today is seven one three
Speaker 2: eight two five five three oh three seven one three
Speaker 2: eight two five five Help at Troubleshooter dot com. Give
Speaker 2: us a call. We're here to help you, and we'll
Speaker 2: be right back in just a moment.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 7: dot com.
Speaker 1: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation comparison
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
Speaker 7: customer when you choose Frank durand the Real estate Man
Speaker 7: dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
Speaker 7: all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: Hello John Fuller, coming back at you on the Troubleshooter Show.
Speaker 2: Here rapidly filling up the phone lines. We're going to
Speaker 2: go right to the lines. We will get back to
Speaker 2: Dimitri's issue. That is an interesting deal that's going to
Speaker 2: take a little while to discuss, So don't think that
Speaker 2: we're not dealing with that. But we have a whole
Speaker 2: list of callers here and we're going to get started
Speaker 2: right away. Lissa, you have an issue with your lease
Speaker 2: or your apartment. What's going on?
Speaker 8: So I had to sign the lease on Monday. Sorry, daughter,
Speaker 8: But and after I signed the lease, we had went
Speaker 8: in to move our stuff and there was a cockroach
Speaker 8: on the wall.
Speaker 9: Mind you, these.
Speaker 8: Aren't newly or what they say are newly renovated apartments.
Speaker 8: So I was really shocked when I seen one, and
Speaker 8: so I had called the office was closed.
Speaker 10: The next day.
Speaker 8: I had called and informed them I wanted to break
Speaker 8: my lease. They said that they would have to get
Speaker 8: in contact with corporate because I told them I wanted
Speaker 8: all my money back, because I mean, I have a kid,
Speaker 8: like you know, I can't live with a roach infestation.
Speaker 8: I talked to the tenants nearby, and not a lot
Speaker 8: of them spoke English, so it's kind of hard to, like,
Speaker 8: you know, understand how bad the situation really was. Well,
Speaker 8: I guess it's so bad that they spray these apartments
Speaker 8: like fights every two weeks.
Speaker 1: That means that.
Speaker 8: There's like a major roach infestation twice every two weeks,
Speaker 8: is like really concerning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can appreciate that. Have you seen evidence of
Speaker 2: this infestation or just one cockroach?
Speaker 11: Well I had seen too.
Speaker 8: I had seen the first one on the wall, and
Speaker 8: then the second one in the bathroom, and then when
Speaker 8: we further like looked at the baseboards and stuff, there
Speaker 8: was a bunch of dead ones, and so I was like, okay,
Speaker 8: well say like bomb. Then frequently I was like, maybe
Speaker 8: there's just not that much. I mean it was the
Speaker 8: middle of the day. Roaches are like nocturnal, you know,
Speaker 8: so they should have never even been out anyway. But
Speaker 8: when speaking with other tenants, they said, like, it's such
Speaker 8: a bad issue that there's roaches in our TV and
Speaker 8: their microwaves.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I used to live in New York, like in
Speaker 6: New York City, and cockroaches are a scourge. So if
Speaker 6: Lisa saw two cockroaches, that means there are two thousand
Speaker 6: more they will come out at night. But I think
Speaker 6: an even bigger issue than the disgusting revolting cockroaches. Is
Speaker 6: the fact that they spray these chemicals to right, and
Speaker 6: she has a little daughter, and god forbid, she has
Speaker 6: a cat or a dog or something. All of these
Speaker 6: creatures are gonna get poisoned or the cockroaches get poisoned.
Speaker 2: Face on your experience, what should she do? Oh, I
Speaker 2: would definitely find a different place. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Now, I do recognize that I may be unusually sensitive
Speaker 6: to cockroaches because of my early experience with him. But
Speaker 6: this is a serious issue. I heard her daughter in
Speaker 6: the background. She's a tiny little baby. So, John, does
Speaker 6: she have a leg to stand them? Does she have
Speaker 6: a technically valid reason to be afraid for her health
Speaker 6: and the health of her not just being disgusted?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think if the apartment poses a health and
Speaker 2: safety risk to the daughter, she's got a pretty good grounds,
Speaker 2: you know, to attempt to break the lease. Now, you know, listen,
Speaker 2: everything in real estate, everything hey By sell contracts, lease contracts,
Speaker 2: everything else. It's a contract and your rights are spelled
Speaker 2: out in the contract. And so what happens when you
Speaker 2: decide to break that lease is either laid out in
Speaker 2: the contract or it's not. Now, I think you've got
Speaker 2: a valid reason to want to live there, and that
Speaker 2: reason may be good enough to carry the day. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think you can say to the landlord and to
Speaker 2: the management company that you know that the next call
Speaker 2: is to the health department and you've got these valley
Speaker 2: concerns and stuff, and they may just not want you
Speaker 2: in their apartment well enough to get you out of
Speaker 2: there and to let you back out of the lease,
Speaker 2: especially since you've never really moved into the place. I mean,
Speaker 2: come on, it's not like there's any real damage. There's
Speaker 2: no move out cleaning fee or any of that crap.
Speaker 2: It's just no harm, no foul. Let's move on. But
Speaker 2: if push comes to shove and they want to enforce it,
Speaker 2: they're going to claim that you breach the contract, and
Speaker 2: they can take you to court and a judge can
Speaker 2: decide whether or not you've breached it. But I would
Speaker 2: warn you that as a person that is you know,
Speaker 2: is renting apartments, you know, you don't want to really
Speaker 2: have on your record that you've violated a lease and
Speaker 2: you've breached it or you've not paid your your obligations
Speaker 2: on time, because that's going to cause problems for the
Speaker 2: next you know, place that you go to and everything else.
Speaker 2: But but I would start by having a conversation with
Speaker 2: their corporate office and saying, look, you guys have a
Speaker 2: major health problem here and and and bringing that to
Speaker 2: their you know, to their attention and and if you've
Speaker 2: got a child, particularly one with any with any health issues,
Speaker 2: you know, I just don't see them really pushing to
Speaker 2: enforce that too much, do you.
Speaker 6: Well, Jean, I haven't. I think you're absolutely right, But
Speaker 6: I think that a lot of these problems are resolved
Speaker 6: before they even get to court or a default situation.
Speaker 6: So what do you think of this?
Speaker 2: Elisa and John?
Speaker 6: Why don't you tell the Why don't you follow up
Speaker 6: this conversation with your property manager who hasn't gotten back
Speaker 6: to you with the answer yet? With this You discussed
Speaker 6: this with a Tom Martino troubleshooter on the radio without
Speaker 6: mentioning the apartment complex's name or the name of the
Speaker 6: property management company. But we, myself especially, are extremely interested
Speaker 6: in seeing how this issue gets resolved, and we asked
Speaker 6: you to call and email us with what the property
Speaker 6: manager offers as a resolution to your problem, and then
Speaker 6: we can update the story on the air without their
Speaker 6: name being mentioned.
Speaker 2: On the air.
Speaker 6: It's going to be up to them, and you can
Speaker 6: feel free to give them my personal cell phone number, Lisa,
Speaker 6: which Kelly here. When we're done with your phone call
Speaker 6: on the air, Kelly will give you my personal cell
Speaker 6: phone number. And please let me know what the apartment
Speaker 6: manager said about you being able to get out of
Speaker 6: this lease without incurring any financial burden.
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a reason, Lissa, while we didn't ask
Speaker 2: what the apartment complex is at this stage, because you know,
Speaker 2: that's kind of the nuclear button when you go and
Speaker 2: put it out on the radio that you've got this
Speaker 2: massive roach infestation and everything else. So we're trying to
Speaker 2: give you as many tools in your toolbag to use.
Speaker 2: And what Dimitria is suggesting is that you let them
Speaker 2: know that this could go another way without without threatening.
Speaker 2: Don't be rude, you know, be nice, because.
Speaker 6: Were extremely interested in prayer and on the air up
Speaker 6: there is very interesting, you know, jumping at the bit,
Speaker 6: like really really interesting looking.
Speaker 2: Forward to it. So does that make sense to you listen?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, they said that they.
Speaker 8: Would give me a call back today early morning, mid
Speaker 8: afternoon to let me know what corporate had said. I'm
Speaker 8: assuming they're kind of realizing that if I decide to
Speaker 8: take them to court, they probably wouldn't win. I think
Speaker 8: the reason why so many of the people that live there,
Speaker 8: you know, happen to live there because they can'tward anything
Speaker 8: else and they don't understand that this is like borderline illegal,
Speaker 8: if not illegal to you praying it so many times.
Speaker 2: So are you in the unit right now?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 8: No, we completely After that, After in that road we left,
Speaker 8: I was like, I'm not even gonna try to do this.
Speaker 8: I don't even want to do this. So we just
Speaker 8: went and stayed with my daughter's grandparents for a little bit,
Speaker 8: and can you find something different?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's important too, to not not actually
Speaker 2: take possession of the of the property. But I was
Speaker 2: going to say, if you did take possession, you need
Speaker 2: to be taking lots of photographs of these of these roaches.
Speaker 2: But it's better that you didn't move in at all.
Speaker 2: So keep us in the loop, would you please, and
Speaker 2: we'll look forward to hearing back and trying to get
Speaker 2: you some help on this. Okay, thanks listen for the call.
Speaker 2: We're gonna we're gonna move along here. We've got Eric
Speaker 2: on the line. Eric is looking for help with a timeshare.
Speaker 2: What's going on, Eric, Well.
Speaker 9: Basically, I'm calling and get out for my daughter. She
Speaker 9: got roped into the the Vegas Hilton timeshare deal and
Speaker 9: as far as I can tell, she didn't really understand
Speaker 9: what was going on, and she felt like she was
Speaker 9: pressured and manipulated, and she thought what she was actually
Speaker 9: getting was ADIT card and either a free or discounted vacation.
Speaker 9: How old is you er, Well, this was she was
Speaker 9: twenty one at the time. She just turned twenty one
Speaker 9: that weekend, and we took her to Vegas, you know,
Speaker 9: to celebrate her birthday.
Speaker 2: And okay, so you are.
Speaker 9: Walked into one of the casinos and you know, they
Speaker 9: had a kiosk there with a couple of people and
Speaker 9: they kind of, you know, coerce her and.
Speaker 2: Her So she thought she signed up for a credit card,
Speaker 2: and she walked out with a timeshare.
Speaker 9: Yeah, in a three thousand dollars bill. All right on
Speaker 9: that credit said credit cards?
Speaker 6: Eric, do you have a copy of everything she signed?
Speaker 9: Yes? I do.
Speaker 6: Can you email it to us please?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Eric, I'm gonna put you back on hold. Kelly's
Speaker 2: going to give you the email address. I'd love to
Speaker 2: see all that paperwork. If you could get that to us,
Speaker 2: that would be great. We're going to go to a
Speaker 2: quick break, but do get that stuff to us and
Speaker 2: then we'll have a lot better chance of trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how to how to navigate through this deal.
Speaker 12: Okay, Eric, thanks, go with a sure thing Denver's best
Speaker 12: rufer excelroofing dot com.
Speaker 1: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison call
Speaker 7: Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
Speaker 7: insurance companies find out now three O three seven to
Speaker 7: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 7: when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
Speaker 7: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three
Speaker 7: nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome back John Fuller here with the Troubleshooter Network.
Speaker 2: We are rock and rolland one of the coolest things
Speaker 2: about this show is that we have such an amazing
Speaker 2: audience out there that sometimes we get calls from people
Speaker 2: that are experts that chime in and help educate us
Speaker 2: about what's going on. And so we're going to go
Speaker 2: right to Scott. Scott, I understand you are an entomologist
Speaker 2: for the benefit of our listeners. What is that?
Speaker 3: Okay? So I have degrees in entomology, which is the
Speaker 3: study of insects, and specifically I'm an urban entomologist because
Speaker 3: my work is around cockroaches and ants and termites and
Speaker 3: things like that. So how can you I am a
Speaker 3: real bug.
Speaker 2: Guy, real live bug guy. So what do you have
Speaker 2: to offer with Lissa's issue with these roaches in this
Speaker 2: apartment with their young child?
Speaker 3: Okay? Well, the first thing is that they really don't
Speaker 3: need to be spraying all those chemicals. There are a few,
Speaker 3: I guess I call them stone age companies that still
Speaker 3: do things the old fashioned way. But we've got a
Speaker 3: lot of phenomenal baits, which are basically, it's a food
Speaker 3: with a relatively non toxic poison in it, so that
Speaker 3: the cockroaches are acted to it, they eat it, and
Speaker 3: they die, so you can get rid of them completely
Speaker 3: without any spraying at all.
Speaker 2: But Scott, isn't the issue that thing? I mean, it
Speaker 2: seems to me that it's more challenging in a big
Speaker 2: multifamily building where you have so many units. I mean,
Speaker 2: how can you ever really get you know, full saturation
Speaker 2: of a baiting program and just completely annihilate a population
Speaker 2: of roaches.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, well, first of all, if it is actually
Speaker 3: an apartment complex and not a condominium complex with individual owners, right,
Speaker 3: it's real easy. It's just an accessibility thing. So if
Speaker 3: I can get in there and treat that, you don't
Speaker 3: have to there's no prep involved, so the tenants don't
Speaker 3: have to complain that, you know, they didn't have time
Speaker 3: to empty their cabinets and do all these other things.
Speaker 3: You can treat it. Well, they're actually there, and so
Speaker 3: it's very easy. It's just a matter of coordinating that
Speaker 3: with the management company and having access so we can
Speaker 3: go to every single unit.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So how would you compare the cost of doing
Speaker 2: it correctly with the cost of hiring these these hacked
Speaker 2: companies or stone age companies that you're talking about that
Speaker 2: keep spraying and not really making any dent in the problem.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, spraying is dirt cheap. The actual cost of
Speaker 3: a tank of insecticide is very very cheap, and dates
Speaker 3: are very expensive. So upfront there's a huge difference.
Speaker 2: Hey, Scott, how.
Speaker 3: Much you're looking at an annual and what's that.
Speaker 2: Oh, how long would it take.
Speaker 13: Let's say you had access to every apartment in the
Speaker 13: multifamily building, how long would it take to have basically
Speaker 13: ninety five eradication.
Speaker 3: Less than three months? Most of them will be dead
Speaker 3: within about two weeks. But of course you're going to
Speaker 3: have eggs hatching in a few thing. Sometimes there's deep pockets,
Speaker 3: you know, there's there's a lot of variability, you know, insanitation.
Speaker 3: But but quite honestly, if you're thorough and debates work
Speaker 3: really well. And we combine that too, it's an insect
Speaker 3: growth regulator which sterilizes them. So that's kind of a
Speaker 3: double whammy.
Speaker 2: So let's say you run up against a landlord that's
Speaker 2: just you know, cost adverse. They're not gonna they're not
Speaker 2: going to pay to do it correctly, and they keep
Speaker 2: paying for the really cheap way that doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: do anything, because it at least that lets them claim
Speaker 2: that they're trying to address the issue and that they're
Speaker 2: being very proactive. What would you then say to Lyssa
Speaker 2: about the potential health hazards of her moving in with
Speaker 2: a young child with that sort of a spraying regiment
Speaker 2: going on so so frequently.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well that the first issue is really, uh, the
Speaker 3: the health aspects of the cockroaches themselves. And it's well
Speaker 3: documented that cockroach feces and cast skins, you know, because
Speaker 3: they mold, so that you've got all the shed skins
Speaker 3: of the bugs, of all those things induced to asthma
Speaker 3: and children, and it's it's very documented. So it's it's
Speaker 3: something that's that's real serious that there's a lot of them,
Speaker 3: because we see that in inner city areas where there
Speaker 3: are a lot of cockroach problems. In low income housing,
Speaker 3: kids have a lot of uh, well, there's a high
Speaker 3: incidence of asthma. So that's that's one issue then. And
Speaker 3: then of course too from a chemical standpoint, depending on
Speaker 3: what the guys are spraying, it may or may not
Speaker 3: be a health concern for the for the tenants as well,
Speaker 3: and that one's hard to know because I have no
Speaker 3: idea what they're actually spraying.
Speaker 2: In there, right, Right, that's good information.
Speaker 13: Are you an academic or do you have a company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually have a pest control company. I'm swamped though,
Speaker 3: so I don't even want to see the name of
Speaker 3: my company out here. I don't need the extra business.
Speaker 2: Right right, well, but that's that's great information. Let me
Speaker 2: ask you one other things in your you know experience,
Speaker 2: if you you know, if if from an environmental standpoint,
Speaker 2: a kid is induced you know too, or introduced to
Speaker 2: these sheds and casts and poop and everything else and
Speaker 2: and and you know, gets asthma, that's that's something that
Speaker 2: follows with them the rest of their life, isn't it?
