$3,609,051.80 Arbitration Awarded
On November 10, 2022, Laskin Balma began a three-day underinsured motorist Arbitration which arose out of an August 10, 2015, motor vehicle collision in which our client was significantly injured while in the course and scope of her employment. For Laskin Balma, the team of Diane Balma, Alan Laskin, and Christopher Holleran, appeared for our injured client.
Our client settled quickly for policy limits of $25,000.00 with the adverse driver’s insurance company. Laskin Balma then initiated a claim for policy limits against our client’s employer’s underinsured motorist coverage provided by Travelers Insurance. That’s when the real work began.
The case was challenging in that our client had multiple pre-existing physical conditions and limitations. Although Travelers conceded that the other driver was responsible for the collision, it disputed that the collision, itself, rendered our client unable to work. Travelers rejected our multiple demands to settle our client’s claim within its available policy limits (approximately $1.7 million) and never even made a meaningful offer.
After conducting a thorough evaluation of our client’s pre-collision and post-collision symptoms and injuries, we strongly believed that Travelers Insurance had jumped to erroneous conclusions early in the claims process and made assumptions about our client’s injuries and symptoms that we could disprove at Arbitration. And we set out to do just that!
We hired credible medical experts and tasked them with thoroughly evaluating the evidence. This process confirmed what we knew to be true—that Travelers had prematurely and wrongly denied our client’s claim, in part, by failing to objectively evaluate our client’s claim; and, in so doing, added insult to injury.
Once we knew we could establish that our client had sustained catastrophic injuries in the collision, we set out to determine the value of the claim, including the amount of wages she had lost and would lose from being unable to work for the rest of her life. For this, we hired a highly regarded economic expert.
At each step in the process leading up to and during the arbitration, we repeatedly demanded that Travelers tender its policy limits and rightfully compensate our client for her losses, but it refused to do so. Instead, Travelers “dug in”, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that it had wrongfully denied our client’s claim. Travelers’ failure to acknowledge how seriously our client was injured and that she could no longer work was demoralizing to her and caused her unnecessary anxiety and frustration.
After a three-day arbitration, the Arbitrator issued an award in favor of our client in the amount of $3,609,051.80 for her pain and suffering, past and future treatment and past and future wage loss. This outcome is a classic example of why and how effective legal representation makes a difference for our clients and how it can make a difference for you!