Posts Tagged ‘insurance guidance’
Auto accident and Health Insurance
March 29th, 2010
QUESTION: Hello, quick question. My wife was involved in a MVA which she was not at fault for. At the time of the accident she was employed with health insurance benefits. She is now self-employed as she opens her own retail business. We now went to get quotes for health insurance for her. She had to disclose the spinal injury (which may result in surgery) and her rates went up accordingly. My question is, shouldn’t the at fault carrier be held liable for an instance like this? Is there any known case law on this? Thank you again!
ANSWER: Hi Jason, I see where you want to go with this. The problem with it is that your wife chose her new career voluntarily and thus assumed the expenses of health insurance. In my opinion she would have had a case against the other driver if she was already enrolled in her own health insurance plan at the time of the accident and then was subject to a large increase in premiums due the fault of the other driver having caused her injuries. The case could even be better if she was given insurance quotes before her unfortunate injury and now is given much higher quotes due to it. The best case scenario would be if she were terminated due to not being able to perform her previous job and now had to seek out private health insurance. Do you see where I am going with this?
———- FOLLOW-UP ———-
QUESTION: Hi Richard! Thank you for getting back to me so quickly. I do see where you are going, and am glad you could see where I am going. My only follow up would be that she is still working in the same line of work. But instead of choosing to work for someone else she decided to open her own salon. My “argument” (in a nice way) is, why should she suffer with higher premium costs due to something that was not her fault? I look at it as a “consequence” of the accident. Maybe I am looking at it too one sided-hence why I am asking you. I understand the concept of “foreseeablility”, and think it would fly in this day in age. Do you agree? Lastly, we can quantify rates pre and post accident. Does any of this change your opinion? Thank you again!
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