In this episode, host John Maher sits down with attorneys Rob Mazow and Kevin McCullough from the Law Office of Mazow-McCullough to discuss how insurance companies handle bicycle accident claims. They break down the typical claims process, explaining how insurers quickly seek recorded statements and rush settlements to minimize their exposure. The experts reveal common tactics used to pressure injured cyclists into accepting inadequate offers and emphasize why consulting an attorney immediately is vital to protect your rights and secure fair compensation. Whether you’re dealing with minor injuries or facing long-term health issues, this conversation offers essential, practical advice for navigating the often adversarial insurance process after a bicycle accident.
John Maher: Hi, I am John Maher, and I’m here today with Rob Mazow and Kevin McCullough of the Law Office of Mazow-McCullough. Today we’re talking about dealing with insurance companies after a bicycle accident. Welcome Rob and Kevin.
Kevin McCullough: Thanks, John.
Robert Mazow: Thank you, John.
What is the Typical Claims Process After A Bicycle Accident?
Maher: So, Kevin, what is the typical claims process after a bicycle accident? And does it differ in any ways from other types of accidents?
McCullough: So, John, an incident or a collision involving a bicyclist in a motor vehicle can be pretty similar to a motor vehicle versus motor vehicle collision. But at the same time, there are elements to the claim that are different. And what I mean by that is from an insurance company’s point of view, their primary focus is what is their insurance coverage, what are the limits and what is their potential exposure for a claim?
And with bicycle accidents, what we find typically is that the injuries are much more severe resulting from a bicycle accident versus a motorcycle accident. So that immediately changes the mindset of the insurance representative when they’re reaching out to the injured person for that initial call. They have a heightened level of awareness with the initial questions that they’re going to ask knowing that there’s a good chance this person could be seriously injured or have those permanent injuries and scars.
So, we do see the insurance companies getting involved quickly with bicycle versus motor vehicle collisions. The questions that they ask to try to capture the evidence from their point of view can be pretty intense because they want to lock in someone’s version of events or lock in what they’re claiming to have for injuries.
So, that process involves typically a faster response time. It typically involves a request for a recorded statement, again, so they can capture that description from the bicyclist early on before they have a chance to process the information, before they have a chance to consult with an attorney. And they typically also try to resolve those claims.
The insurance companies try to resolve those claims as quickly as they can, again, knowing that the injuries can be severe, they can be permanent. And it’s in the insurance company’s best interest to work through a settlement as quickly as they can before there’s an attorney involved who would do a full investigation and try to reach a settlement for all components of injury versus let’s try to make this thing go away now. So, it is absolutely a process that is similar on some levels, but differs in intensity at another level.
Mazow: I just want to piggyback on a couple of things that Kevin said. When he says that the insurance companies want to move quickly, don’t be fooled to think that they’re moving quickly to make it better for the bicyclist, make it better for the parties. The insurance companies want to get this thing resolved if they can before lawyers get involved, before this person might get additional medical treatment they might need because the insurance companies in the business of not spending money, not spending money that they don’t want to have to spend.
And if they did a hold of a bicyclist who’s been injured and the bicyclist is maybe not sophisticated, doesn’t understand the insurance company waves some small amount of money at them, they might take it not even understanding what kind of rights that they may be giving up.
The other important issue that Kevin touched on was if the insurance companies get a hold of the bicyclists and start taking statements and start getting some sort of position on how they think the accident may have happened, it’s a very, very difficult thing to get an insurance company to later change its mind. These insurance companies lock into a story very early.
And if that story helps their insured as far as liability or what happened in the accident, it is going to be very, very difficult later on to try to convince them otherwise to try to change their position on liability. So, when a bicyclist is hurt and if they start trying to deal with the insurance companies, they need to be very, very aware, their antenna needs to be up that the insurance company is not their friend, the insurance company is not gathering this information to help the bicyclist. They’re doing it to help their insured. And if they can do that by getting some information from the bicyclists that will help their own insured’s case, believe me they will do that.