Speaker 3: That is correct?
Speaker 2: Okay, So, I mean it seems to me that there
Speaker 2: ought to be the information out there too to help
Speaker 2: lessa if this company wants to really fight this battle,
Speaker 2: to say that maybe this is just not the right
Speaker 2: apartment and not the least that they want to actually,
Speaker 2: you know, try to enforce and stuff. Scott, have you
Speaker 2: ever act as an expert and in these kind of matters.
Speaker 4: I have been a.
Speaker 3: Long time, but but I mean, it's it's definitely a
Speaker 3: habitability issue, and we do have habitability laws, especially in
Speaker 3: the city of Denver. I'm not sure what city she's in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well cool, Well listen, Scott, thank you so much
Speaker 2: for calling in. That's been great information. We appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening, and uh we'll look forward to, uh
Speaker 2: hopefully getting the Lissa out of this apartment and moving on.
Speaker 2: So thanks again. So we are nearing another break here.
Speaker 2: We do have a couple of lines open. The number
Speaker 2: is seven one three eight two five five. That's three
Speaker 2: oh three seven one three eight two five five. We
Speaker 2: are going to, I promise visit with Dan about his
Speaker 2: company and kind of explore some of the differences between
Speaker 2: the buyer's perspective insurance and the user's perspective after an
Speaker 2: event has happened that brings that insurance into play. Before
Speaker 2: we go to the break, I'm just going to visit
Speaker 2: real quickly and see if we need an expert. Marie,
Speaker 2: you have an issue with the sharpest rights. What's going
Speaker 2: on with your enclave, Marie.
Speaker 10: Yes, So I bought a vehicle back in March through
Speaker 10: the Sharpest Rides. I've been getting the run around in
Speaker 10: the past three weeks to get my car walk on.
Speaker 10: It'spet because I have a transmissing issue.
Speaker 2: Is there a warranty on it or just you just
Speaker 2: feel like they should be fixing it?
Speaker 10: Doesn't warranty on it. The onety is underneath the six
Speaker 10: months once he was sixty thousand miles.
Speaker 2: You bought this warranty from the sharper rides when you bought.
Speaker 11: The vehicle, Yes, it came with it.
Speaker 2: When did you buy this vehicle back in March March
Speaker 2: of this year yes, okay, And what is the problem
Speaker 2: with the sharpest rides? Are they refusing to honor it
Speaker 2: or refusing to work on it or what?
Speaker 10: So every d they've been getting me the run around
Speaker 10: trying to work on it, and I'm thinking a mom
Speaker 10: of three kids and have a baby on the way,
Speaker 10: and they are telling me that they have to go
Speaker 10: to the warrant manager instead. All up there every week,
Speaker 10: every day, going up there and stuff like that. The
Speaker 10: ward team manager is nowhere to be found. He is
Speaker 10: not you can hit ward with me onto getting back
Speaker 10: to me or anything. So it's just been very frustrating.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well Marie, hang on a second. We'll be right
Speaker 2: back from this break. We're going to try to help
Speaker 2: you out. Okay, hang Tyger, So.
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Speaker 7: Time for an insurance check up free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 7: call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out Now three all three seven
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Speaker 2: Help.
Speaker 7: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
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Speaker 2: Okay, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network, getting back
Speaker 2: to the issues that we're going through today. So we're
Speaker 2: going to help Marie out here. In just a second,
Speaker 2: I've got yet another cockroach caller calling in to comment.
Speaker 2: We're going to take that first, because we always appreciate
Speaker 2: our callers with comments. So, Bill, what is going on
Speaker 2: with these cockroaches? How can we Hey?
Speaker 14: This was around nineteen eighty. Okay, Well, we moved from
Speaker 14: downtown Denwood to Thornton and the cockroaches moved with us.
Speaker 2: Oh oh, I mean.
Speaker 14: They were sick. I tried everything. I'd set bombs off
Speaker 14: and on the weekend and we would go down to
Speaker 14: my in laws and spend the weekend and nothing worked.
Speaker 2: What did you do?
Speaker 15: Finally, remember Paul Harvey, Yep.
Speaker 14: He was advertising this stuff was called roach proof, and
Speaker 14: I think it was some kind of boric acid stuff,
Speaker 14: and I'm and I put it around the house and
Speaker 14: it worked because then we bought a new house and
Speaker 14: we didn't move with us.
Speaker 2: Now, did you disclose the cockroach problem to the new buyers.
Speaker 14: Were renting a cockroaches?
Speaker 2: I'm just kidding there. Uh, you know, I think that's yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that bor axes.
Speaker 14: Threw away a refrigerator because they would just swarm and inside,
Speaker 14: you know, in the in the back of it and
Speaker 14: all the.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 16: It was thick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's disgusting. Well, thanks for that information. I think
Speaker 2: the boor axes, it's really along the same veins of
Speaker 2: what the expert that called in with bait stations and
Speaker 2: stuff that actually gets into the pores of the the
Speaker 2: legs and stuff of the cockroaches, and that's how the
Speaker 2: poison enters the system, rather than than you know, a
Speaker 2: spray or something that just gets on the surface. So
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. Now we know the rest of the story.
Speaker 2: Paul Harvey, you know, uh, thanks for calling in, Bill,
Speaker 2: I appreciate it. So Marie, back to you, my friend.
Speaker 2: So listen, you know that the Sharpest Rides is a
Speaker 2: you know, they get a lot of complaints and there's
Speaker 2: a lot of articles out there about people that have
Speaker 2: issues and problems and that make complaints and sometimes file
Speaker 2: lawsuits and stuff. We would like to give them an
Speaker 2: opportunity to help do the right thing with you and
Speaker 2: see if we can get you, you know, get them
Speaker 2: to take a look at your car and see if
Speaker 2: we can't get you some help. And so I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask our deputy Dmitri to to speak with you,
Speaker 2: get a little bit more information and to actually reach
Speaker 2: out to the sharpest rides and give them that opportunity
Speaker 2: to do the right thing. You're a single mom, you
Speaker 2: really need a working car. I can't think of a
Speaker 2: more you know, deserving person to have them step up
Speaker 2: and help you. You bought the warranty and it's time
Speaker 2: for them to do the right thing by you. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure that Dimitri can impress upon them how important
Speaker 2: it is that they step up and do the right thing.
Speaker 6: So Dimitri, yeah, hey, I'll be really happy to I'll
Speaker 6: speak with a caller offline kind of get some summary
Speaker 6: of what the problem is. And you know, I've always
Speaker 6: had really great luck dealing with viewerships, regardless of their
Speaker 6: previous reputation. I ignore that during my nation phone call,
Speaker 6: and because most of the time it's kind of a
Speaker 6: miscommunication problem or somebody didn't get the message or something
Speaker 6: like that. But I'd say more than half the time
Speaker 6: they step up and do the right thing.
Speaker 2: That's what we want to see. That's the important thing.
Speaker 6: Except Omera and they never called me back, they never
Speaker 6: respond to my emails.
Speaker 2: And if they do, we will dutifully report that they
Speaker 2: have done the right thing. That's ree and so we'll
Speaker 2: give them that opportunity. So Marie, hang on, We're going
Speaker 2: to get your contact information. Dmitri will be in touch
Speaker 2: with you soon and we'll see if we can help
Speaker 2: you out. Okay, thanks for calling in you you bet
Speaker 2: appreciate it. So, mister Dan, we were talking a little
Speaker 2: bit off air, and this is exactly the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that I want us to get into. And it's
Speaker 2: just the nuts and bolts of you know, Listen, we
Speaker 2: live in a state where we have abysmally low limits
Speaker 2: that are required by law. You can, you know, have
Speaker 2: a completely complying policy of insurance, but it only has
Speaker 2: twenty five thousand dollars of liability coverage. So for the
Speaker 2: benefit of our listeners that don't know, liability coverage is
Speaker 2: what pays for the other guy's injuries if you get
Speaker 2: into an accident. So it's the coverage that you carry
Speaker 2: so that the other guy doesn't come directly after you.
Speaker 2: So it's literally a policy of protection. Doesn't do anything
Speaker 2: for you in the way of your medicals and that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, but it literally protects you from the
Speaker 2: damage that you did to the other party if you're
Speaker 2: at fault for an accident.
Speaker 3: And so.
Speaker 2: Dan, maybe the good best starting place is just, you know,
Speaker 2: tell me about the discussions that you have with people
Speaker 2: about the appropriate level of insurance, because from my perspective
Speaker 2: as a plaintiff's attorney, there's almost no circumstance where twenty
Speaker 2: five is enough.
Speaker 5: Exactly, any clients that come into any clients that come
Speaker 5: to our agency that we write, we have a minimum
Speaker 5: in house. We won't write a policy under one hundred
Speaker 5: three hundred one. That's nothing to do with us or
Speaker 5: our income. It says that we feel like that is
Speaker 5: the minimum base level of getting a decent level of
Speaker 5: coverage to take care of any sort of well, not
Speaker 5: any but take care of a vast amount of losses
Speaker 5: that you may have. We were talking a little bit earlier,
Speaker 5: is that people are kind of confused with insurance. Is
Speaker 5: that Hey, I found a policy, I bought it. It
Speaker 5: was cheap, it saved me money. When we're talking about that,
Speaker 5: you know people, I use the parallel of cake. It's
Speaker 5: like saying to your.
Speaker 2: Friends, Hey I have cake. Okay, what does that mean?
Speaker 3: John?
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Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven
Speaker 7: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 7: when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
Speaker 7: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh
Speaker 7: three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 17: Rip.
Speaker 2: You don't have.
Speaker 1: Run incious as fast as we can.
Speaker 2: Shoot's gonna help, come man Dix. He is the Troubleshooter Show. Now,
Speaker 2: Tom Martine, Welcome to the Troubleshooter Show. This is John
Speaker 2: Fuller filling in for Tom Martino. Many of you know me.
Speaker 2: I'm a personally injury attorney in Denver and have been
Speaker 2: for the last twenty three years. We are here today
Speaker 2: talking about all things insurance as well as taking care
Speaker 2: of your problems. We are here to solve problems, take complaints,
Speaker 2: answer questions, if you've been scammed, if you've been ripped off,
Speaker 2: if you have a problem that we can help you with,
Speaker 2: no matter the subject, give us a call. The number
Speaker 2: is seven one three eight two five five. You can
Speaker 2: also contact us at help at troubleshooter dot com. So
Speaker 2: that's seven one three eight two fivey five. Give us
Speaker 2: a call. We have some open lines right now. With
Speaker 2: us in the studio today is Dan Mahoney. Dan is
Speaker 2: with the the Insurance Group of Denver. He is an
Speaker 2: independent agent, meaning he's not beholden to any particular insurance
Speaker 2: company and is therefore able to give you unbiased advice
Speaker 2: about the insurance products that you're considering. And before the break,
Speaker 2: we were talking about you know, limits on certain policies
Speaker 2: and how you know twenty five is just an abysmally
Speaker 2: low requirement by the state of Colorado. And I'll turn
Speaker 2: it back over to Dan. At this point he was
Speaker 2: talking about in his firm, they actually won't sell a
Speaker 2: policy that's minimal limits. You guys have requirements at least
Speaker 2: internally that you at least have one hundred three hundred,
Speaker 2: and I think that's great. I don't think a hundred
Speaker 2: is well. I would say this for the vast majority
Speaker 2: of claims, one hundred is enough. You know, our average
Speaker 2: claim is probably less than one hundred. It's definitely less
Speaker 2: than one hundred. But when it's more than one hundred,
Speaker 2: it tends to be a lot more than one hundred.
Speaker 2: And that's where you may regret having only one hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: So I want to segue into talking about out you know,
Speaker 2: umbrellas and stuff like that, and then I'm gonna kind
Speaker 2: of inject some real world stuff into the conversation from
Speaker 2: my perspective as a plaintiff's attorney. So I'll let you
Speaker 2: pick it back up where we left off. Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 2: thank jah. When you look at your policy, you're gonna
Speaker 2: see some numbers. You're gonna see typically one hundred slash
Speaker 2: three hundred slash one hundred.
Speaker 5: Explain what that means, just yeah, and then you'll see
Speaker 5: repeat again, one hundred, three hundred.
Speaker 2: So the first one hundred means outbound care to the
Speaker 2: other person.
Speaker 5: That you may endure in an accident. The three hundred thousand,
Speaker 5: that second number, that's an aggregate amount. So if you
Speaker 5: hurt someone else outbound, three people at one hundred thousand each,
Speaker 5: six people at fifty thousand each. However, you break that down,
Speaker 5: that is basically the pool money you're working with. That
Speaker 5: last number, that last one hundred. In this scenario, this
Speaker 5: is going to be property damage. So it's gonna be
Speaker 5: covering other vehicles, school buses, motorcycles, trees, this cows.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even a highway sign. So let me interrupt
Speaker 2: you there. You talked about the total amount necessary for
Speaker 2: an accident. So it's one hundred per person, but three
Speaker 2: hundred per accident. So what happens if you have four
Speaker 2: people in the car. So if you have four people
Speaker 2: in the car, that second.
Speaker 5: Number, that three hundred thousand, that aggregate is going to
Speaker 5: be what that that share that's going to be divided
Speaker 5: between those four people in that instant.
Speaker 2: And how do they divide that?
Speaker 5: Actually that that's gonna be based. It's gonna be claims based. Basically,
Speaker 5: what they're actually lost is now, if there's a lot
Speaker 5: of damage, like you said, you know, the majority of
Speaker 5: cases seem to stay around or one hundred thousand, but
Speaker 5: as you said, they can escalate pretty quickly. With our clients, again,
Speaker 5: one hundred three hundreds kind of our baseline. We prefer
Speaker 5: doing a to fifty five hundred, one hundred, even what
Speaker 5: you call a five hundred thousand combined single limit, which
Speaker 5: means each level has five hundred thousand dollars. On top
Speaker 5: of that, we're big advocates of umbrellas umbrellas. Umbrellas are
Speaker 5: relatively inexpensive. An umbrella is just as it says, it
Speaker 5: just sits over your home and your auto, and it
Speaker 5: just amplifies that underlying covers. So that's that what if
Speaker 5: that's that worst case scenario, and I've seen it happen.
Speaker 2: So all that is great and wonderful from a liability perspective,
Speaker 2: But all that insurance coverage in the world does nothing.
Speaker 2: If it's you that gets injured and the other car
Speaker 2: has those same minimal limits that we're talking about, where
Speaker 2: does that come into play? So now we're going back
Speaker 2: to the uninsured or uninsured.
Speaker 5: Motorist statistics are kind of all over the place, but
Speaker 5: I've seen upwards of seventeen percent.
Speaker 2: Of the drivers and Kyrod just don't even have insurance.
Speaker 5: Factoring for bad insurance, we're looking at about thirty percent
Speaker 5: at all. So when you're driving today, if you look
Speaker 5: at the three cars around you, one of them doesn't
Speaker 5: have insurance, doesn't have enough.
Speaker 2: That's coblutely true. What could happen? I did some research
Speaker 2: one time. The actual numbers in Colorado are two thirds
Speaker 2: of the drivers either have minimal limits or no insurance
Speaker 2: at all. In Colorado two thirds sixty almost sixty six
Speaker 2: percent either have minimal limits which is complying that's legal,
Speaker 2: or no insurance at all. So I mean it's not
Speaker 2: just the one car, it's both of the cars on
Speaker 2: either side of you either have no or minimal limits.
Speaker 2: So when when I talk to my clients about buying
Speaker 2: buying insurance, I you know, from my perspective, whatever you
Speaker 2: buy for the other guy is great, But really the
Speaker 2: focus ought to be what you're buying for your family,
Speaker 2: right right, because that's the that's the most important cargo
Speaker 2: that you carry, is those people that are that are
Speaker 2: in your car that you can control, and we are.
Speaker 5: When we're quoting people often we see that flip flopped.
Speaker 5: We see that you are buying the least amount of
Speaker 5: coverage for yourself and the most for the other guy. Yeah,
Speaker 5: Or when we're in a situation where someone's out shopping quotes,
Speaker 5: they'll come back. They'll be like, hey, I've found this
Speaker 5: great deal. We have a good relationship with our clients,
Speaker 5: will be like, here, send us a copy what you find.
