Dealing with insurers
What the person on the other end of the phone is doing, what they are obliged to do, and what they are not.
Nothing on this page is advice about your situation, and no article can be. If you want your own facts looked at, a Minnesota personal injury attorney can do that.
It just happened
The first days. What to do, what not to say, and which clocks have already started.
- The recorded statement: what an adjuster is doing when they ask for one
Two different companies ask for a recorded statement and the request means two different things. One duty is written into the No-Fault Act. The other is not written anywhere.
Who pays the bills
No-fault, health plans, liens, and the layers of coverage most people do not know they have.
- Minnesota no-fault (PIP): what it pays regardless of who caused the crash
Basic economic loss benefits are two separate buckets, not one. This is what each one covers, whose policy pays, when the payment is late, and what the insurer owes you when it is.
- Who gets repaid out of your recovery: health plans, hospitals, and subrogation
Several parties have a claim on the money before you see it, and each one operates under a different statute with different limits. Minnesota caps some of them. Federal law removes the cap from others entirely.
- Motorcycles and the No-Fault Act: the coverage a rider is presumed not to have
A motorcycle is not a motor vehicle under Minnesota's No-Fault Act, and almost everything else follows from that. The legislature was so certain riders would misunderstand it that it wrote the warning into the statute and specified the type size.
When it goes wrong
Denials, lowball offers, disputed fault, and the deadlines that end a claim quietly.
- The release you are asked to sign, and what it gives up
A release is a contract, and the check is what you are paid for signing it. Minnesota law limits how far one may reach, refuses to let one defeat certain repayment rights, and requires a judge's approval before one binds a child.
- Underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage, and the notice that comes before the settlement
Minnesota requires every auto policy to carry both coverages, and a claimant's own insurer becomes the one on the other side. The measure of a UIM claim was rewritten by the legislature in 1989, and the leading case predates the rewrite.