Common Tactics Insurance Companies Use
Maher: Are there any other types of common tactics that insurance companies use to try to minimize or deny claims from cyclists? And what should the bicyclists do in that case? Can they avoid talking to the other insurance company? Or what do you recommend?
Mazow: So first of all, as far as tactics, we’ve seen everything. We have seen insurance companies drive within a day or two, go visit that person’s home or go to the hospital with a checkbook, with a checkbook. And say, “Here is $2000.” And a person might say, “Great, $2,000, that’s wonderful.” And the insurance says, “Just sign right here, you’ll be all set.” The injured probably doesn’t necessarily know what rights they’re giving up.
They might be severely injured, they might need more treatment. But if they accept a settlement early on from an insurance company, they’re out of luck. They sign a release, there’s nothing that they can do. So we’ve seen those tactics.
We’ve seen other strong-arm tactics where they’re telling the person, “Oh, you don’t need a lawyer. You can trust us. That’s fine. We’ll take care of everything.” And they might take care of some things. But to the uneducated, to the uninformed person, they’re just not going to know what potential rights they might have.
They’re not going to know that they might be giving up some future loss to earning capacity. Let’s say a person can never go back to work and they’re accepting some small amount of money from the insurance company because they think it’s out of the insurance company’s, the goodness of their heart, and they’d be making a terrible, terrible mistake that could haunt them for the rest of their lives.
McCullough: John, the tactics that an insurance company or an insurance representative will do after a serious collision with serious injuries, as Rob mentioned, is limitless. And the example of showing up at someone’s door or at their hospital bed with a checkbook is real. We see it all the time.
And I think it’s important as part of this conversation to help educate people why. Because when we talk about the tactics of the insurance companies, and of course you say that, Attorney McCullough, you represent injured people, you don’t like insurance companies, we need to talk about the why. And a quick settlement or a quick check for someone who’s injured absolutely helps the insurance company and oftentimes helps the person who’s injured.
They don’t appreciate what is going to unfold over the weeks or months or years after an event. And equating fast money after an incident can feel good and be a reason for someone to sign a document as a settlement agreement or a release to accept that money.
And the insurance companies exploit that because when you suffer a serious injury, oftentimes it’s not obvious on day one or week one or even in the first month. When you suffer injuries as a result of a bicyclist, you may go to the hospital, you may have fractured bones. Orthopedic doctors may say, we have to wait a few weeks to see if the bone heals naturally or if you need a surgery.
And that injury can then turn into a surgical procedure with metal and hardware and a recovery time that now turns into months with physical therapy, which turns into months of lost wages that were not appreciated or known by anyone at the start of that claim. And it could then lead into, despite best efforts to recover and going through that surgery and the physical therapy, if you do everything the doctor’s telling you to do, you may still have a permanent injury. You may have a loss of use of your arm or your knee or your leg.
You may have limited range of motion. You may have an inability to lift a certain amount of weight. And as we talk about it sitting here, it’s hard to grasp what that means. But if you’re an electrician or a plumber or a lawyer or someone that sits at a desk all day answering the telephone, or sweeping floors, or you are a trash man, whatever your job is, it’s repetitive movement.
It’s doing certain things. And those are the reasons why it’s real that an insurance company shows up with a checkbook, because if they can pay money now immediately to settle that claim, they’re absolutely saving money. They don’t need to look behind the curtain to see what’s going to be there in the future. And with incidents like this, oftentimes it is severe, it is permanent, it involves injuries that you don’t know the day, the week, the month after the event.
Are Long Term Health Issues Common With Bicycle Accidents?
Maher: Is that especially true in the case of a bicycle accident where the insurance company knows that a bike accident with a motor vehicle is much more likely to result in these long-term maybe headaches from a concussion that go on for months and months or years and things like that. So they might even be more likely in the case of a bicycle accident to try to just end this very quickly.