Speaker 5: And oftentimes that's what we find is that they sacrifice
Speaker 5: you to lower that premium, make more attractive to you,
Speaker 5: come in and buy. But that uninsured, uninsured motorist. Again,
Speaker 5: it's it's matching your your policy levels. I'm a big
Speaker 5: fan of two fifty five hundred or more. In that situation,
Speaker 5: you do get hit by one of those people, and
Speaker 5: now your your costs, your cost of uh living, your endeavors.
Speaker 5: You have a pool of money that you can go
Speaker 5: back to. And I am seeing this used more and
Speaker 5: more and more every year. It used to be pretty
Speaker 5: uh I would never see anybody even touch it. But
Speaker 5: it's become a reality now that the other guy's not
Speaker 5: doing their job because you know, if they're just buying insurance,
Speaker 5: they don't know what that means.
Speaker 13: Hey, yeah, I have a question. So the people who
Speaker 13: have the minimal insurance. Are they people who can declare bankruptcy?
Speaker 13: And the main question is someone has you know, minimal
Speaker 13: coverage and they get a judgment. Is that judgment dischargeable
Speaker 13: if they declare bankruptcy?
Speaker 5: So, and I'm going to bring John on this because
Speaker 5: I've always been trained that in a situation where you
Speaker 5: declare bankruptcy, a bankruptcy is essentially a contract breaking your
Speaker 5: financial contracts, which you could actually forgive the insurance company
Speaker 5: from protecting or defending you in that claim, which means
Speaker 5: now you're back on your own.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the short answer, Doc is yes, I mean,
Speaker 2: but the longer answer is what does it matter? I mean,
Speaker 2: if you get a judgment of two million dollars against
Speaker 2: somebody that has no assets, it's worthless. They don't even
Speaker 2: need to go to the court to declare bankruptcy. You're
Speaker 2: never going to collect your two million dollars. So that
Speaker 2: bankruptcy you know, discharge is about as valuable as that
Speaker 2: you know to them, Is that judgment is to you?
Speaker 6: Well, my point is that the people who have this
Speaker 6: they don't care.
Speaker 2: They don't care.
Speaker 13: They have the minimum insurance because I have to. But
Speaker 13: then they say, well, look, you know you can't. There's
Speaker 13: there's nothing to collect. Why should I pay for more
Speaker 13: insurance when really I don't need it?
Speaker 2: So so that's my typical argument, is that the reason
Speaker 2: you buy more insurance is so that you're allowed to
Speaker 2: buy greater limits for your family. Correct. You know, people
Speaker 2: call me all the time, and I welcome their calls,
Speaker 2: and I truly do. And and the call goes like this,
Speaker 2: how much insurance do I need?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And and for some reason they think I'm better qualified
Speaker 2: because I exhaust policies frequently, that that I'm a better
Speaker 2: you know, a better judge of that and stuff. So
Speaker 2: when we come back from the break, I want to
Speaker 2: talk about you know, I want to talk about like
Speaker 2: what happens when you don't have enough coverage. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure that you've had clients in that position. I've had
Speaker 2: people call me, I've had plaintiffs that have damages far
Speaker 2: greater than coverage. We're going to talk about that when
Speaker 2: we come right back.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's Best Roofer Excel roofing
Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content
Speaker 7: than time for an insurance check up, free no obligation
Speaker 7: comparison call Compass insurance, paying too much your coverage at
Speaker 7: dozens of insurance companies.
Speaker 1: Find out now three O three seven to seven to
Speaker 1: one help.
Speaker 7: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 7: durand the real estate man dot com to list your
Speaker 7: home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero sixteen
Speaker 7: twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, good afternoon, John Fuller here,
Speaker 2: we are moving rapidly forward in the day. We're talking
Speaker 2: about insurance stuff. If we can be of help to you,
Speaker 2: give us a call it three O three seven one
Speaker 2: three eight two five five. We are here to solve
Speaker 2: your problems and help out with any issue that you have.
Speaker 2: In the studio today we have Dan Mahoney. Dan is
Speaker 2: a principal, meaning the owner of the insurance Group of Denver,
Speaker 2: and they're an independent agent, meaning they sell a number
Speaker 2: of different lines of insurance, but they're not beholding to
Speaker 2: any one, which is kind of cool because you're going
Speaker 2: to get the straight skinny and you're not going to
Speaker 2: get the party line of some you know, fill in
Speaker 2: the blank insurance company. And I was looking at your
Speaker 2: list of carriers that you write for, and most of
Speaker 2: them I recognize, but there are some that are absent,
Speaker 2: and most of them are kind of the big guys
Speaker 2: that you hear, you know, advertising around you. You're the
Speaker 2: ones we always have problems with, like all State and
Speaker 2: State farm and farmers and that kind of stuff. I
Speaker 2: would venture a guess that you're able to put together
Speaker 2: more diverse policies that are more custom tailored for your
Speaker 2: client by being an independent agent rather than just having
Speaker 2: a set line of products that you can sell for
Speaker 2: one carrier. Is that talk to us about the differences
Speaker 2: that you have in the stuff that you can do
Speaker 2: for clients. Sure, you know, it all starts at the
Speaker 2: beginning when we talk to a client.
Speaker 5: I really want to know a lot more about the
Speaker 5: client than just their name and what they want to buy.
Speaker 5: Assets drive a lot of that, you know, if you
Speaker 5: have a lot of rental properties, things like that. Different
Speaker 5: carriers specialize in different areas, and we kind of were
Speaker 5: talking off air about uninsured motorists and umbrellas. A lot
Speaker 5: of companies are kind of shying away from that because
Speaker 5: it's a big loss point. But we can still do those,
Speaker 5: We can still put those together, so we really truly
Speaker 5: can customize for you A package.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 5: I'm a big advocate if we have one thing for you,
Speaker 5: we keep everything in one carrier, especially if we're going
Speaker 5: to deal with an umbrella. We don't want any company
Speaker 5: pointing to someone else saying, oh, this is your issue,
Speaker 5: this is the overlap, this is double indemnity, this is stacking.
Speaker 5: We don't want to deal with any of that. We
Speaker 5: want it all nice and clean. At the end of
Speaker 5: the day, your cost is probably going to come out
Speaker 5: about the same as where you're at, and you know,
Speaker 5: and even just raising your underlying limits from you know,
Speaker 5: state minimums to a relatively decent amount is pretty inexpensive.
Speaker 2: To take that next step up to go to two fifty.
Speaker 5: Five hundred, five hundred combined single limit, you're talking a
Speaker 5: couple hundred bucks a year you add an umbrella. Depending
Speaker 5: on the carrier what you have, it's going to range
Speaker 5: between you know, two hundred and twelve hundred dollars a year.
Speaker 5: But again, if you have those assets and you have
Speaker 5: things at risk, you really need to have those things.
Speaker 5: On a side note, it's interesting the gentleman who called
Speaker 5: in earlier about the apartment with the bug problem. Right now,
Speaker 5: the way the market is This is a hard market
Speaker 5: right now, so nobody wants to write, especially you know,
Speaker 5: Colorado's one of the harder hit states after the Superior
Speaker 5: fire or Marshall fire, Troublesome Creek, all those things. Rates
Speaker 5: have gone absolutely nuts and as a hard market, even
Speaker 5: my agency we struggle to even find policies right now
Speaker 5: because a lot of curriers just don't want to write business.
Speaker 5: So it's an unannounced moratorium if you will. So if
Speaker 5: you do, cause we're happy to help you and talk
Speaker 5: to it. It's just I don't know if we have
Speaker 5: an option for you necessarily, but as the market comes
Speaker 5: back online, that's going to prove over time.
Speaker 2: We do help out some.
Speaker 5: Financial firms around town that provide advice to folks on retirement,
Speaker 5: and we also do reviews for their clients as well,
Speaker 5: make sure everything's stacked up and makes sense on their cory.
Speaker 13: Again, I have a question. Yeah, you know, one of
Speaker 13: the things that you see on TV all the time
Speaker 13: is this bundling. So does it really save you money
Speaker 13: to have you a home and auto with the same company.
Speaker 5: From a straight financial standpoint, it's usually the same.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry if you're splitting everything.
Speaker 5: Off and trying to take advantage of multiple markets, you're
Speaker 5: damaging yourself because you are giving up a lot of
Speaker 5: multiline discounts. And keep in mind, insurance is all about risk.
Speaker 5: So if I'm a product person or underwriter with an
Speaker 5: insurance company and you're coming to me with five different lines,
Speaker 5: that's five different points of risk. I know that you
Speaker 5: are going to be a better value to me because
Speaker 5: you're not going to have five areas of risk all
Speaker 5: happen at once.
Speaker 2: But there's a bigger issue with that, and it's one
Speaker 2: that we kind of run into. It's like, you know,
Speaker 2: I think if I'm talking strictly as an insured as
Speaker 2: a guy that's buying insurance and stuff based on my experience,
Speaker 2: the more opportunities you give an insurance company to point
Speaker 2: the finger at somebody else and say that other company
Speaker 2: or that other policy should be the one that's on
Speaker 2: the hook for this loss, the more app they are
Speaker 2: to do that. So when you create this potential, I
Speaker 2: don't know if conflict is the right word, but opportunity
Speaker 2: maybe between say a homeowners and an auto policy. You know,
Speaker 2: was you're out on a bicycle and you crash into somebody,
Speaker 2: Is it homeowners or is it auto you know, well,
Speaker 2: it's it's most likely homeowners in that situation. But what
Speaker 2: if it's an e bike where it's a motorized bike
Speaker 2: or something, Eh, not as clear that's more of a
Speaker 2: motorized vehicle because that going to go under the auto
Speaker 2: policy maybe, you know. Or if you're hit by a driver,
Speaker 2: now you are trigging. I mean, we do so much
Speaker 2: more in battling these issues behind the scenes, where we
Speaker 2: legit have a team of attorneys that's saying we think
Speaker 2: the policy says this, and our interpretation is that, and
Speaker 2: we have to harmonize those too, and so I mean
Speaker 2: that's part of what's so important about getting somebody on
Speaker 2: your side is that that these policies are subject to interpretation.
Speaker 2: It's never just as easy as looking at a list
Speaker 2: and seeing, yep, that's covered.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: You remember the old Farmer's commercials where the guy and
Speaker 2: the old tweet sports coat was like, we covered it,
Speaker 2: you know, and that's not reality. Reality is we denied it,
Speaker 2: you know, and and then we got sued and then
Speaker 2: we begrudgingly decided to pay that claim down the road
Speaker 2: after you know so and so attorney whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: it it's just the first question was are we better
Speaker 2: off with the bundle? Yeah, I think so, to the
Speaker 2: extent that you can within reason. I mean, don't pay,
Speaker 2: don't pay an exorbitant premium for that privilege. But if
Speaker 2: you can get everything under one house, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: I think it makes sense to do it.
Speaker 5: It's like, Doc, if you go to lunch today, you
Speaker 5: go to McDonald's for your fries, burger Kings for your burger,
Speaker 5: and a gas station for your Sota because you're trying
Speaker 5: to maximize money.
Speaker 2: You missed the boat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're you're spending the money anyway. You're you're giving
Speaker 5: up discounts, and you're giving up the continuity of coverage.
Speaker 2: I really want one goes wrong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you don't want to have to point out a
Speaker 5: whole bunch of people or have the car carriers pointing
Speaker 5: at each other.
Speaker 2: They love that. That's great for them, absolutely, I.
Speaker 5: Mean they can they can stall out a court case
Speaker 5: forever just by reversing the point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's absolutely the case. And so you know,
Speaker 2: practice pointer to most people. If you're out there shopping around,
Speaker 2: really take the time to try to find the best
Speaker 2: deal that has everything under one You know umbrella for
Speaker 2: lack of a better word, because I think in the
Speaker 2: end you'll find that you have better coverage and a
Speaker 2: better opportunity to get your damages taken care of. So
Speaker 2: we're going to go to a quick break. We will
Speaker 2: be right back and continue discussion. Give us a call
Speaker 2: if we can help you. We've got open lines right now.
Speaker 2: Seven P one three A two five five is a number.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 1: On top of it.
Speaker 7: I'm for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 7: when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
Speaker 7: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all
Speaker 7: three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, good afternoon, We're back. This is John Fuller
Speaker 2: or the Troubleshooter Network, and we are moving along here.
Speaker 2: We're talking about insurance coverage and and I'm talking with
Speaker 2: Dan Mahoney who is the principle of insurance Group of Denver.
Speaker 2: They're an independent agent. The cool thing about that is
Speaker 2: they're not beholden to one of the normal carriers there.
Speaker 2: They have a whole list of carriers that they're able
Speaker 2: to really custom formulate coverages to meet your needs and stuff.
Speaker 2: And so one of the things that we were talking
Speaker 2: about earlier, and everybody's already always heard these horror stories
Speaker 2: about well, you know it, can it come take my
Speaker 2: house or my my car, or my dog or whatever
Speaker 2: it is that you have to to you know, to
Speaker 2: satisfy a creditor. And those are largely wives tales. I mean,
Speaker 2: you don't really hear about people taking people's houses literally
Speaker 2: as as much as you you know, you might think
Speaker 2: based on the TV commercials and stuff that you hear
Speaker 2: out there, but the risk is very real and and
Speaker 2: it's it's something that that people need to be aware
Speaker 2: of the actual mechanics of how that work or how
Speaker 2: that works and in the real world. And and so
Speaker 2: every now and again we get a call and and
Speaker 2: we did recently from a listener to the show here
Speaker 2: and and not to not to you know, to use
Speaker 2: him as an example, but I think that it really
Speaker 2: paints a picture that I suspect a lot of listeners
Speaker 2: are in and and this gentleman had had worked his
Speaker 2: whole life and had amassed, you know, a house that
Speaker 2: was paid for that in Colorado, you know, a decent home.
Speaker 2: It was I believe it was just over a million
Speaker 2: dollars or so. And that's he admitted to a net
Speaker 2: worth of over a million dollars. We didn't pursue it further,
Speaker 2: but he was definitely a man of means, but not
Speaker 2: not crazy. We're not talking like the Rockefellers here or something.
Speaker 2: We're just talking about a person that lived his whole
Speaker 2: life that happened to pay off his mortgage and the
Speaker 2: property appreciated. He's got a couple of cars that are
Speaker 2: paid for in an RV and an old dog and
Speaker 2: a you know whatever. But the point is, you know,
Speaker 2: at the age that this gentleman was, which was well
Speaker 2: into retirement, he's still driving. He's still out there. He
Speaker 2: still has risk. And I don't think a lot of
Speaker 2: people really believe that they have this risk, and they're
Speaker 2: attempted to just have the same old insurance that they've
Speaker 2: had their whole life. And maybe twenty or thirty years ago,
Speaker 2: having minimal limits made sense when he had less assets
Speaker 2: and less earnings and less risk and probably cars at
Speaker 2: that time cost, you know, seven thousand dollars or something
Speaker 2: for a new car, whereas today they're ninety or one
Speaker 2: hundred thousand dollars. It seems like half the cars in
Speaker 2: the parking lot. Are you know, a pickup truck that's
Speaker 2: over one hundred grand is not hard to do and stuff.
Speaker 2: And then you start thinking about this twenty five grand
Speaker 2: that you've got for coverage, and you go, holy cow,
Speaker 2: this is not enough. And so this particular caller got
Speaker 2: into an accident and he didn't think it was that
Speaker 2: significant of an accident, but sure enough, the other party
Speaker 2: ended up going to the hospital. I think they were
Speaker 2: in an ambulance, So it wasn't It wasn't just a bump,
Speaker 2: It was something halfway significant. And lo and behold, they
Speaker 2: ended up with an attorney, and he began to work
Speaker 2: through the issue of do I have enough coverage? And
Speaker 2: the plaintiff's attorney he was working through the issue of
Speaker 2: what are we going to do with this guy? Okay?
Speaker 2: And it brings up this unique process that most people
Speaker 2: don't even know exist, which is the insurance companies and
Speaker 2: the lawyers all have to figure out what cards they've
Speaker 2: been dealt. And so, if a guy has twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars of insurance and he's got five dollars worth
Speaker 2: of assets, that may be the single most valuable thing
Speaker 2: that he owns is that policy of insurance, And it
Speaker 2: may make absolute sense to take the twenty five, even
Speaker 2: though you may have let's say, just for the sake
Speaker 2: of the argument, let's say you have two hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars of damages. It may be the case that your
Speaker 2: strategic best move is to take that twenty five because
Speaker 2: that's the most you're ever going to get from this guy.
