Lesson Four — always over insure. In one sense, I was fortunate the driver that ran into me had small liability limits. Given the severity of my injuries, her insurer accepted my policy limits demand with little hesitation. While my own underinsured motorist (UM) policy limits were much higher, my insurer also eventually tendered those without litigation. Five days in the trauma ward had made for a sizeable medical bill, which apparently made punting my policy limits a relative no-brainer for my insurer. Though I endured severe injuries, painful and difficult rehabilitation and significant worry about all the income I was losing after missing work for so many weeks, I was lucky. I had a relatively successful recovery, eventually got back to work and the insurance settlements I obtained were enough to compensate me. I’m an injury lawyer and I knew the importance of having adequate insurance limits. Many of our clients don’t learn that until it’s too late. Lesson Five — sometimes you get lucky. A year or so before the accident, I changed office locations to a space on the same block where I live. At the time, I wondered if the office was too close to home. In reality, living so close to my office turned out to be a blessing — I could crutch down the street and hop up three flights of stairs much sooner than I would have been able to had I lived miles away. It was months before I could drive. I like to say my choice of office location soon before a major accident was a flash of clairvoyant genius. It’s not really true, but I still say it. What it really was — was luck. I was lucky not to have been killed or more seriously injured and I was lucky to be able to leave my car in the garage for more than a month without it affecting my ability to use my office. Lesson Six — get your policies right. As an injury lawyer, I quickly realized I made some fundamental mistakes in my own insurance package. Though I knew to have adequate UM policy limits, I hadn’t purchased Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance for my motorcycle policy, something I was aware of and should have considered when I purchased the policy. Nor had I taken steps to connect my umbrella policy to my motorcycle policy. In both cases, I simply forgot. Life is busy. These rookie mistakes, though forgivable among non-lawyers, were embarrassing for someone in my line of work and could have been very expensive blunders. Lesson Seven — Thank you OTLA! I also had to use SB-421/ORS 742.544 for the first time. With over $150,000 in medical bills and only $50,000 in insurance coverage from the Prius driver, I was initially very worried about having to repay my medical expenses out of any settlement. To my relief, the providers wrote off nearly all my medical bills and both insurers accepted full liability for the accident. Let’s hear it for the “made whole” doctrine and ORS 742.544! OTLA Guardian dollars at work! Hear me well, OTLAns. If you’re not contributing to Guardians, you should be. In the end, everything worked out. But during my recovery, which was painful and long, I constantly worried about my ability to work and the potential financial outcome. Had SB-421/ORS 742.544 not been there, I would have had to file a claim against my umbrella Motorcycle Madness continued from p. 31 32 Trial Lawyer | Fall 2024
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy Nzc3ODM=