McCullough: Absolutely, John. And let me give you a specific example. There’s a bicyclist who is struck by a commercial vehicle. And that commercial vehicle has insurance coverage, insuring the driver in that vehicle for incidents with a cause and injury. And let’s say that that insurance policy limit for the commercial vehicle is a $1,000,000 and this bicyclist has suffered multiple fractures.
They’re sitting in a hospital bed a week after the accident and someone from an insurance company shows up and they write a checkout for a $100,000. That’s an awful lot of money. It sounds really good. It sounds like they care about me. They’re here at my bedside a week later and they’re going to give me a $100,000 for this horrible event. Oh my God, they’re so nice. They care about me. The insurance company is saving $900,000 of potential exposure or potential payment to that person.
That’s the reason, that’s why that I’m talking about as to why they show up. We’re not talking about every time they show up, they offer a 1000 or 2000 or 5,000. It is on some level methodical, and it’s really based upon what their exposure is. If it’s a high policy limit of insurance, they could be paying a lot of money here.
So, let’s try to save some money and offer some money, even if it’s a six-figure offer, because we’re saving money. So those are the things that we see unfortunately, and those are the things that go on in the real world. And those are exactly the reasons why someone needs to not only document the event, but to contact an experienced attorney that they can consult with and advise them and get guidance from them to know what’s ahead.
How can Cyclists Protect Their Rights?
Maher: So, talk about that a little bit more. How can cyclists protect their rights and interests when they’re dealing with insurance companies? And when is hiring an attorney an important step?
Mazow: So, because we know that the insurance companies are going to do these tactics, we’re going to get in front of this and to try to do what they can do to minimize their exposure to protect their insurance. A person who’s injured in an accident, seriously injured in an accident, certainly they should be talking with counsel almost immediately.
The lawyer as their advisor should be the intermediary between them and the insurance company. The insurance company wants information, get it from the lawyer. The insurance company wants a statement, let the lawyer coordinate that. The insurance company wants access to medical records and medical bills, let the lawyer deal with that.
There’s a couple of reasons for that. First and foremost, what we tell our clients, and we firmly believe that, is we want our clients to worry about getting better. If they need to get back to work to help their family, to put food on the table, we want that for them.
If they need serious medical treatment, we want to make sure that they’re dealing with that. We don’t need them to be worried and stressed about why is this insurance representative calling me? What should I say? How should I say it? What do I do? How do I gather this information? Where do I get this information from?
We, or another experienced attorney, we’ll take care of all of that for them. The second reason is to prevent the insurance company from trying to take advantage of the injured party. The lawyer, the right lawyer will make sure that they’re standing in the way, making sure that that doesn’t happen. Protecting the injured party, not the insurance company, not the person that might’ve caused this accident, but protecting the injured party to make sure that they are fully made whole as the term is.
Make sure that they’re getting their full recovery back. Make sure that they don’t say or do anything that might harm their case. Let the lawyer deal with that. And just while we’re talking about lawyers and the idea of lawyers being very expensive, in our business, we aren’t looking for a penny from our clients to do this.
We work on what’s called a contingency fee, which is a percentage if we’re able to get a recovery and monetary recovery for the injured party. So, an injured party need not worry about, oh my gosh, I’ve got the insurance company breathing down my neck for information, I’ve got this lawyer looking for money. The lawyers in our business aren’t doing that. We’re not seeking money. The lawyers upfront and the expenses that there might be, they take care of all this work. And then if there is a monetary recovery at the end, then there’s a percentage for the fee. But being the go-between the intermediary, the protector, is what we try to do for our clients.
Maher: All right. Well, that’s all really great information. Rob and Kevin, thanks again for speaking with me today.
Mazow: Thanks, John.
McCullough: Thank you, John.
Maher: And for more information, you can visit the website of Mazow McCullough at helpinginjured.com or call 978-744-8000.