Speaker 2: He's got two nickels to rub together in a twenty
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars policy. God love him, right. But on
Speaker 2: the other hand, if the guy has a million dollars
Speaker 2: or so of assets out there that are unencumbered by
Speaker 2: mortgages and he just happens to have this policy that's
Speaker 2: the bare bones minimum that the state says that you
Speaker 2: can buy, you have to ask the question, is the
Speaker 2: guy voluntarily underinsured? What does that mean? Voluntarily underinsured? Dan,
Speaker 2: It just means he didn't buy enough insurance relative to
Speaker 2: the number of assets that he has, right.
Speaker 5: And he's also going along with what the state says.
Speaker 2: He's just trying to save money, but you know, intentionally
Speaker 2: or not, he's putting his own assets at risk instead
Speaker 2: of spending a little extra money in buying that extra coverage.
Speaker 2: I mean, at its core, buying liability insurance is protection
Speaker 2: for your own assets. And so it came as quite
Speaker 2: a shock to this guy that what do you mean
Speaker 2: by why are they wanting to know about my personal assets?
Speaker 2: Why are they wanting to know how much money I
Speaker 2: have in the bank, and how much equity I have,
Speaker 2: and how many stocks and bonds I have, and you know,
Speaker 2: and what my cars are worth. Why are they asking
Speaker 2: me all these questions? And the simple fact was the
Speaker 2: plaintiff's attorney was evaluating, and probably the uninsured motors carrier
Speaker 2: for the injured party, they were evaluating whether or not
Speaker 2: you were voluntarily underinsured. And if they conclude that you were,
Speaker 2: then guess what they could absolutely not agree to, except
Speaker 2: you're twenty five, and they could instead decide to come
Speaker 2: after you because you have assets. And that's the worst
Speaker 2: thing that can happen to you when you're seventy five
Speaker 2: or eighty years old and all of a sudden you're
Speaker 2: facing a judgment that could require you to sell your house,
Speaker 2: or sell assets, or cash in your stock account or something.
Speaker 2: You know, there's lots of assets that are not protected.
Speaker 2: That's the reality of getting in an accident and accidentally
Speaker 2: hurting somebody. Nobody says you did something on purpose, but
Speaker 2: not having enough insurance to protect you in the event
Speaker 2: that that happened.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 2: You know, if that same accident had happened and the
Speaker 2: guy had two fifty or something and he's only got
Speaker 2: a house and maybe a couple of cars, and he's old,
Speaker 2: and there's protections in place, the planet's attorney would likely
Speaker 2: conclude that, you know, and the um carrier would conclude
Speaker 2: that he's appropriately insured. We're just gonna take the two
Speaker 2: fifty if it's offered, which it probably would be. We're
Speaker 2: gonna take the two fifty, and we'll give him a
Speaker 2: complete release that lets this guy off the hook.
Speaker 13: Right, and John, can you for both of you you
Speaker 13: can get separate covers. So if you have an old
Speaker 13: car and can you get like minimal collision and maximum
Speaker 13: and maximum liability?
Speaker 2: Absolutely?
Speaker 5: Yeah, so you can get you can you don't have
Speaker 5: to have twenty five.
Speaker 6: It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 2: If they get liability only of a big, huge number
Speaker 2: and just not have Cadillac coverage for your car. Okay,
Speaker 2: I have a gnarly ugly pickup truck that has more
Speaker 2: liability in the world, and it's straight.
Speaker 5: There's nothing either. If it disappears, it disappears, and God
Speaker 5: bless whoever would take.
Speaker 2: That exactly, it's probably worth more in the form of
Speaker 2: a check point insurance coming off than any buyer would
Speaker 2: ever give you on it. So so you know, that's
Speaker 2: the backdrop that we're dealing with. Is this real, you know,
Speaker 2: circumstance that happens to people when they just try to
Speaker 2: save a little money and get the bare bones minimum
Speaker 2: coverage and they think this could never happen to me,
Speaker 2: and it does, and it did to one of our
Speaker 2: listeners here at the show. And I hate that more
Speaker 2: than anything, because you know, not only is this guy,
Speaker 2: you know, whole retirement really in jeopardy, but that planet
Speaker 2: that got injured. That person is trying to recover and
Speaker 2: be made whole. And I mean, I'm sure they're a
Speaker 2: good person, and they don't want to take a guy's
Speaker 2: or something crazy. So it's just it's it's truly incumbent
Speaker 2: upon you to have enough insurance to really reflect today's marketplace,
Speaker 2: where a trip to the er can be thirty forty
Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars in a heartbeat and you're twenty five,
Speaker 2: no matter what the law says, is just not enough coverage.
Speaker 2: So when we get back from break, we're going to
Speaker 2: talk about my two other favorite things, medpay and medpay waivers,
Speaker 2: and then we're going to get into umbrellas. So hang
Speaker 2: on a second, we'll be right back.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 7: call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
Speaker 7: customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man
Speaker 7: dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
Speaker 7: all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, we're back. John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter network.
Speaker 2: We are looking at some open lines here and so
Speaker 2: we are here to help you if you have any
Speaker 2: issues that we can chime in on. If you've been scammed,
Speaker 2: if you've been ripped off, if you have challenges with contractors,
Speaker 2: issues with your vehicles, problems with your landlord, anything along
Speaker 2: those lines, and particularly if you happen to have been
Speaker 2: in an accident you have questions about that, I'm happy
Speaker 2: to answer those questions. That is my specialty. I've been
Speaker 2: a personal injury attorney in Denver for the last twenty
Speaker 2: three or so years, and we are here to help.
Speaker 2: The phone number is three three seven one, three eight
Speaker 2: two five five. In the studio with me today are
Speaker 2: deputies Dimitri and Doc always ready at the standby for
Speaker 2: your issues. And Dan mahoney Dance with the Insurance Group
Speaker 2: of Denver and we're here having a lively discussion about
Speaker 2: insurance coverages and what to and not to do and
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. And so if you have questions
Speaker 2: about your own coverage, absolutely pick up the phone and
Speaker 2: call is. Grab your deck sheet if you want to
Speaker 2: run some numbers by us and see if we think
Speaker 2: that you're appropriately insured. Or anything along those lines. Those
Speaker 2: calls are always welcome. If you have horror stories about
Speaker 2: a claim that's gone wrong with you, or that some
Speaker 2: example of a lesson that you learned along the way
Speaker 2: regarding coverage and stuff, by all means, give us a call.
Speaker 2: Those are super helpful for everybody else and the what
Speaker 2: not to do categories, So we're here for you. Give
Speaker 2: us a call. So, going into the break, I mentioned
Speaker 2: that my two favorite subjects were medpay and uninsured motors coverage,
Speaker 2: and I want to talk about medpay and a lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know really the genesis of medpay, where
Speaker 2: it where it came from. Uh, but they do remember
Speaker 2: that a number of years ago we had we had
Speaker 2: something called no fault in Colorado, and under no fault,
Speaker 2: if you got an accident, it didn't matter whose fault
Speaker 2: it was. My insurance company would pay for my meds
Speaker 2: and yours would pay for years. And so we literally
Speaker 2: had this this you know, this regime or this this
Speaker 2: you know this this setup in Colorado to where we
Speaker 2: didn't really go to our own primary care doctors. We
Speaker 2: didn't we didn't really you know, use our traditional medical
Speaker 2: providers because they weren't really participating in auto crashes. They
Speaker 2: they they weren't on the list, so to speak. And
Speaker 2: and so we had all these like injury people and
Speaker 2: chiropractors and stuff that were all experts and in treating,
Speaker 2: you know, auto crashes, and and and the the insurance companies,
Speaker 2: of course, perceived that every trip to the chiropractor was
Speaker 2: a waste of money, and they thought that the system
Speaker 2: was being abused, and so they put it on the
Speaker 2: ballot and promised the people in Colorado that they would
Speaker 2: save bookoos on their insurance premiums. And so Colorado voted
Speaker 2: out the no fault and they voted in the system
Speaker 2: that we have. And so immediately the after effects of
Speaker 2: that law change became became known, which was that now
Speaker 2: we had no mechanism to get medical bills paid that
Speaker 2: were incurred immediately following an accident, because the at fault
Speaker 2: carriers refused to pay. They represent their insurance and they're
Speaker 2: never going to reduce the amount of policy coverage that
Speaker 2: they have without securing a release in advance. And so
Speaker 2: they had the ability to sit back and wait for
Speaker 2: months and months and never pay any of those bills.
Speaker 2: And we had people that would immediately get a bill
Speaker 2: from the ambulance and immediately get a bill from the
Speaker 2: er and there was no mechanism to get that paid.
Speaker 2: And so the solution to that, and I should probably
Speaker 2: we also had our hospitals weren't getting paid either, and
Speaker 2: so they were kind of knocking on the door of
Speaker 2: the legislature saying, we have a problem here, people. You've
Speaker 2: outlawed this whole mechanism that we had to get paid,
Speaker 2: and now we're being asked to wait months and months
Speaker 2: to get paid for this er visit that we had
Speaker 2: to treat the party for. We can't turn them away,
Speaker 2: and so what are we to do? And so their
Speaker 2: answer to that was medical payments coverage, and we went
Speaker 2: through a number of gyrations. Initially it was only one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and it was going to save the day,
Speaker 2: as if that would pay for an ambulance ride or
Speaker 2: any any real part of an er visit. But that's
Speaker 2: what the dollar amount was, and we've kind of gravitated
Speaker 2: up to where it is today and the required minimal
Speaker 2: amount of medpay is five thousand dollars. And so it's
Speaker 2: this crazy thing where we have a mandatory coverage.
Speaker 6: Then you kicked out, but you can wait it and John,
Speaker 6: not only that, but the pay in my case, and
Speaker 6: here are the declarations that I'm going to ask Dan
Speaker 6: to go over review for me. The maximum is only
Speaker 6: twenty five thousand dollars. I wanted a lot more than
Speaker 6: that with the insurance company. No insurance company would sell
Speaker 6: me more than twenty five thousand medpay.
Speaker 16: What turns that?
Speaker 2: Is that going to pay for it? And not many
Speaker 2: companies will sell twenty five and I've only seen a
Speaker 2: couple that will sell one hundred, and it just varies.
Speaker 2: That's their you know, really, insurance companies hate medical payments
Speaker 2: coverage because it's it's a coverage that's not dependent upon fault,
Speaker 2: and so they can't really you know, they can't really
Speaker 2: you know, traditionally, their evaluations of risk are evaluating your
Speaker 2: likelihood to get in an accident. And we can we
Speaker 2: can actuarily determine what our risk level is. But but
Speaker 2: you know, we were talking off the air. If you're
Speaker 2: carrying six kids to a volleyball.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing
Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent on You're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance check up free no obligation. Comparison
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: seven one help. You'll think you're his only customer when
Speaker 7: you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com
Speaker 7: to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three
Speaker 7: nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 17: Ripped of.
Speaker 3: News, so you don't have come.
Speaker 1: Come run in as fast as can.
Speaker 2: Shooter's gonna help.
Speaker 9: Come man, This is.
Speaker 4: The Troubleshooter Show Now, Tom Martinez, Hey.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon. This is John Fuller on the Referral Network.
Speaker 2: We are here halfway through today. We are here to
Speaker 2: solve problems, take complaints, an tower quesestions. We're here to
Speaker 2: help you. If you've been scammed, if you've been ripped off,
Speaker 2: if there's something that we can help you on, give
Speaker 2: us a call. The number here in the studio is
Speaker 2: seven one three eight two five five. That's three oh
Speaker 2: three seven one three eight two five five. You can
Speaker 2: also reach us at help at troubleshooter dot com. We
Speaker 2: have Deputy Doc and Deputy Dmitri and uh. We have
Speaker 2: Dan Mahoney in the house today dan is a is
Speaker 2: an insurance agent that owns Insurance Group of Denver, which
Speaker 2: is an independent agency, And we're kind of talking through
Speaker 2: the different issues. We just tiptoed into medpay and I
Speaker 2: was talking about the history of medpay. If if you're
Speaker 2: new to the show this afternoon, we're kind of discussing
Speaker 2: all things auto insurance and limits and types of coverage
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. If if you have issues that
Speaker 2: relate to claims on your auto insurance or you have
Speaker 2: questions about the level of coverage that you have, give
Speaker 2: us a call, because we're here to help work through
Speaker 2: those issues. And so I'd far prefer to discuss with
Speaker 2: you about whether the coverage is there to do what
Speaker 2: you think it's there to do before something happens rather
Speaker 2: than after. And so we had just tiptoed into medpay.
Speaker 2: Medpay is a coverage that's on your policy. It's designed
Speaker 2: to help you pay some of the out of pocket
Speaker 2: expenses that you immediately incur after an accident. And I
Speaker 2: can't tell you the number of times when I have
Speaker 2: a client that says, well, I wasn't at fault. The
Speaker 2: hospital's just going to build the other insurance company and
Speaker 2: they truly think that that's what's going to happen. But
Speaker 2: the reality is that the other insurance company is never
Speaker 2: going to pay those bills as they're being incurred. Those
Speaker 2: bills are in your name, they're your responsibility. If you
Speaker 2: ignore them and don't do anything with them, it'll be
Speaker 2: you that gets a collection company calling you, and it'll
Speaker 2: be your credit that ends up getting deemed in the process.
Speaker 2: So it's very important that you understand what coverages are
Speaker 2: there to provide what payment and medpay is kind of
Speaker 2: the first line of defense. So I wanted to turn
Speaker 2: it over to Dan and just talk about it. It's
Speaker 2: a mandatory coverage, but explain the waiver. How does that work?
Speaker 3: Dan?
Speaker 2: In your practice?
Speaker 5: So it's a mandatory coverage that you can opt out of.
Speaker 2: That's the genius. Why would anybody ever do that?
Speaker 5: So when I hear people say I'm going to opt
Speaker 5: out of that, they say I'm going to opt out
Speaker 5: because I have amazing health insurance or I'm in the military,
Speaker 5: or I'm on I'm retired and I have Medicare.
Speaker 2: Well, I haven't had an accident in thirty two years
Speaker 2: and need.
Speaker 5: And you're impervious, right, That's the other one too, and
Speaker 5: you know everyone's going to get an accident, and statistics
Speaker 5: are out there to yeah, what is it like every
Speaker 5: seven years over over one thousand bucks? Either the problem
Speaker 5: with that is that is seven years going to be
Speaker 5: this afternoon or is it going to be in seven years?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: And it's going to happen, so you have to be
Speaker 2: prepared for it. Well, how do you rebut that argument
Speaker 2: that I have great insurance, so I have Medicare. I
Speaker 2: hear that all the time. I have I have Medicare,
Speaker 2: and I have trap care for life and and and
Speaker 2: I'm totally covered. There's never going to be a medical
Speaker 2: bill that I have to pay. Why the hell should
Speaker 2: I have so pay?
Speaker 5: When I talked through this, first thing is is that
Speaker 5: really medpay? I kind of look at it as it's
Speaker 5: it's buying you time. So it's it's giving you some
Speaker 5: money at the time of the accident that you can
Speaker 5: apply towards any early incurred costs or any ancillary care
Speaker 5: that you want.
Speaker 2: To go out. That's going to make you feel better.
Speaker 5: Uh So that's that's the first part of it. It's
Speaker 5: going to make it a lot easier. It's going to
Speaker 5: streamline the process.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: Second, especially if you're you're younger, is that uh you know,
Speaker 5: if you have kids and you're driving carpool and you
Speaker 5: have an accident and you have five kids all tucked
Speaker 5: up in your super four wheel drive wagon, if one
Speaker 5: of those kids doesn't have health insurance or doesn't have parents,
Speaker 5: don't have a good policy, all of a sudden, you're
Speaker 5: going to be responsible for those costs. And in this case,
Speaker 5: now with the medpay on there, they can actually dip
Speaker 5: into those funds and same thing, it helps assist them
Speaker 5: along the process to get to the treatment that they
Speaker 5: need until someone takes responsibility and starts paying the bills.
Speaker 2: I love when people tell me how great their Medicare is,
Speaker 2: and it's just a they're just misinformed. They just don't understand.
