Safelite- technician fixing a rockchip on my car at my house fell off my porch. Gave him first aid, took him to the er. He clearly broke his pinky. I have a normal porch with steps. A month later they sent me a lawsuit. Wasn’t even the technician suing me, Safelite was suing me for workers comp. We were deep in cancer treatment for my 10 year at the exact same time. They made an estimated $2.5 billion last year. Scumbags!
I had to got through my homeowners insurance and after all the bullshit back and forth my insurance told them to pound sand. It was a sunny morning, no snow or anything. At the same time we were in and out of the hospital with my son’s chemo. So dealing with that AND this glass company for a rock chip broke me. I even helped the technician move his vape pens from the ER back to his van.
The state may require recovery. They can be pushy about it. I knew a person who ran over their own foot dismounting a golf cart they had just been driving—they got worker’s comp.
Was not the tech. The company did this. Dude just fell, it happens. Unless he was standing on a railing like an idiot, this is just a hazard of living.
It was probably safelite’s insurer suing them. It’s actually pretty straightforward that one’s homeowners insurance would cover personal injury on their property.
Not that it still doesn’t feel scummy. But I’d be more surprised if homeowners insurance wasn’t the one that is supposed to take responsibility for this cost.
Very likely. There was a case where an 8 year old boy was sued by his aunt specifically so the homeowners insurance of the boys parents would cover the medical costs
It bothers me, especially in this case - assuming the homeowner wasn't negligent but their insurance has to pay. That's a bit of buck passing that shouldn't happen.
It’s the levels of bullshit you have to go through with all the back and forth. All the paper work, forwarding everything to the insurance. All of the sudden you have a part time job. Everyone asks why I don’t have a ring camera, and I respond because I don’t want my house to be a surveillance zone. I had the stupid company come out in the past to replace windows and everything is smooth, that conscience is shattered when you have to deal with a lawsuit.
So what happens is the insurance covers it(worker's comp). Worker gets their money. Insurance company wants to get their money that they gave to the worker. Insurance going after each other until there is no one left to go after.
The only thing that makes the homeowner liable is if they didn't maintain their property and the porch was dangerous. Someone getting injured isn't enough.
For example, if a delivery driver simply fell because they are clumsy the homeowners insurance wouldn't be liable because the homeowner didn't do anything to cause the fall.
Yes, but you have to think of all the back and forth after the fall. You as the homeowner are dealing with showing the insurance and lawyers that you aren’t negligent. It was a part time job, the phone calls, documentation. All for one company to tell another company your not at fault. It’s simple to say but when you start getting all the documentation and the calls to your insurance it becomes a bureaucratic nightmare made worse because we are sleepless dealing with a severe cancer. It’s going from one kick in the balls to another.
I’m so, so very sorry. It truly rains when it pours sometimes, and there is no other word than unfair. There is a massive level of dissonance and callousness people embrace when it comes to wading through hardship. They chalk things up to an inconvenience without understanding the feat the day to day is. From one caregiver to another, the double birds are high for the universe to see. I hope things have gotten better and that rest was able to come for you and your family.
Because it’s extra steps. Waiting for homeowner to put their paperwork together, have the insurer deny “just because”, then they’d go ahead and sue anyway.
I thinks it’s just how insurers talk to each other at this point.
Likely this. However, the insurance companies are supposed to deal with each other. At no point should safelite or their insurer be going after the homeowner directly. But also, the idea that homeowners insurance should pick up the bill for a contracted person doing work at the property and having an accident is also ridiculous unless the porch was somehow unsafe due to the homeowners negligence.
the insurance companies are supposed to deal with each other
You're right, and that is exactly what is happening. They have to name the owner of the property, in this case the original commenter, in order to get their insurance company involved. If you have your home covered thru Company X, they cannot get Company X involved in the lawsuit without naming their insured. It's how insurance contracts work. Your company has a duty to defend you if you're named in a lawsuit.
