Representing injured people against insurance companies, I usually don’t have much nice to say about the insurance industry. So this post is a rarity: a post in which I praise not one, but two insurance companies.

Two days ago, Allstate Insurance did the right thing and protected someone who bought their insurance. This driver was driving down a dark road one evening in Kansas, and her car clipped my client, a young woman walking home from church youth group on the shoulder of the road. My client’s leg was severely broken, she was hospitalized, and her physical rehabilitation took several months.

The police investigation was inconclusive; the police report said they could not be 100% certain which driver hit my client. When we obtained footage from the cop’s body camera, it showed that Allstate’s driver had basically admitted to hitting my client. But there wasn’t much physical evidence on her car, one way or the other.

In civil cases about money damages, you do not have to prove things “beyond a reasonable doubt”, you just have to show that it was more likely than not that something happened. I argued to Allstate that it was more likely than not that their driver hit my client. I figured we’d have to file a lawsuit though.

Allstate looked at the police report, looked at the body camera footage, and then protected their driver and paid her full $100,000 car insurance policy limit. If they had not done that, then based on the video footage, I would have had to sue Allstate’s driver to try to get money for my client’s injuries. Kudos to Allstate.

I also have praise for Blue Cross Blue Shield, the health insurance company for my client. They paid for my client’s healthcare and were entitled to be reimbursed for almost all of those proceeds. I reached an agreement with Blue Cross Blue Shield, where they agreed to take a reduced amount so that my client would actually be able to put something in her pocket after this ordeal.

I expected to be battling these insurance companies for several years to get a positive result for my client. This result was so unexpected, and my client is such a great person, that honestly I got emotional on the phone when Allstate called me, and I could barely finish the conversation.

Those of you who know me well, know that I gripe a lot about insurance companies doing the wrong thing. So when they do the right thing, they deserve praise. This result means a lot for my client.