Speaker 2: I mean, a Medicare doesn't cover everything, number one, so
Speaker 2: you're not truly impervious to any you know, bill coming
Speaker 2: your way following an accident. But secondly, it's like, do
Speaker 2: you only drive by yourself forever and ever and you
Speaker 2: never have anybody else in your car? I mean, do
Speaker 2: you and the neighbors never go out to dinner? Do
Speaker 2: you never take your grandkids to the park or back
Speaker 2: over to your kid's house or I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: everybody else that you buy all this insurance for. You know,
Speaker 2: if I have a super you know, gazillion dollar U
Speaker 2: in policy, and i'm that because I don't want to
Speaker 2: have no insurance available if I got killed. It's not
Speaker 2: me that's going to get that money, it's my family.
Speaker 2: And so I just look at insurance as a necessary evil.
Speaker 2: It's a tool that we have to have, but you
Speaker 2: darn sure ought to have it built in a way
Speaker 2: that's going to benefit the people that are in your
Speaker 2: family that are actually going to be the recipient of
Speaker 2: those funds. And I think medpay is one of those coverages.
Speaker 2: It's perfect for copays and deductibles and stuff like that
Speaker 2: that are the immediate out of pocket expenses.
Speaker 5: And almost anybody you talk to now it used to
Speaker 5: be optional back when healthcare shart getting expensive, but it's
Speaker 5: pretty standard now. Most policies have five thousand dollars deductible
Speaker 5: right out the door.
Speaker 2: Yeah they do, and we're able to frequently use the
Speaker 2: medpay to at least help knock out that out of
Speaker 2: pocket minimum. It maybe doesn't cover every single bit of it,
Speaker 2: but it goes a long way. And so if you're
Speaker 2: really if you're one of those people that are like, Okay,
Speaker 2: do I pay the deductible or do I pay my rent?
Speaker 2: That medpay is the difference in being immediately in financial crisis,
Speaker 2: especially if somebody has to take a week or two
Speaker 2: off work, and being able to kind of maintain the
Speaker 2: status quo and pay your rent and keep things flowing forward. Dmitry,
Speaker 2: you had a question.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Dan, you know, I've always been a big advocate
Speaker 6: of proper insurance in case I incurliability while driving or
Speaker 6: doing something else. But a fundamental shift in my thinking
Speaker 6: started occurring back when I I'd say six seven months ago,
Speaker 6: and I started seeing John quite a bit over here
Speaker 6: in the course of our participation in the show. And
Speaker 6: one thing that he impressed upon me is the importance
Speaker 6: of look at this as buying insurance for yourself. Right
Speaker 6: because of what he just said, you know that both
Speaker 6: cars on your side are statistically uninsured, are severely underinsured.
Speaker 6: So that has been the shift and the reason that
Speaker 6: I want to buy and do buy auto insurance. So
Speaker 6: here's my declarations page. And in the context of what
Speaker 6: I just said, can you please review and this is
Speaker 6: a state farm policy, and can you please review this.
Speaker 6: By the way, these are all limits. They won't sell
Speaker 6: me any more insurance. So not only would I ask
Speaker 6: you to review my limits, but can you also bring
Speaker 6: into that discussion what you said about an umbrella policy
Speaker 6: amplifying these limits? If so, to what extent would each
Speaker 6: of these light items be amplified by million dollar policy?
Speaker 6: And also, is that million dollars actually divided into small
Speaker 6: sub sections for each of these line items? Or can
Speaker 6: I expect a million dollar amplification to each of these
Speaker 6: line items within the context of a million dollar total limit?
Speaker 6: That kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: You're going to have to put that question in writing.
Speaker 2: I'm spreadsheet to answer all that. We're going to go
Speaker 2: to a break here right now, we'll address Dimitri's declaration
Speaker 2: sheet and and we'll sum it up in a much
Speaker 2: more concise question right after this break.
Speaker 7: Hang on, guys, go with a sure thing Denver's Best
Speaker 7: roofer Excel roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent
Speaker 7: until you're content, wait time for an insurance checkup free
Speaker 7: no obligation. In comparison, call compass insurance paying too much
Speaker 7: your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now
Speaker 7: three all three seven to seven to one help. You'll
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Speaker 7: the real estate man dot Com to list your home
Speaker 7: with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen
Speaker 7: twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, all right, good afternoon.
Speaker 2: John Fuller back with the Troubleshooter Network. We are trucking
Speaker 2: along here. We are here to help you solve your problems.
Speaker 2: We've got a couple open lines here. We'd appreciate your call.
Speaker 2: The numbers three or three seven one, three eight two
Speaker 2: five five. We are here to help you, not just
Speaker 2: with insurance issues. That is a rare opportunity to have two,
Speaker 2: you know, people that are kind of on opposite ends
Speaker 2: of the insurance world. One selling and one really using
Speaker 2: what people have bought to its intended use. When you
Speaker 2: have accidents and we have people that are that are
Speaker 2: injured and making claims and stuff, and so you know,
Speaker 2: many times I have cases where I wish the people
Speaker 2: had bought new are not new, but different or more
Speaker 2: insurance or better insurance coverage. And then we're talking here
Speaker 2: with Dan Mahoney, who's on the other end of it,
Speaker 2: as the person as frequently recommending to people that they
Speaker 2: buy different coverage and probably many times is perceived as
Speaker 2: you know, doom and gloom and talking about risk of
Speaker 2: things that never happened. But they do and I make
Speaker 2: John's dreams come true. Absolutely. We we like Dan, you know,
Speaker 2: so you know, we've we've covered a lot of subjects today.
Speaker 2: We'd like to hear from you. So if you have,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're one of these that says I
Speaker 2: have great coverage and I don't need fill in the blank,
Speaker 2: I don't need uninsured, I don't need medpay, I don't
Speaker 2: need whatever the case may be, I want to hear
Speaker 2: from you because not to not to belittle you or anything,
Speaker 2: but just it's a valid, you know, perspective that many
Speaker 2: people have, and we're here to talk about the effects
Speaker 2: that that decision has in the event that something happens.
Speaker 2: And the worst thing in the world is to think
Speaker 2: you have great coverage and then find out that you
Speaker 2: really don't, or that you you know, you you didn't
Speaker 2: get a particular coverage because you thought it did something else,
Speaker 2: or you know, in my practice, I've had so many
Speaker 2: people come in and sit in my conference room after
Speaker 2: their you know, their loved one is injury and then
Speaker 2: the hospital or something, and they're like, god, you know,
Speaker 2: I got great insurance, you know, and it's like I
Speaker 2: got an umbrella. I got a million dollar umbrell. I
Speaker 2: got coverage like crazy. And you have to tell that person, look,
Speaker 2: that million dollars is liability only, and it's great if
Speaker 2: you happen to cause the accident, but it does zero
Speaker 2: for you if you weren't at fault and the other
Speaker 2: person doesn't have great insurance. And so you know, that
Speaker 2: conversation I personally had with clients, I bet fifty times
Speaker 2: over the years that I've been doing this, and it's
Speaker 2: a very real thing. And it's never, you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's just never a case where people say, you know, man,
Speaker 2: I wish I didn't buy all that insurance because it's
Speaker 2: you know, what a waste that was. It's always the
Speaker 2: case that more is better, and it it helps people
Speaker 2: get made whole a lot better. So we were talking
Speaker 2: about medpay and some other stuff, and Dmitri brought up
Speaker 2: ninety four part question with sixteen subparts and everything else,
Speaker 2: but it kind of boiled down to having Dan look
Speaker 2: over and discuss the limits that Dimitri had on his
Speaker 2: own personal insurance policy, his real live declarations page, and
Speaker 2: to not only talk about the level of coverages that
Speaker 2: he has, but whether or not the you know, his
Speaker 2: coverage profile, if you would, would be enhanced, or you know,
Speaker 2: what would the addition of an umbrella do to your
Speaker 2: overall analysis. So with that, I'm going to kind of
Speaker 2: turn it over and let you analyze all ninety four
Speaker 2: parts of the question.
Speaker 5: That's like a college these Good luck with that, so
Speaker 5: real quick, let's put a couple of definitions around these things.
Speaker 5: So a declaration page is a ten dollars word for
Speaker 5: basically your policy summary. Usually it's one to two pages.
Speaker 5: Anything that actually has a dollar amount that you're paying,
Speaker 5: that's usually your declaration page. So don't be afraid of
Speaker 5: it when you go to look at it, because I
Speaker 5: know that your policy is like ninety some pages. You're
Speaker 5: just looking for the ones that actually have dollar mats
Speaker 5: that are charging you. That's going to give you your summary.
Speaker 5: The second thing to keep in mind to you with
Speaker 5: insurance insurance, you know John just said the word make
Speaker 5: you whole insurance is really a transfer of risk.
Speaker 2: That's that's all it is. It's a transfer risk. So
Speaker 2: if it's your house, your car, something you.
Speaker 5: Have a value, you go to insurance company you say, hey,
Speaker 5: i've got this thing, it's worth something. I want protection
Speaker 5: in case something happens. They say, okay, for this amount
Speaker 5: of money, we'll protect that. We'll take that risk. So
Speaker 5: we're transferring risk. So as we look at Dimitri's deck pages, again,
Speaker 5: this is just the summary, and this is a carrier
Speaker 5: I don't work with, so I don't know all the
Speaker 5: ins and outs, but I can talk generally about where
Speaker 5: he's at and what we can do with this. So
Speaker 5: we start off first with bodily injury limits. This is
Speaker 5: the one that usually is listed by number, slash number,
Speaker 5: slash number, in this case two hundred and fifty thousand,
Speaker 5: five hundred thousand, one hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: What's that saying is that outbound I have two.
Speaker 5: Hundred and fifty thousand dollars of coverage towards anyone that
Speaker 5: I injure or cause issues for. In an accent, I
Speaker 5: have five hundred thousand dollars aggregate. Aggregate just means it's
Speaker 5: a pool. You can use it any way you want.
Speaker 5: You just cannot exceed two hundred fifty thousand per person
Speaker 5: or five hundred thousand total for the accent.
Speaker 2: And what does the word outbound mean?
Speaker 5: I use outbound to oversimplify it, but basically, if you
Speaker 5: cause an accent, you're at fault.
Speaker 2: You injure someone else. This is where it's coming on.
Speaker 2: So it's money that's available to help pay for damages
Speaker 2: that you caused in a potential accent. Correct exactly, it's
Speaker 2: for that party that you damaged.
Speaker 5: So the two fifty five hundred again five hundreds combined
Speaker 5: or I'm sorry, it's an aggregate. So if you have
Speaker 5: five people one hundred thousand each, you're great. Two people
Speaker 5: at two fifty each, you're great in this scenario. Now
Speaker 5: you got ten people in there and they all have
Speaker 5: one hundred thousand, your policies, it's not gonna sacon. Next
Speaker 5: line after that you're going into is the property damage
Speaker 5: is just one hundred thousand dollars. I just saw a
Speaker 5: report the other day is an average new car is
Speaker 5: something like forty So if you have state minimums, you're
Speaker 5: already you already missed the boat. I mean, if you
Speaker 5: toldal someone's car, you're you're totally in bad shape.
Speaker 2: There is that liability coverage also part of the property
Speaker 2: damage coverage.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that that last number is gonna be the property
Speaker 5: damage portion of it.
Speaker 2: The liability amount is intact without any regard to what's
Speaker 2: done on property. There's no way you could exhaust the
Speaker 2: liability by taking care of a really expensive property claim. Correct,
Speaker 2: It's a.
Speaker 5: Separate line item, separate coverage that's on there.
Speaker 2: Rolling through the policy.
Speaker 5: You also have twenty five thousand dollars in medpay typically
Speaker 5: that's about the most I'll see a carry offer. We
Speaker 5: just got done talking about that. Medpay really helps kind
Speaker 5: of close that gap between your first dollar of care
Speaker 5: until your other care kicks in, whether it's Medicare or
Speaker 5: you're you're awesome insurance policy or whatever it is that
Speaker 5: you have in your back pocket that you think is
Speaker 5: going to jump in. Also helps out if you have
Speaker 5: a passingers you're in your car who may not have
Speaker 5: insurance or good insurance. Deductibles are deductibles. Again, I'm going
Speaker 5: to simplify this comprehensive. Basically, I just say it's like
Speaker 5: an active guy. Something happens, your car, tree falls on
Speaker 5: and hail hits it. This is where comprehensive. Is you
Speaker 5: pay a certain amount, they pay the rest. Collision. Again,
Speaker 5: to oversimplify it, I say, this is what comes to play.
Speaker 5: If you're at fault and you hit something else, now
Speaker 5: the collision. If I damage your car, Dmitry an accident,
Speaker 5: I'm at fault, my coverage actually starts at your very
Speaker 5: first penny, So there's no deductible experience for me or you.
Speaker 5: My coverage automatically starts at the first penny. Now my
Speaker 5: deductible for my car that I hit you with. Now,
Speaker 5: in this case, I have to pay the first thousand,
Speaker 5: they're going to pay the rest.
Speaker 2: So let me interrupt right there, we're going to go
Speaker 2: to a real quick break, and we're going to come
Speaker 2: back and get a little deeper into We've actually got
Speaker 2: a caller with a question on insurance that will take
Speaker 2: right after this break, and then we're going to get
Speaker 2: into some of the more nuanced coverage like uninsured motorists
Speaker 2: and how that differs from liability coverage. Okay, we'll be
Speaker 2: right back.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing
Speaker 7: dot com.
Speaker 1: You don't pay a cent until you're content than.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation comparison call
Speaker 7: Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
Speaker 7: insurance companies find out now three all three seven to
Speaker 7: seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer
Speaker 7: when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot
Speaker 7: com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh
Speaker 7: three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: Good afternoon, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network. We
Speaker 2: are talking about all things insurance this afternoon with me
Speaker 2: as a guest. Here in the studio is Dan Mahoney.
Speaker 2: He is the principal of the Insurance Group of Denver.
Speaker 2: You can contact Dan at seven two oh four to
Speaker 2: three six one nine zero after the show with all
Speaker 2: of your insurance needs. But he's here in the studio
Speaker 2: and we're answering questions. We're going to go to the
Speaker 2: lines here if you have a question about insurance, if
Speaker 2: you have a question about coverage, if you have a
Speaker 2: question about claims, property accidents, anything to do with insurance,
Speaker 2: by all means, pick up the phone the number seven
Speaker 2: one three eight two five five. That's area code three
Speaker 2: oh three seven one three eight two five five. We're
Speaker 2: going to go right to the phones here. Tim, you
Speaker 2: have a question about auto insurance. What's going on? Tim?
Speaker 3: Yeah, guys, thanks for taking my call or a very
Speaker 3: informative show. So I need your take on my situation
Speaker 3: two thousand and nine. I buy a new vehicle. I
Speaker 3: finance it, full coverage on it. It's been paid off
Speaker 3: for years.
Speaker 2: Okay, the the.
Speaker 3: Value of it right now with the age and mileage
Speaker 3: is probably less than two thousand dollars. I'm still carrying
Speaker 3: full coverage on it. What should I do? Should I
Speaker 3: just go to a straight liability with maybe an umbrella
Speaker 3: policy or what would be your suggestion?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, yeh, I'll let you address that.
Speaker 5: And then when we're talking about liability only, I always
Speaker 5: ask people what their pain threshold is. Basically, how much
Speaker 5: money can you afford to lose if someone came and
Speaker 5: stole that car in the middle of the I caught
Speaker 5: on fire, tree, fell on.
Speaker 2: It, etc.
Speaker 5: So, if the value of that vehicle is within your
Speaker 5: pain threshold and you don't mind self insuring if you
Speaker 5: will for that, I don't think there's a problem at all.
Speaker 5: The one of the things that you should consider is
Speaker 5: that ask your agent to give you.
Speaker 2: A look at the.
Speaker 5: Cost of both sides, because sometimes older cars also are
Speaker 5: really inexpensive doing sure. So if you're only saving eighty bucks,
Speaker 5: I think I would rather pay the eighty bucks than
Speaker 5: hold on to the three grand, because you don't know
Speaker 5: when somebody is going to steal your car.
Speaker 2: Yeah or something, Tim, do you have other cars on
Speaker 2: the same policy.
Speaker 3: No, I've just got the one vehicle and that's it.
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, yeah, So, and I.
Speaker 3: Drive very little. You know, I'm a old guy, so
Speaker 3: I don't get out on the road much.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: If you're a guy who saves money, you got plenty
Speaker 5: of money in the bank. You're willing to take the risk.
Speaker 5: I think it's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, But the main thing is, maybe compare the
Speaker 3: costs between going straight liuability with the umbrellas versus what
Speaker 3: I'm paying now.