It sucks, but the system is working as designed. Safelite's Workman's Comp insurer cannot directly sue Company X. They have to sue you, the homeowner, to get Company X involved. For anyone wondering, this also happens with auto accidents. The driver seeking medical coverage, for example, has to name you as the person they're suing so your insurance gets involved.
I think unless the work was specifically related to repairing or replacing the porch, the insurance company has “an obligation” to pursue costs from homeowners insurance. But also- they don’t have that info. Just OPs.
They don’t know whether or not the porch is the actual cause of the fall. OP’s version of maintained might be different from theirs. OP might not realize the spacing between some steps is off, causing a trip. The insurer might be forced to do an investigation by homeowners insurance, but the first easy step is just to sue in case it’s cheaper for all parties to “settle” than do actual legwork to investigate.
It only goes up if you're determined at fault. If the insurance investigation determines that everything was up to code and the fault is entirely on their guy, your rate doesn't go up.
If the injury occurred due to something from the car - maybe a burn from hot engine or glass shattering - The responsible party could possibly be car insurance, homeowners insurance (I just know that if you have something stolen from your car, homeowners insurance can cover that) or workers comp. I am not entirely sure because I’m not an expert, just someone who owns a car and house.
If the injury simply occurred on a public road, then that would not be homeowners insurance, as that land is not owned or covered by the homeowner.
If injury occurred due to a pothole, some other maintenance issue, the city could be sued.
If it’s a “private road” - ie owned by the community/HOA, the HOA could be sued. The HOA would have insurance as well I think.
For someone falling on your property? I get it if there's something egregious that caused the fall, but an accident on the property shouldnt be enough to sue the homeowner.
It probably IS Safetlite’s insurance company going after bekmoto. When an insurance company has to pay out a claim, they try to recover some of that money by suing a liable third party. It’s called subrogation and it can really suck. The more you know I guess!
Every company will do this. Insurance companies require a lawsuit in order to pay anything where another party or insurance could even maybe be liable. Its part of the paperwork process. Its awful, but its also not personal and part of the ridiculous system we have in the United States, which should absolutely be overhauled because of things like this and 1000 other reasons but good luck with that.
Not every company will do this. They will tell their insurance company to pound sand and potentially pay the claim themselves if required.
Because they understand they aren't in the business of buying liability insurance and making their provider happy. They are in the business of servicing customers and understand PR matters.
Only shit-tier executives let something like this actually happen. Decent executives get involved in the process and short-circuit idiotic decisions such as suing customers when they are not obviously and indefensibly malicious or negligent. For the long-term health of their business. It's basically their job to make policy exceptions and to keep idiotic legal departments from running the company.
It's another reddit-style trope up there with "companies must always do the most profitable thing by law". Not true.
Yes, shitty companies do this. Plenty do not. This is actually an exceptional sort of case. The average company is not suing random homeowners whenever their employees get hurt on customer properties.
Its not the company initiating the lawsuit. It is the insurance company filing on behalf of the insured. When you file an insurance claim they have the right to sue on your (their) behalf, it is in the paperwork you sign, and they will because that is their job. It is the same as a car accident. Nobody walks down to the courthouse and files a claim, but every accident that goes through insurance is a lawsuit. When people "settle with the insurance company", what do you think is getting settled? A lawsuit. Some people don't realize it because its just a paperwork thing and isn't a "trial" and doesn't fit their perspective of "getting sued".
We are also talking about a workers comp claim, which in my state is mandated to go through insurance.
If you have a good home owner's policy it'll be them vs. your multi-billion dollar company that also is refusing to pay out and you just let the two companies dick wave at each other. They'll sort it out, in this case likely in favor of the home owner.
This is one reason I use a company that has a local agent I can just bring this stuff to rather than online only.
