St. Louis Attorney

Lie: "The insurance company will pay just as much money for your injury if you don't have an attorney."
Truth: The reality is that insurance companies pay an average of almost three times as much on injury claims for
people who are represented by an attorney, than they pay to those who are not represented by an attorney. Insurance
companies encourage injured people to try to settle their claims without an attorney. They would have you believe that
they will give you a fair amount to compensate you for your injuries even if you do not have an attorney fighting for
you. But it's simply not true. Insurance companies are not in the business of handing out money to people. Insurance
companies are in business to make money, and one way they make that money is to do everything they can to
minimize how much they pay injured people like you. Having an attorney on your side doesn't cost you money, it
makes you money.

Lie: "If your car has little or no visible property damage, you could not have been hurt in the collision."
Truth: The truth is that people can and do suffer injuries in collisions even when the car does not show any damage at
all. The reality is that bumpers are designed to protect the car from damage, and bumpers are NOT designed to
protect the car's occupants from injury. This fact is strongly emphasized by the National Highway Transportation
Safety Administration on its website, and can be found at the following link:
http://www.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/studies/Bumper/Index.html. In fact, there is now overwhelming scientific
evidence that there is no relationship between the extent of injury to the person and extent of damage to the vehicle in
rear-end collisions. You can read about the scientific explanation for this in scores of published scientific studies from
all over the world. One I like is from The Society of Automotive Engineers, http://www.sae.org/servlets/index, article
970494, which is entitled "Lack of Relationship Between Vehicle Damage and Occupant Injury." If you are injured in
a car crash, make certain the extent of your injury is diagnosed by a doctor, not by a mechanic.

Lie: "The insurance company will evaluate your claim fairly, and offer you a reasonable amount of money
for your injury."
Truth: The insurance company will dissect your case, attempting to twist every piece of information against you, in an
effort to deny your claim outright. If they cannot deny your claim, they will offer you the lowest possible amount of
money they can. Most insurance companies do this by using a very complex computer program called "Colossus."
The insurance adjuster inputs the data pertaining to your claim, including information about the nature of the accident,
you, your injuries, your past medical history, and much more, into Colossus. Colossus is then supposed to give a fair
settlement value for your case. But the insurance companies rig the data by conveniently leaving out key information,
and Colossus then gives the adjuster an unfair, low-ball settlement figure for your case. The insurance adjusters are
offered bonuses, raises, trips to Disneyland, and other awards and incentives for getting you to accept settlement
offers at or below the Colossus figure. On the other hand, the adjuster will be reprimanded or even fired for offering
you amounts higher than the Colossus figure. I am one of only a few attorneys in Missouri who is familiar with
Colossus and how to fight this system for you.

Lie: "If you did not do anything wrong, you have nothing to fear from talking with the insurance adjuster
about your injuries."
Truth: Talking with the insurance adjuster or giving the insurance company a recorded statement can only hurt your
case. Insurance adjusters are NOT on your side, regardless of how nice them seem. The recorded statement is just
another chance for them to try to get you to say something that they can twist against you. Meanwhile, anything you
say that would help your case will be ignored.
In Missouri, the law considers "comparative fault" in injury cases. "Comparative Fault" is the idea that your injury
could be at least partly your own fault. If the insurance company thinks it can convince a jury that you were at least
partly at fault for your own injury (even if they know you really weren't), they will offer you a lower settlement amount,
or none at all. For example, if they would have otherwise offered you $30,000.00 for your claim, but they think they
can convince a jury that you were 50% at fault for the crash, they will only offer you $15,000.00, instead. Some
insurance companies have set quotas for their adjusters to find comparative fault in a certain percentage of claims. For
instance, some companies tell their adjusters that they must find comparative fault in at least ½ of all claims they
handle. Others tell their adjusters that they must find at least 10% comparative fault in all claims. Giving a recorded
statement or chatting with the adjuster just gives them another opportunity to cheat you.

Lie: "The insurance industry is being devastated by an epidemic of frivolous lawsuits, forcing the
insurance companies to raise doctors' insurance premiums."
Truth: This is the biggest lie of all, and it is behind the so called "tort reform" movement sweeping through the political
landscape right now. This lie is so huge and so offensive that it would take a whole book to fully explain how wrong it
is. The following websites are just a few that contain the truth about "tort reform." I urge anyone who is even slightly
interested in learning about how the insurance industry is lying to doctors and the American people, to follow these
links to the truth:

Center for Justice and Democracy http://www.centerjd.org/
The Foundation for Tax Payer and Consumer Rights http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/insurance/
Americans for Insurance Reform http://www.centerjd.org/air/
Economic Policy Institute http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp157

By way of a short summary, I will briefly explain how Tort Reform works: The insurance industry charges doctors a
premium for their medical malpractice insurance. The insurance industry then takes that money and invests (or
gambles) it. When the insurance industry loses the money it invested, it raises the doctors' premiums, and then falsely
justifies this premium increase by lying to the doctors. They tell the doctors that they had to pay out so much money
for "frivolous lawsuits" that they had no choice but to raise premiums to cover the cost. This lie turns misinformed
doctors, and the general public, against attorneys, and makes people view legitimately injured people with suspicion.

The reality is that the insurance industry does not pay money for "frivolous" lawsuits. If a lawsuit is frivolous, it is
without merit, and will be thrown out by the judge or lost at trial with the jury. What money the insurance industry
does pay to injury claims goes to compensate legitimately injured people, not to people who bring "frivolous" lawsuits.
And compensating these legitimately injured people for their damages only amounts to 0.6% of annual health care
costs. That's less than 1%! This 0.6% of costs is certainly not "devastating" the insurance industry. In fact, the
insurance industry has reported RECORD PROFITS for the past several years in a row!
(http://www.centerjd.org/free/mythbusters-free/MB_InsProfits2004.htm) Yet they continue to raise premiums out of
greed, not out of need.

The next part of their plan is insideous. The multi-billion dollar insurance industry buys politicians, and the politicians
enact "tort reform" laws to limit the amount of money that injured people can collect, and to change the laws to make
it harder for injured people to fight the massively powerful insurance industry for a fair amount to compensate them for
their damages. The insurance industry's politicians sell this idea to the public by demonizing anyone who claims to be
wrongly injured, and by claiming that tort reform will allow the insurance industry to lower doctors' premiums.
However, after tort reform is enacted, the insurance industry does NOT lower doctors' premiums. They keep raising
premiums, and the only ones who profit from tort reform are the insurance companies. Tort reform's only result is to
enrich the insurance industry at the expense of injured people all across our country. This outcome can be seen in any
state where tort reform has been in place for years (California, West Virginia, and Nevada, for example).
The insurance industry wants people to view tort reform as an issue of "doctors versus attorneys." It's just not true.
The reality is that tort reform is an issue of "the insurance industry versus everyone else." If your doctor thinks tort
reform is a good idea, he has been lied to by an insurance company. Please urge him to contact my office to learn the
truth. So-called "tort reform" is a lie. What we really need is insurance reform. Missouri recently passed the worst
"tort reform" legislation in the country, which went into effect in the Fall of 2005. More than ever before, if you've
been wrongly injured, you need an attorney who knows how to fight for you, because the laws are now slanted
against you.

Call my office for a free consultation. You'll speak directly with me about your case, not with a paralegal.

James J. Daher, L.L.C.
6321 Bancroft Avenue
St. Louis, Missouri 63109

(314) 832-7800 Office
(314) 353-2989 Fax
(314) 537-1603 Cell
St.LouisAttorney@sbcglobal.net