Speaker 2: You might be surprised at the difference. I was going
Speaker 2: to say, it may just be so insignificant that you'd
Speaker 2: want to just keep the full coverage. The real important thing,
Speaker 2: which I'm glad that you're doing, is that your liability
Speaker 2: limits are enough to even qualify to get an umbrella policy,
Speaker 2: which for most carriers, I think is usually around the
Speaker 2: two point fifty mark. And then and then you have
Speaker 2: that umbrella above, so you're not going to be in
Speaker 2: that position like the listener that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 2: where you know, God forbid something happens. It's you know,
Speaker 2: the value of the vehicle is is nothing compared to
Speaker 2: the overall potential issue that you could have, you know,
Speaker 2: following that accident.
Speaker 3: So you know, on the hook for In other words, that's.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, sir, You're exactly right. Hey, thanks for the question, Tim,
Speaker 2: appreciate the call today.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're back, appreciate it. We're going to go next
Speaker 2: to Oscar, who has another question about auto insurance. What's
Speaker 2: going on? Oscar?
Speaker 16: Oh, similar to the gentleman is talked to you. I
Speaker 16: have a two thousand and three oh watches see four
Speaker 16: point thirty s Nick Lexus. However, I have some coverage,
Speaker 16: but I have another power similar and I'd pay about
Speaker 16: twenty eight hundred dollars a year for both of them. Boxes.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, Oscar, we're going to put you on hope
Speaker 2: for just a second. We're having a hard time understanding
Speaker 2: of their phone is very garbled. If you can try
Speaker 2: to stand on one leg or go to a different
Speaker 2: part of the house, we'll come right back to you
Speaker 2: in just a second. We just can't hear what the
Speaker 2: issue is, so we're going to go next to Tom,
Speaker 2: who has a question about motorcycle insurance, and Oscar will
Speaker 2: try to come right back to you in just a minute. Tom,
Speaker 2: what's going on, Hey.
Speaker 18: Gentlemen, show really appreciate your information.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 15: I wrote Harley's still do, but.
Speaker 18: Not as much in the nineties and insurance back then,
Speaker 18: I had supplement to my employer, which was AFLAC, and
Speaker 18: also PIP to the insurer. Then I got ran over
Speaker 18: in two thousand and then those really helped contribute to
Speaker 18: my medical bills. I don't know if PIP or AFLICK
Speaker 18: are still in the picture for motorcycle riders.
Speaker 2: PIP has gone well. PIP was part of that no
Speaker 2: fault that we voted out about twenty years ago. That
Speaker 2: was called personal Injury Protection. That's what PIP stood for,
Speaker 2: and that was the mechanism on your policy. And it
Speaker 2: was particularly, you know, really unique on auto policies or
Speaker 2: on motorcycle policies because many of the carriers wouldn't offer
Speaker 2: PIP for motorcycle riders. So there were a couple out
Speaker 2: there that did, and you were lucky enough to have one.
Speaker 2: But we don't have PIP anymore now. Was your a
Speaker 2: flag that's like a supplemental disability type policy?
Speaker 18: And that was through my employer? Okay, I work at
Speaker 18: a hospital, so I heard lots of stories doctors hanging
Speaker 18: out in the er that they knew I ride, and
Speaker 18: they told me.
Speaker 15: That's what I should get.
Speaker 18: Luckily I did because I did end up getting hit
Speaker 18: by a drunk driver.
Speaker 2: Gotcha cool? So what is your question today? Are you
Speaker 2: looking for what the right coverage is writers?
Speaker 18: Is there something they can do for is it supplementary or.
Speaker 2: DAN?
Speaker 9: What do you do with your protection?
Speaker 5: Yeah, the supplemental you would still buy through your provider
Speaker 5: or your.
Speaker 2: Employer.
Speaker 5: But this also kind of ties back to medpay, so
Speaker 5: you can also, you know, ramp up your medpay to
Speaker 5: twenty five grand. It's it's not a duplicati affleck goes
Speaker 5: a little bit further, but it will give you a
Speaker 5: lot more latitude in your care and treatment.
Speaker 18: So what about using specific to a motorcycle rider? Because
Speaker 18: when I went through my accident, Roy Romer had put
Speaker 18: a tort in the law, and with my settlement, the
Speaker 18: hospital ended up being able to take out how much
Speaker 18: they I incurred while I was there out of my settlement.
Speaker 2: So that's a little They took out the amount of
Speaker 2: the claim for the supplemental on your settlement.
Speaker 18: No, no, for the hospital bills that I incurred.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's actually exactly how it works. So and
Speaker 2: that goes back to what I was talking about earlier.
Speaker 2: When you incur bills as a result of an accident,
Speaker 2: those are actually your bills. They are your responsibility. There's
Speaker 2: no mechanism to just give them the name of the
Speaker 2: AFOL party and all of a sudden have them build
Speaker 2: that guy because he caused the accident. There's still your bills.
Speaker 2: It's just that those bills constitute the damages that you
Speaker 2: have the right to go after the at fault party for.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't don't understand that. They
Speaker 2: think and even hospitals kind of lead them to believe that, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll just build the we'll just build the at fault
Speaker 2: insurance company. Oh that's progressive. We'll send a bill to them.
Speaker 2: Those bills never get paid, and so a smarter way
Speaker 2: to happen are to handle your cases or just to
Speaker 2: understand that up front and know that the better way
Speaker 2: is to use every type of insurance that you have,
Speaker 2: be it medical payments, coverage, be it your own private
Speaker 2: health insurance, be it Medicare, Medicaid, your afflex, every single
Speaker 2: thing that you have that covers you. You want to
Speaker 2: deploy that in order to get the personal financial impact
Speaker 2: of that accident down as low as possible for you.
Speaker 2: And then at the end of the day, we'll go
Speaker 2: after the at fault driver for the totality of your damage.
Speaker 2: But those two are completely separate numbers. If you're able
Speaker 2: to get the out of pocket on your down to
Speaker 2: next to nothing, that doesn't mean that your damages are
Speaker 2: any lower for the guy that caused all of the
Speaker 2: need for that medical treatment and all of those bills
Speaker 2: in the first place.
Speaker 15: Does that make sense, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 18: And I think I misspoke because I did get a
Speaker 18: settlement from the other driver, okay, and the hospital took
Speaker 18: the money off the top.
Speaker 2: Of that settlement, yes, sir, Yes.
Speaker 18: So it's like they double dip. They got the insurance
Speaker 18: and they got my settlement money.
Speaker 2: Also, Yeah, that can actually happen. And you know, the
Speaker 2: only benefit of that arrangement is if you use your
Speaker 2: private health insurance and it gives you the ability to
Speaker 2: reprice the medicals down to a lower contract amount, then
Speaker 2: the actual expense of that medical treatment to you is
Speaker 2: quite a bit lower than what the expense is going
Speaker 2: to be to the at fault guy that we're going
Speaker 2: after for your damages.
Speaker 9: Okay, So is that.
Speaker 18: Still a law that they can come after a motorcycles
Speaker 18: if it's they get a settlement for their injury accident injury.
Speaker 2: It's not just get money. Yeah, it's not just motorcycles there, Tom,
Speaker 2: it's it's everybody. Those health insurance companies have a right
Speaker 2: to get repaid whenever they use that. So that's a
Speaker 2: great topic. We're going to come back and visit about
Speaker 2: sebrogation and how that actually works. We'll touch on that
Speaker 2: in just a moment. We got to run to a
Speaker 2: break right now, Tom, thank you for the call. We've
Speaker 2: got Oscar still waiting, hopefully he's got his phone worked
Speaker 2: out and Dave on the line. We'll get to in
Speaker 2: just a moment. Hangk ty, guys, go with a sure thing.
Speaker 7: Denver's best roofer excel roofing dot com. You don't pay
Speaker 7: a cent until you're content time for an insurance check
Speaker 7: up free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying
Speaker 7: too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find
Speaker 7: out now three O three seven seven to one help.
Speaker 7: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 7: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 7: home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
Speaker 7: sixteen twenty.
Speaker 2: Two for here for the Troubleshooter Network. We are rapidly
Speaker 2: moving through the afternoon. We are talking about all things
Speaker 2: insurance today. Our guest in the studio is Dan Mahoney
Speaker 2: with the Insurance Group of Denver. Dan's an independent agent,
Speaker 2: so he's able to talk about I don't know how
Speaker 2: many lines do you guys write for, like thirty different
Speaker 2: companies or.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we probably have eight to ten what we considers
Speaker 5: the standard market Travelers Hartford, Safego, and then we have
Speaker 5: a whole nother set back end which are called access
Speaker 5: and surplus or specialty carriers.
Speaker 2: Right, So I mean the advantage of an independent agent
Speaker 2: versus somebody that is, you know, a single branded carrier.
Speaker 2: I mean, are you often able to really put together
Speaker 2: more you know, competitive packages for your your clients than
Speaker 2: than those guys are Who do you think the proper
Speaker 2: Let me put it differently, all right, who's your ideal client?
Speaker 2: Who do you want to see coming through your doors?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 5: You know, auto and homeowner, somebody who wants to do
Speaker 5: the right thing. Keep in mind, any income can be garnished.
Speaker 5: Even if you don't have means that somebody can come
Speaker 5: after you're still exposed. So we want people who want
Speaker 5: to engage with us, not just somebody wants a price,
Speaker 5: Because if you just want a price, you're you're never
Speaker 5: going to get the right product and you're always gonna
Speaker 5: be unhappy with what you bought. And then the Yeah,
Speaker 5: everyone says insurance sucks and they hate it, and that's
Speaker 5: wise because you're not buying what you think you're buying.
Speaker 2: Sure, no, it's it's absolutely a common sentiment. Dave, you've
Speaker 2: got a question on insurance. Let's uh, let's see what
Speaker 2: we can do for you there, Dave, go ahead.
Speaker 15: Hey, thanks for taking my call.
Speaker 17: My question is I drive a company car one hundred
Speaker 17: percent of the time, both for personal and for business.
Speaker 17: And it's one hundred percent paid for by the company. Okay,
Speaker 17: when I'm driving that at my personal time. Your discussion
Speaker 17: has me wondering, like how safe I am if someone
Speaker 17: is uninsured?
Speaker 11: You know.
Speaker 17: Oh, I was wondering if you could comment on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, if your company's commercial policy allows you for personal use,
Speaker 5: that coverage should extend over. An option that you can
Speaker 5: do is what they call a non owned auto policy,
Speaker 5: which basically structured like an autopolicy, just no car there.
Speaker 5: They're actually very cheap to buy. It's also a great
Speaker 5: alternative for folks that you know, living downtown Denver where
Speaker 5: you don't have a car, you're riding scooters, you're taking
Speaker 5: uber as, you're driving with friends.
Speaker 2: Did Dave, do you have any other cars that you
Speaker 2: ensure in your household?
Speaker 17: I have a motorcycle, so I have a motorcycle policy.
Speaker 15: Okay, and that's say I don't want another car.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: So the important thing and what I was kind of
Speaker 2: looking for there, is that even when you're in that
Speaker 2: situation where the employer is providing you a vehicle and
Speaker 2: you're authorized to drive it both personally and for the business,
Speaker 2: is you know there are limits to what commercial policies
Speaker 2: have for their employees, and you'd be surprised, but a
Speaker 2: number of commercial policies don't really have uninsured motorists coverage.
Speaker 2: They just view that coverage as being redundant because they think, well,
Speaker 2: if my employee gets hurt, where comp is going to
Speaker 2: cover them. But they don't really think about the circumstance
Speaker 2: where the employee is not on the job but it's
Speaker 2: still driving that vehicle, where it would not be a
Speaker 2: comprolated coverage. And so I still think you need to
Speaker 2: be thinking about uninsured motorist coverage and you know the
Speaker 2: type of things that will stack on top of your
Speaker 2: employer's coverage in the event that something happens and it
Speaker 2: turns out that they have less than just phenomenal coverage.
Speaker 2: And an owned policy is a perfect a non owned
Speaker 2: policy is a perferfig way to do that. Even on
Speaker 2: your your motorcycle policy, you may have the ability to
Speaker 2: add that additional coverage that's not just motorcycle dependent, because
Speaker 2: some carriers are a little weird about you know, medpay
Speaker 2: and UM on motorcycle policies, and the law in Colorado
Speaker 2: allows them to do that. But on the non owner's policy,
Speaker 2: that Dan's talking about you can get you know, created
Speaker 2: for not a lot of money.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 7: dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison,
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: seven to one.
Speaker 2: Help.
Speaker 7: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 7: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 7: home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
Speaker 7: sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: With news need advice so you don't help Corn as
Speaker 2: fast as we can, Shooter's gonna help, come Dix.
Speaker 4: He is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martine, Hey, welcome back.
Speaker 2: To the Troubleshooter Show. This is John Fuller filling in
Speaker 2: for Tom Martino. I am a personal injury attorney in Denver, Colorado,
Speaker 2: and have been a longtime contributor and supporter of the
Speaker 2: Referral page and the Troubleshooter Page. And I'm here filling
Speaker 2: in today and tomorrow and Friday. So you're gonna get
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of me. But we are having a
Speaker 2: great discussion today. We've got Dan Mahoney in the in
Speaker 2: the studio. Dan is the owner of Insurance Group of Denver,
Speaker 2: and he's an insurance agent. He's an independent insurance agent,
Speaker 2: and so he's allowed us to have a whole bunch
Speaker 2: of conversations from the perspective of the guy that advising
Speaker 2: people on what insurance to buy and at the same
Speaker 2: time me the guy that's dealing with the after effects
Speaker 2: of that and how to work through claims and what's
Speaker 2: really the appropriate amount of coverage and how it all works.
Speaker 2: And so we've opened up the lines to your call.
Speaker 2: So if you've had any issues where you're unsure about
Speaker 2: your own insurance coverage, you've had a bad claims experience
Speaker 2: because of the coverage that you had, or you're just
Speaker 2: not sure how it all works between things like medpay
Speaker 2: and liability and umbrellas and all of this stuff that
Speaker 2: gets very confusing by all means, give us a call.
Speaker 2: The number is three O three seven one three eight
Speaker 2: two five five, and we are happy to work through
Speaker 2: every one of those issues with you from both of
Speaker 2: those perspectives and hopefully help answer you and a lot
Speaker 2: of other listeners questions. We're going to go right to
Speaker 2: the phones here. We're going to check in with Oscar.
Speaker 2: Oscar was telling us about his insurance on his two
Speaker 2: thousand and three Lexus and we had a little phone problem. Oscar,
Speaker 2: are you still with us here for you?
Speaker 17: Hear me now?
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, you're coming through loud and clear. So how
Speaker 2: can we help you today?
Speaker 16: Well, you have a previous callers use along the lines
Speaker 16: which I'm going to ask about, and that is, uh,
Speaker 16: should I drop the assurance on the waxes and maintain
Speaker 16: full coverage on my my seventeen mansa?
Speaker 2: Is it just the value of the Lexus that has
Speaker 2: you thinking about doing that?
Speaker 16: Yeah, because Alan Edwins and whoever was between nine and
Speaker 16: I just wonder if I should you go straight wi
Speaker 16: bils here there's that issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dan, I think that does go right down the
Speaker 2: lines of the last you know the other color about.
Speaker 5: That, But it's your pain threshold and also about you know,
Speaker 5: getting a quote to see if it really makes sense financially.
Speaker 5: Insurance is a little unique that you know, just because
Speaker 5: you do something with one car, you think it might
Speaker 5: impact half of your policy if you have two cars.
Speaker 2: It's not really the truth.
Speaker 5: Insurance is measuring a whole bunch of different components and
Speaker 5: assigning risks to that. So even if you reduce use
Speaker 5: in one car, oftentimes the other car that you have
Speaker 5: on there might actually increase because you're shifting risk or
Speaker 5: more use to that other vehicle.
Speaker 2: Would the caller be better off looking at raising deductibles
Speaker 2: and stuff or maybe converting over to you know, uninsured
Speaker 2: property coverage or something instead of comping collision or what
Speaker 2: do you recommend there? You know, obviously keep all your
Speaker 2: liability in place, and again it's just your.
Speaker 5: Your pain threshold what you can afford to lose, and
Speaker 5: it may not be worth taking that risk either.
Speaker 2: Once you get the quotes back, Yeah, well, hey, thanks
Speaker 2: for the call, Oscar. We appreciate it. We're going to
Speaker 2: go next to John, who's been holding for a couple
Speaker 2: of minutes. John, you have a question about auto insurance.
Speaker 2: What is going on? John?