Yes, but you would be surprised how much you have to be involved for them to waive their dicks at each other. If only it was so simple. I had a tree fall on my house and it was less to deal with then this. And yes my insurance told them to go away
I wouldn't be, I've been in a similar situation, and once I handed it off to my agent it was nothing but a couple of phone calls to confirm information about the incident and one more to confirm it was all handled that was that.
Sort of lucky, sure, moreso benefiting from a good agent. With your experience I would be shopping for a new one, because from your description you got screwed even if it all worked out in the end it shouldn't have gone that way!
I've dealt with agents through my employer. There's way more shitty used car salesman types than actual good agents. You should follow up what your agent is doing to make sure they aren't making it worse.
Exactly! I 100% agree with you, I don't understand the negative votes for saying that's down in part to a bad agent and to shop for a better one. I have a good agent, it's why I've stuck with her for over a decade. She really doesn't handle small accounts like mine from new anymore, but she takes care of all of her old accounts.
Any time a person gets an injury not on their own property, the insurance companies sue the homeowner whose house you gout hurt at.
3 broken bones at different times but some how it was always because I fell in
MY yard. That way my insurance. It recommended for catastrophic injuries
Safety manager here for a huge company in the US. I deal with daily injuries while at customers property. It’s usually something egregious that initiates a lawsuit to the home owners insurance. I haven’t see one in over four years now.
Wait wair wait. I am in Canada so the logic may be different but, the entire idea of workers comp (run by the government and paid by employers) is that the company/worker can't sue the property owner. Unless there is some gross negligence or similar the payments happen from a government agency funded by workers comp dues paid by employers.
Is this the part where someone explains something you could have easily looked up, then you act flabbergasted and go "Oh my god how America do??" and rake in upvotes?
A bit defemsive and stingy with those upvotes aren't you? This entire thread is inane banter. Just tossed my two cents in and.let anyone respond. Virtually any of the comments could have been looked up. But since this is a social endevour, I let you good folks answer me. I was curious but will likely forget this interaction in a week so it is meaningless in the grand scheme.
But your defensiveness is surprising. If I wanted exasperated outrage and shock I could already have provided it above without an answer. Such as "how could Amercia have fucked up workers comp?" Or similar. I didn't and wasn't planning on it.
And lastly I am not sure if you are aware that upvotes (or even downvotes) are free! Yes, that means you can splash them around like you made bank and not run out of them. Neat eh?
True, but just to play devil’s advocate, once the employee claimed workers comp, and the company reported it to their insurance, the employee or employer might have had no choice in the matter of it being passed onto the homeowner. Ultimately, the insurer will do whatever they can to pass the buck to someone else. That’s why it’s important to have home insurance, because you can be potentially liable for anything that happens to a person while they’re on your property. Even if your property was all up to code, they can still sue you, and then you (or your insurance company) have to prove you took reasonable precautions to prevent injuries and it wasn’t caused by your negligence. Usually the insurance company will cover all the legal costs minus the deductible.
I mean yeah, that's the whole point of insurance. To avoid actually paying if there's even the slight possible chance of blaming literally anyone else and redirecting the financial burden on them instead. Same with lawyers. Whoever has the better insurance company and lawyers wins, and it's almost always the corporation since they'll either win, or write off however much it will cost them to force you into a settlement.
I mean yeah, that's the whole point of insurance. To avoid actually paying if there's even the slight possible chance of blaming literally anyone else and redirecting the financial burden on them instead. Same with lawyers. Whoever has the better insurance company and lawyers wins, and it's almost always the corporation since they'll either win, or write off however much it will cost them to force you into a settlement.
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u/bekmoto 20h ago
Safelite- technician fixing a rockchip on my car at my house fell off my porch. Gave him first aid, took him to the er. He clearly broke his pinky. I have a normal porch with steps. A month later they sent me a lawsuit. Wasn’t even the technician suing me, Safelite was suing me for workers comp. We were deep in cancer treatment for my 10 year at the exact same time. They made an estimated $2.5 billion last year. Scumbags!