Having been an attorney representing injured car and truck crash victims for more than forty years, I have often been told that the at-fault liability insurer won't pay for the damages they have caused.
This typically starts with a refusal to pay for our client's vehicle repairs and provision of a rental car while our client's vehicle is in the shop. Obviusly this then extends to paying fair compensation for the crash-related injuries.
As the aphorism goes " If I had a nickel for every time an insurance company said they would never pay me I'd be a wealhy man.'
Now nickels don't amount to much any more but its intended to symbolize the fact that insurance companies routinely ignore the realities of crash facts and refuse to pay for the negligence of their insureds even when lawyers are involved.
Perhaps, their aspiration is to induce innocent victims to use their own insurance to fix their cars and provide rentals but of course at a minmum that means they have to pay their deductibles which these days are often considerable.
Also, many people don't carry insurance that will pay for the repair of older vehicles.
Whatever the motivation the question addressed here is, whether no means no, when uttered by a Maryland insurer?
The answer of course often is "no we won't pay" is pure nonsense. Many of our clients bring us police reports which make it clear both that our clients aren't at fault and that the other drivers is but still feature recalcitrance on the part of the at-fault driver's insurer.
Sometimes the excuse is that they haven't gotten their insured's " side of the story" or that the police report is wrong or that there is an independent witness that the police didn't talk to but generally its just delay.
The bottom line sometimes the innocent victim sometimes needs to dig in their heels and assemble their evidence and insist. Manifestly, this is more likely to be successful if an attorney is involved because sometimes only a lawsuit will persuade an insurer to do the right thing.