Speaker 15: Good show? Guys, I tuned in light, so I don't
Speaker 15: know if you've addressed this issue or not. What if
Speaker 15: you got a and this is not my circumstance, but
Speaker 15: I was just curious, what if you've got a nineteen
Speaker 15: year old kid, girl or guy, doesn't matter whether they
Speaker 15: have a driver's license or a Colorado ID, and they
Speaker 15: have no car, no insurance whatsoever. And they're renting these
Speaker 15: scooters going around by coors Field, this, that and whatever.
Speaker 15: And they lose control of their scooter or they're on
Speaker 15: their scooter and they broadside a car, do damage to
Speaker 15: the car, person may be injured, whatever. How that insurance handled.
Speaker 2: That's a great question. Is the nineteen year old still
Speaker 2: living in your household.
Speaker 15: No no kid Whenever he needs anything, he gets rides
Speaker 15: from friends, that type of stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's where that non owned auto policy comes and
Speaker 5: play again. Right, tremendous amount of coverage on that and
Speaker 5: they else that people don't think about is especially nineteen
Speaker 5: year old, it's gonna be really cheap for him to
Speaker 5: buy that as supposed to actually having a car in there.
Speaker 5: And at some point when he goes to buy a car,
Speaker 5: if he's had that policy in place for a few years,
Speaker 5: when he's coming into the market, he's coming in as
Speaker 5: a preferred buyer because he's had insurance in place.
Speaker 2: Because there's a track record as opposed to coming in
Speaker 2: as not having insurance.
Speaker 5: Or uninsured, and he's probably gonna pay the difference anyway
Speaker 5: by that time.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir John, But guys, what if.
Speaker 15: You got the nineteen year old and, like I said,
Speaker 15: it's not my situation, but they just don't have insurance.
Speaker 15: They can't afford it, they don't buy it, they don't
Speaker 15: think they need it because they just ride scooters around
Speaker 15: and then they friends give them rides to go to
Speaker 15: the grocery store or whatever.
Speaker 2: So is your question from the perspective of the guy's
Speaker 2: car that gets hit.
Speaker 15: Yes, okay, how does he get his damages?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'll tell you how he looks to his or.
Speaker 15: Whether it's does that go on under the uninsured motors
Speaker 15: part or what?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. That's a great question. So it's
Speaker 2: just like any other accident where you're hit by somebody
Speaker 2: that doesn't have insurance. You're gonna look to your medical
Speaker 2: payments coverage, You're gonna look to your uninsured motorist coverage,
Speaker 2: and you're gonna try to you know, you're gonna try
Speaker 2: to piece together some damages there under your own policy,
Speaker 2: which which you know is a crappy deal, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna probably have to pay a deductible for your property
Speaker 2: getting fixed to you know, to fix your car door
Speaker 2: where the guy put a big dinger in it and stuff.
Speaker 2: But but I mean, that's why we have insurances for people.
Speaker 2: Whether it's a guy on a scooter or a guy
Speaker 2: in a car that has no coverage, or somebody that
Speaker 2: stole the vehicle and and there's no coverage. I mean,
Speaker 2: there's a thousand circumstances where the guy that causes the
Speaker 2: damage is not covered. Dimitri Okay, John, do you edicated me?
Speaker 15: I think I heard this right. I have a couple
Speaker 15: million dollar umbrella policy, but I don't have that under
Speaker 15: the uninsured mot uninsured motors portion.
Speaker 2: Yes, sir, have you have you looked into getting that?
Speaker 15: What's that?
Speaker 2: Have you looked into getting that extra?
Speaker 15: Um?
Speaker 2: Writer?
Speaker 15: I think I'm gonna call my agent today after I get.
Speaker 2: Off one with you guys. There's a lot of carriers.
Speaker 15: Has ever offered it or even thought about it. I
Speaker 15: always thought, oh, I have two million dollar unbrother policies
Speaker 15: my wife and I and you know we're covered. We
Speaker 15: don't have any kids in the household anymore. You are
Speaker 15: not alone, and you want to pay the additional amount
Speaker 15: and get it for the because what is about thirty
Speaker 15: three thirty seven percent of people driving around without car insurance.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. So what you're going to find
Speaker 2: out there. And Dan was just telling me that this
Speaker 2: morning that a lot of the carriers now they don't
Speaker 2: want to ensure that extra risk for the uninsured motors coverage.
Speaker 2: But I can tell you that I would shop around
Speaker 2: on that basis alone. So if my carrier didn't offer
Speaker 2: that on an umbrella, I would go find a different
Speaker 2: carrier that did.
Speaker 19: And there's also specialty carriers that will do it, specialty carriers,
Speaker 19: So just the UMBRESSI all they're really concerned about is
Speaker 19: that you have the requisite amount of coverage down below
Speaker 19: in order to qualify to get the umbrella above.
Speaker 2: So if your carrier doesn't offer that, then I mean
Speaker 2: for the amount of money, it's it's pennies to change
Speaker 2: that coverage over to additional un for you and your family,
Speaker 2: and I think it's well worth every penny.
Speaker 15: Okay, Wow, you guys are very much, very well educated
Speaker 15: and appreciated.
Speaker 2: Thank you, sir, appreciate the call. Yes to me.
Speaker 6: A couple of comments about his call. I have a
Speaker 6: feeling he was asking more about the property damage caused
Speaker 6: by the scooter rider and his umbro is not going
Speaker 6: to help him, and you and my our mind is.
Speaker 2: Not going to help him.
Speaker 6: So I'm wondering because the scooter is not likely to
Speaker 6: do a whole lot of medical kind of damage to
Speaker 6: the driver of the vehicle, right, It's more likely a
Speaker 6: big dent. So does the scooter company itself have insurance
Speaker 6: that extends in these cases in the same way. For example,
Speaker 6: a car rental company is not going to let you
Speaker 6: take the car off the lot unless you either buy
Speaker 6: their insurance or have your own. Are the scooter companies
Speaker 6: bound by any of those requirements?
Speaker 2: I think that's kind of wild, Leon. I don't think
Speaker 2: many of them are dimitri most of them have. I mean,
Speaker 2: if you've ever rented one of those scooters, you would
Speaker 2: know this, and I have not either. But I did
Speaker 2: look hard at a case one time where a guy
Speaker 2: had been injured, and I was shocked at the length
Speaker 2: of the contract that you have to just scroll through
Speaker 2: and agree to, which nobody reads before they agree to it.
Speaker 2: But you scroll through it super fast and get down
Speaker 2: to the bottom. And I agree that's absolutely binding. And
Speaker 2: what you will find in those is that they disclaim
Speaker 2: liability for anything for anything.
Speaker 6: But that contract was agreed to by the renter of
Speaker 6: the scooter. But if I'm walking down the street that's right.
Speaker 6: A scooter rider who's got a head full of dope
Speaker 6: right causes serious injury.
Speaker 2: There's no state requirement that the scooter company maintained that insurance.
Speaker 2: So if the driver of it says I understand that
Speaker 2: I am liable for these risks and I agree to
Speaker 2: be responsible, then that may be your only avenue. Go
Speaker 2: back to the caller. Your nineteen year old kid that
Speaker 2: has no assets, it's living in an apartment that you know,
Speaker 2: has no car, no money, whatever, that may be your
Speaker 2: only source of recovery. So we're right back to where
Speaker 2: we started, which is using your own comping collision or
Speaker 2: using your own you know, you say, well, it's not
Speaker 2: likely to be injuries. Well maybe, but maybe it is.
Speaker 2: Maybe they swerve to keep from hitting the scooter guy
Speaker 2: that ran out in front of him, and they hit
Speaker 2: a pole or a building, and then we do have injuries,
Speaker 2: but still no insurance.
Speaker 6: And if I'm a pedestrian on the sidewalk that gets
Speaker 6: run over and injured, then is there any case to
Speaker 6: be made like this, Hey, that scooter company should not
Speaker 6: have given this guy a motorized vehicle that he took
Speaker 6: on the sidewalk and ran me over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a case to be made. But is there
Speaker 2: coverage to be afforded. That's a tricky deal. Let me
Speaker 2: tell you, man, these these scooter companies, you will find
Speaker 2: that they are so mired in different layers of corporate
Speaker 2: shield and stuff that you may find that you've got
Speaker 2: to find and figure out how to serve process on
Speaker 2: a company in China to actually get service a process.
Speaker 2: It's in federal court, it gets removed. It's a mess.
Speaker 2: And so again, there are circumstances where the only prudent
Speaker 2: course of action is for you to make sure that
Speaker 2: you're covered enough so that whatever happens to you and
Speaker 2: your family, you know that you've got that protection. And
Speaker 2: one of those ways is through just like the caller
Speaker 2: just had, having enough uninsured motorist coverage, you know, with
Speaker 2: the um writer, so that you and your family is protected.
Speaker 2: That's the only way I know is to have enough
Speaker 2: that protects me, because I don't count on the other
Speaker 2: guy having anything. So we're going to move along here
Speaker 2: we have, John, did that answer your question?
Speaker 9: It was right.
Speaker 15: I was more worried about the property damage. Okay, so
Speaker 15: it was more you know, who's going to fix the
Speaker 15: person's car?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and who's going to pay for it? It's going
Speaker 2: to be you.
Speaker 15: Guys said, they don't, you know, can they give a
Speaker 15: guy to riding a scooter a d u I test.
Speaker 2: Or Yeah, they sure can. They can if your bike, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and your your bike or your horse. I know buddy's
Speaker 2: got a got a DUI on the back of a
Speaker 2: mule one time. But but yeah, you're right. Comping collision.
Speaker 2: It's your own insurance. That's going to be your only avenue.
Speaker 2: You can go through the guy in small claim's court
Speaker 2: and and try to get you know, get payments on that,
Speaker 2: but it it just comes back to you protecting you
Speaker 2: and and you know, unfortunately that's just one of those things.
Speaker 2: So Hey, appreciate the call, John. We've got another couple
Speaker 2: of calls lined up. We'll get to right after the break.
Speaker 2: Hang on, just a second, go.
Speaker 7: With a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel roofing dot com.
Speaker 7: You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for
Speaker 7: an insurance check up. Free no obligation. In comparison, call
Speaker 7: this insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of
Speaker 7: insurance companies find out now three all three seven seven
Speaker 7: to one.
Speaker 2: Help.
Speaker 7: You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank
Speaker 7: durand the real estate Man dot com to list your
Speaker 7: home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero
Speaker 7: sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, good afternoon, John Fuller. Here we are wrapping
Speaker 2: up the last half an hour or so here of
Speaker 2: the Troubleshooter Show. I am a personal injury attorney. Today's
Speaker 2: show has kind of evolved into all Things about Insurance show,
Speaker 2: which is very cool because we've we've been able to
Speaker 2: talk about some things that we just don't ever, you know,
Speaker 2: run into, except when we have these crazy discussions. And
Speaker 2: we're fortunate enough to have Dan Mahoney in the house
Speaker 2: today and Dan is with the Insurance Group of Denver.
Speaker 2: You can reach Dan at at Igdenver dot com or
Speaker 2: seven two oh four three six one nine nine zero.
Speaker 2: Dan's an independent insurance agent, so he represents a whole
Speaker 2: litany of companies out there that none of which are
Speaker 2: on the sign above the door. He's not a branded
Speaker 2: like a Farmer's or an all state, you know rep.
Speaker 2: So he's going to be able to give you the
Speaker 2: benefit of knowing a zillion different companies and what they
Speaker 2: offer and how their coverage might best suit you, and
Speaker 2: so at least if you're considering a new policy for
Speaker 2: your family, it might be well worth your while to
Speaker 2: go sit down with Dan and kind of run through
Speaker 2: what your options are. We've got a few callers on
Speaker 2: the line. We're going to go to Steve at this point.
Speaker 2: Steve's got a question about auto and home insurance. What
Speaker 2: is going on, Steve?
Speaker 11: Yeah, I was just interested. I'm retired houses paid for
Speaker 11: around a million dollars, and I was just kind of
Speaker 11: interested to know what are you what's your take there,
Speaker 11: combined the two of you guys in terms of what
Speaker 11: kind of coverage for the car and for the home,
Speaker 11: and do you recommend the umbrella policy. I talked with
Speaker 11: my agent the other day and they said an umbrella
Speaker 11: policy for me at a million dollars would be about
Speaker 11: a thousand a year, and that sounds like a lot,
Speaker 11: you know, if you think of it over twenty years
Speaker 11: or so. But I'm curious, what do you recommend for
Speaker 11: people like myself, Dan, what do.
Speaker 2: You what do you do with a call like this?
Speaker 5: Obviously there's a lot more information I need to know,
Speaker 5: but basics are you know, you're showing your home, you
Speaker 5: should have at least a five hundred thousand dollars liability
Speaker 5: Your auto should be at least.
Speaker 2: Two fifty five hundred. For umbrellas.
Speaker 5: John might be able to chime in on this, but
Speaker 5: I always tell clients that they should probably buy an
Speaker 5: umbrella that's roughly equivalent to their assets. Basically, I look
Speaker 5: at it as low hanging fruit. So if John's ever
Speaker 5: enlisted by someone that you might hurt, he's looking at assets.
Speaker 2: John knows that going against.
Speaker 5: Travelers hard for safego who whoever it is, for a
Speaker 5: three million dollar umbrella is a lot easier to play
Speaker 5: in court than going after you individually because you're a
Speaker 5: person solutely.
Speaker 2: There's a nice deflection there in.
Speaker 5: That Umbrellas again range between probably two hundred and twelve hundred.
Speaker 5: It's your underlying coverages and any other risk factors that
Speaker 5: are going to affect that cost.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, like, Steve, what do you
Speaker 2: have for your liability limits? Already? Like are you.
Speaker 3: Getting a question, how I met.
Speaker 11: One hundred for auto one hundred and three hundred.
Speaker 2: Okay, So it might be the case that the reason
Speaker 2: that quote sounds pretty high is that they first got
Speaker 2: to get you up to that two fifty five hundred
Speaker 2: level before you're able to qualify for an umbrella. That's
Speaker 2: that's yeah.
Speaker 5: And actually if you move your auto too to fifty
Speaker 5: five hundred, the umbrella actually will probably drop.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So I kind of think of your auto policy or
Speaker 5: your home policies like the deductible on your umbrella, right,
Speaker 5: So the higher that deductible is, the less the umbrella
Speaker 5: is going to cost.
Speaker 11: Okay, that makes sense. And then do you try to
Speaker 11: get the umbrella to match your money that you have
Speaker 11: in the bank or your total net worth including your home?
Speaker 11: So where do you try to get that?
Speaker 2: So I can kind of speak to that as a
Speaker 2: guy that represents plaintiffs only. So my clients are people
Speaker 2: that have been injured and are going after people like
Speaker 2: you that happen to cause an accident, and we're evaluating
Speaker 2: what to do about our damages. And so I can
Speaker 2: tell you from my perspective. You know, number one, I've
Speaker 2: got to have a client who's got damages that are
Speaker 2: that are significant. You know, if we're talking of fifteen
Speaker 2: twenty thousand dollars claim, we don't even have this conversation.
Speaker 2: But if we have a client that say, got a
Speaker 2: million dollars of damages, and I mean really a million dollars,
Speaker 2: they may have half a million dollars of medical bills
Speaker 2: and a couple of years of lost wages, and they're
Speaker 2: you know, they're going to have a lifetime of care.
Speaker 2: I mean, these are real damages that they're going to
Speaker 2: have to survive the rest of their life on. And
Speaker 2: so it's real money. When they're looking at somebody like you,
Speaker 2: they're evaluating, or I'm evaluating, does this make sense? Is
Speaker 2: this guy appropriately insured? Is his insurance policy the most
Speaker 2: valuable asset that he has? Or did this guy voluntarily
Speaker 2: choose to buy only enough insurance to satisfy the state
Speaker 2: limits or something such that his personal assets are more valuable.
Speaker 2: And I can tell you you don't get to go
Speaker 2: after both. You know it's going to be a well,
Speaker 2: with very few exceptions, you don't get to go after both.
Speaker 2: Most of the time, the insurance company is going to
Speaker 2: mandate that you agree to a release before they'll kick
Speaker 2: over those policy limits short of going absolutely to trial
Speaker 2: and getting a judgment. But if given that choice between
Speaker 2: taking the insurance policy and giving the release or not
Speaker 2: taking that money and going the long way of getting
Speaker 2: a judgment, dealing with the uncertainties of that and the
Speaker 2: expense and time, and then trying to go after and
Speaker 2: collect it, there's got to be a huge difference between
Speaker 2: your assets and the amount of insurance for that to
Speaker 2: be a worthwhile venture. Does that make sense?
Speaker 11: Yeah, it does make sense.
Speaker 2: So you know, talk to your agent about about up
Speaker 2: in those limits to the required amount that gets you
Speaker 2: into the ability to shop for multiple umbrella policies and
Speaker 2: then and then give a call to somebody like Dan
Speaker 2: to say, run it up the flagpole and just see
Speaker 2: what's out there in available coverage and do your price shopping.
Speaker 2: Then I think you'll be you'll be surprised that it
Speaker 2: may actually make really good sense for you.
Speaker 11: Okay, all right, good, Thank thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Hey, I appreciate the call.
Speaker 12: Dan.
Speaker 6: How can he get a hold of you? What's the
Speaker 6: good number for this guy to call you? Our phone number, our.
Speaker 5: Entry number, if you will not a direct number, the
Speaker 5: base number seven two zero four to three six one
Speaker 5: nine nine zero. That's seven to two oh four to
Speaker 5: three six one nine nine zero. Or you can visitor
Speaker 5: webs said ig Like Insurance Group and Denver Igdenver dot com.
Speaker 2: Cool. Uh, Patrick, We're gonna be right back after this
Speaker 2: break and we will take your call first up on
Speaker 2: the other side, so everybody, hang on, give us a call.
Speaker 2: We'll be happy to work through your issues as well.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Go with a sure thing Denver's best roofer Excel Roofing
Speaker 7: dot com.
Speaker 1: You don't pay a cent until you're content.
Speaker 7: Wait time for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison
Speaker 7: call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens
Speaker 7: of insurance companies find out now three all three seven
Speaker 7: to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only
Speaker 7: customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man
Speaker 7: dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three
Speaker 7: all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.
Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, good afternoon. You're back
Speaker 2: live at the Troubleshooter Network. I'm John Fuller. As you
Speaker 2: all know, I'm a personal injury attorney here in town,
Speaker 2: and we are talking today about insurance and mostly auto
Speaker 2: insurance and stuff. We did have a question from the
Speaker 2: YouTube listeners about, you know, your short term care or
Speaker 2: your long term care policies that you hear some companies
Speaker 2: offer out there. Dan, What experience do you have with
Speaker 2: those with those policies. What are things that the listeners
Speaker 2: need to look out for as they're considering that kind
Speaker 2: of coverage. Yeah, great question.
Speaker 5: Just to disclose also is that in the state of
Speaker 5: Colorado you have to have a special designation to sell
Speaker 5: long term care. I surrendered my designation just because the
Speaker 5: market is narrowing quite rapidly. A lot of companies are
Speaker 5: no longer playing in that space. Short term care is
Speaker 5: usually something you're going to get from your employer. It's
Speaker 5: going to do that just short term care. Long term
Speaker 5: care is looking at assisting as you get older, if
Speaker 5: you have medical issues you need a lot of treatment
Speaker 5: around the clock. That's usually where that's going to kick
Speaker 5: in the cost of the policies. They're not cheap, but
Speaker 5: they are very good. It's a great way to protect
Speaker 5: an estate and assets. Again, not a lot of companies
Speaker 5: do it anymore, and you need to go through someone
Speaker 5: who still has that designation as an option. There are
Speaker 5: some term life policies that have what they call accelerated benefits,
Speaker 5: and some of those companies will allow you you to
Speaker 5: use the proceeds of that policy pre disease to pay
Speaker 5: for things like critical care other more expensive end of
Speaker 5: life treatment options. But they're usually only giving you seventy
Speaker 5: cents on the dollar the benefit of the policy. But
Speaker 5: it's a nice workaround. It's easier to underwrite, maybe less
Speaker 5: expensive to buy.
Speaker 2: Okay, Color, If you have any more specific questions, to
Speaker 2: give a shout and we'll try to work through that. Patrick,
Speaker 2: you've been holding for a while with a question about
Speaker 2: auto insurance. What is going on? Patrick?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 20: Hi, So I have a twenty fifteen Ford Mustang and
Speaker 20: my insurance Progressive.
Speaker 4: I had it.
Speaker 2: I bought it.
Speaker 20: It was nice, look new, everything was good on the body.
Speaker 20: And then about a year later, so I bought it
Speaker 20: in June of twenty three, and then about August of
Speaker 20: twenty four, the back quarter panel started peeling off and
Speaker 20: it looks like someone bondoed a previous repair from a
Speaker 20: previously accident on it. And I tried to put in
Speaker 20: an acclaim and they said it is not covered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're saying that because the damage didn't occur
Speaker 2: while you owned the vehicle or pre pre existed the
Speaker 2: ownership of the vehicle. Is that is that what they're
Speaker 2: telling you.
Speaker 3: Pretty much. I'm just making sure that's accurate.
Speaker 2: And that's I mean, that's not that's not play in dirty.
Speaker 2: I mean that that's the insurance company saying, you know,
Speaker 2: we're going to ensure against any risk from this date
Speaker 2: going forward. We're not going to ensure against anything that's
Speaker 2: not yet discovered, you know, So that I have to
Speaker 2: say I'd de side with the insurance company on that one.
Speaker 2: Your recourse in that situation is always going to be
Speaker 2: looking back towards a person that you bought the vehicle from,
Speaker 2: or the dealership, and whether or not there was full
Speaker 2: disclosure of the damage. I mean, those kind of areas
Speaker 2: I think would be more fruitful for you than to
Speaker 2: look at the insurance company. They're just going to say
Speaker 2: we ensured the vehicle. There's not a covered event that
Speaker 2: has happened here that would invoke our coverage that would
Speaker 2: allow you to fix the body, repair or whatever would happen.
Speaker 5: So as an alternate, something you might want to consider
Speaker 5: is if you pull a carfax and you find the
Speaker 5: shop that actually did the work, you might be able
Speaker 5: to go back to them and see if there's a
Speaker 5: warranty that will apply. Oftentimes, insurance companies, the contract or
Speaker 5: the shops that they use, will guarantee the work. But
Speaker 5: it's only the life that you own the vehicle, right,
Speaker 5: so there might be a limitation to it. But if
Speaker 5: it's a good shop, republe shop, they did something wrong,
Speaker 5: they might get you in and do something for you.
Speaker 20: Go ahead, Patrick, Yeah, that's correct, because Calper Collision is
Speaker 20: the one who did it, and they did it in
Speaker 20: New Mexico. But yeah, as I read their warranty, it's
Speaker 20: only for the person who owned the car at that time.
Speaker 2: Correct. How extensive is the damage, Patrick.
Speaker 20: I got a quote for it. They want forty six
Speaker 20: hundred dollars longer because it needs a whole new quarter panel.
Speaker 2: Holy moly, I wouldn't think a quarter panel would cost
Speaker 2: that much. Do you know how long ago Collision did
Speaker 2: the repair?
Speaker 20: Yeah, they did it, I think late or early twenty twenty,
Speaker 20: early twenty twenty three, I believe maybe late twenty twenty two.
Speaker 2: I think I'd go argue with them because body works
Speaker 2: should last long. Absolutely it should absolutely, yeah, warrant.
Speaker 20: They literally just bonded it and painted it and called
Speaker 20: it good.
Speaker 2: You know, Caliber is a big operation. I mean, they
Speaker 2: they they're not insignificant. They've got a presence I think
Speaker 2: in probably just about every state out there, and many
Speaker 2: of them in Colorado. I mean, I kind of think
Speaker 2: that I agree that they should. You should be able
Speaker 2: to have a hard conversation with them about, you know,
Speaker 2: at least compromising the cost of the repair, because certainly,
Speaker 2: you know, whoever paid them for the first repair didn't
Speaker 2: really get the benefit of the bargain out of it.
Speaker 2: It was that warranty that you were buying and expecting
Speaker 2: to get coverage on. So I don't know that's going
Speaker 2: to be a tough one, Patrick, but I don't think
Speaker 2: Progressive is going to be on the hook for it.
Speaker 2: And if you subsequently have an accident and it damages
Speaker 2: that quarter panel, the risk you run is that they're
Speaker 2: going to say, well, that was previously damaged and we're
Speaker 2: only going to pay for our apportionment of the personage
Speaker 2: that it was damaged more. And then you're gonna be
Speaker 2: you know, you're gonna be kind of double double victimized
Speaker 2: there if you will, for lack of a.
Speaker 20: Better word, Okay, if I got it properly repaired, like
Speaker 20: a whole new quarter panel and all that, would they
Speaker 20: then yeah, maybe cover it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely they would because because once it's back to
Speaker 2: being all repaired, it's in the exact state that they
Speaker 2: insured it in the first place. And as soon as
Speaker 2: you actually had a covered event, that insurance policy would
Speaker 2: kick in and then they would have to do what
Speaker 2: they have to do.
Speaker 20: So yeah, perfect, thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You bet. So, we still have half of Dimitri's question
Speaker 2: over here, and we were just getting into the the
Speaker 2: uninsured motors side of the game in the limited time
Speaker 2: that we have left, and we're gonna have to go
Speaker 2: to break here again in a second. But Dan, I
Speaker 2: would like you to talk about, you know, uninsured motorists
Speaker 2: coverage and talk a little bit about those uninsured you know,
Speaker 2: writers that you can kick onto umbrella policies and how
Speaker 2: that actually works and why it might be advantageous to
Speaker 2: try to get that on your policy and whether or
Speaker 2: not what was the word that Dimitri used, whether his
Speaker 2: coverage was eliminated or amplified. Amplified that was the right word, sorry,
Speaker 2: whether his coverage was amplified by the president or lack
Speaker 2: thereof of the subpart of the secondary paragraph of uninsured
Speaker 2: motors coverage.
Speaker 6: From the main overwriting perspective that I learned from John
Speaker 6: over the month. I want to insure myself, right, I
Speaker 6: want to buy insurance from me.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's what you should do exactly. All right,
Speaker 2: We're going to address that question right as soon as
Speaker 2: we come back.
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Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, welcome back to the
Speaker 2: Tom Martino Show, the Troubleshooter Network. This is John Fuller.
Speaker 2: We are wrapping up our day here. We've got just
Speaker 2: a few minutes and we wanted to end on a
Speaker 2: high note with Dan discussing, you know, umbrellas, and then
Speaker 2: particularly the ability to add a um writer to an
Speaker 2: umbrella and why a party may want to do that.
Speaker 2: So from your perspective as an agent, and give me
Speaker 2: your best shot, right.
Speaker 5: So, an umbrella, just think of it as an umbrella.
Speaker 5: It sits over your underlying policies. Underlying policies actually require
Speaker 5: a certain amount of coverage already being written in them.
Speaker 2: The umbrella is going to act essentially as a multiplier
Speaker 2: of whatever that underlying number is. So just on liability, just.
Speaker 5: On liability, nothing else, and that includes the uninsured motorist.
Speaker 5: Some companies will do an endorsement for uninsured motorists on
Speaker 5: an umbrella, meaning what meaning that there's not a lot
Speaker 5: out there?
Speaker 2: No meaning that an endorsement means, oh, I actually extend
Speaker 2: the um to the limits of the umbrella. Right.
Speaker 5: So, now, in this situation, if you have the UM
Speaker 5: of two fifty five hundred, you have injuries exceeding over
Speaker 5: a million dollars. You can't mow your own lawn anymore.
Speaker 5: You need help, go to the bathroom. All that you
Speaker 5: need a lot more money. You can go back now
Speaker 5: into your own umbrella, trigger that endorsement, and then you
Speaker 5: can go after your own umbrella for that those funds
Speaker 5: that you need for.
Speaker 6: Is that an addition to the auto policy or does
Speaker 6: that become the new limit? Okay?
Speaker 5: In this case, it's going to become a new limit.
Speaker 5: The umbrella will multiply the rest, but the personal injury doesn't.
Speaker 6: Usually, So I wouldn't collect one and a half million
Speaker 6: with a million dollar un brell policy. I would just
Speaker 6: collect the one million.
Speaker 2: No, you would.
Speaker 5: You would bet you would collect from different sources. So
Speaker 5: your underlying policy with a five hundred your umbrella, if
Speaker 5: you have the endorsetion, okay, another million, okay, so you
Speaker 5: still would get one point five.
Speaker 2: Very cool, thank you. Yeah, so it's a it's a
Speaker 2: cool thing, it actually. I mean listen, umbrellas are only
Speaker 2: for liability. That's all they do is extend the liability.
Speaker 2: They don't protect you or your family for anything until
Speaker 2: you get into a claim that would trigger your uninsured
Speaker 2: motorist coverage. Okay. And if you have a traditional umbrella,
Speaker 2: what you'll find is that you have a in your
Speaker 2: case a half a million dollars of uninsured motorists. But
Speaker 2: you turn to your umbrella that you think is wonderful
Speaker 2: when you find out that it has no additional coverage
Speaker 2: for the underlying uninsured motorist portion of your policy.
Speaker 6: Unless I specifically bought the correct kind of umbrella. And
Speaker 6: what percentage of umbrella I didn't know about this until yesterday.
Speaker 6: So what percentage of umbrellas are there are actually.
Speaker 2: Do what I wanted to do? Almost none?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I can only think of two or three carriers
Speaker 5: that will even offer it. Oftentimes people don't want to
Speaker 5: buy it. I actually just did when I think this week,
Speaker 5: I think it added two hundred and sixty dollars to
Speaker 5: the policy to add the uninsured.
Speaker 2: Are you saying almost none of it added automatically or
Speaker 2: none of them offer it period? A lot of carriers
Speaker 2: just won't even offer it. But you do still have
Speaker 2: those that do specialty lines and stuff, and then we
Speaker 2: can also go to specialty lines if a carrier doesn't.
Speaker 2: I mean, is that a type of coverage that you
Speaker 2: recommend for your customers? Yes, you know, insurance.
Speaker 5: When you start talking about endorsements, you're starting to talk
Speaker 5: about percentages on percentages, risk upon risk.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 5: Yeah, at a certain point you can be over insured.
Speaker 5: So you know, if you're just worried about protecting assets,
Speaker 5: you've got enough assets you can take care of yourself.
Speaker 5: Something horrible did happen, maybe it's not a big deal
Speaker 5: to you. But for two hundred and sixty eight bucks
Speaker 5: and you have all those assets, yeah, you can afford it.
Speaker 2: So why not? Well, I you know, I look at
Speaker 2: it from a little different perspective because I'm representing people
Speaker 2: that that all of a sudden, through no fault of
Speaker 2: their own, are are handed this bill of goods. Okay,
Speaker 2: and that bill of goods may include a lifetime of
Speaker 2: medical care. It may which maybe they have great health
Speaker 2: insurance for, but that's really difficult to parlay out into
Speaker 2: a lifetime of care. Typically people end up on public
Speaker 2: assistance at some point in that process, Medicare, Medicaid through
Speaker 2: disability and that kind of stuff. But it's the income thing.
Speaker 2: If you're talking a high earning you know, somebody that's
Speaker 2: making and I don't mean like super high, but if
Speaker 2: somebody's making you know, one hundred maybe two hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars and they're forty years old with a couple of
Speaker 2: little kids in the house, and all of a sudden
Speaker 2: they're unable to work for the balance of their life.
Speaker 2: You're talking a gran amount of money, So I don't
Speaker 2: care how much money you've accumulated at that stage in
Speaker 2: your life, it's probably not going to be enough. And
Speaker 2: that's also a good reason why to buy it. As
Speaker 2: John is saying, well, yeah, no, that's why I'm saying
Speaker 2: it's mandatory. I believe so strongly in it. If my
Speaker 2: carrier told me that they didn't offer a um writer
Speaker 2: on top of the umbrella that I have, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: buy it from them. I would go to a different carrier,
Speaker 2: and I would go to another one, and another one
Speaker 2: and another one until I found that that writer. That's
Speaker 2: just me, but I see the effects of this every
Speaker 2: day in my practice, where we have so many cases
Speaker 2: where we have bad damages and not enough coverage. And
Speaker 2: so sometimes you hear Mark talking about all the time
Speaker 2: John got limits and John did this, it's like great.
Speaker 2: Sometimes limits is still a slap in the face and
Speaker 2: an insult because you're not even close to made whole.
Speaker 2: And a limit is a limit, and that's why it's
Speaker 2: called limit is a limit. So listen, we're out of
Speaker 2: town today or out of time today, Come back tomorrow,
Speaker 2: we'll be doing this all over again. My name is
Speaker 2: John Fuller. Save all your troubles for us. Thanks for listening.