I want to share a few things we were shocked to learn, from a financial perspective, in part of our journey, with the hope it will help protect your family from financial devastation.
On February 19th, 2018, our day started out as day 2 of our family ski trip!
That afternoon, our lives were turned upside down. Our ski day was cut short when my older son crashed on a snowboard and was transported by ambulance for what was thought to be a compression injury in his back. He was diagnosed with a broken tailbone and sent home.
We put the oldest one to bed. All of the other boys were out front riding bikes (in broad daylight) when our youngest son was struck by a car. His bike was on the sidewalk; he was lying in the gutter, while the woman who hit him was nearly parked on the lawn of the neighbor’s house, two doors down. The driver was an 85 year old woman with cognitive impairment so severe she had driven hundreds of miles out of her city, out of her state and had no idea she had left her neighborhood.
We spent nearly 2 weeks in the ICU before we were transferred to an out of state facility for inpatient rehab for Rhett to learn to walk, talk, eat and overcome the paralysis on the right side of his body. Long story short, we were so very fortunate in the outcome of our situation and the support we received throughout the process was absolutely incredible. Days, weeks, months and hundreds of thousands of dollars later, our son continues to make a miraculous recovery.
Click Here For Rhett’s Recovery Video
Financially, my first shock was not the first six figure hospital bill, it was the denial letter from our homeowner’s insurance. They denied paying a claim for Rhett’s injuries because he was related to us. I thought I had read the letter wrong, but the first thing we were shocked to learn is you, the homeowner and your family, are NOT covered by your homeowner’s insurance. We had no idea that we paid for coverage that did not include us. We’re just over here paying for insurance for strangers that may haphazardly hurt themselves at our house– you’re welcome! Meet with your insurance agent and find out what you can do to assure you’re covered.
Unlike most people, who carry the state minimum car insurance, we were fortunate that the woman that hit Rhett had a decent auto insurance policy. Unfortunately for us, she had covered her bases; her house was homesteaded. We had a kid with hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills and injuries we weren’t certain how well he would recover from; the prognosis was not pretty. If not for the homestead, we would have gone after the driver and her insurance, but having that in place made it not worth chasing her. Her insurance was enough to make it seem worth it to settle with no other large assets to go after. The two big takeaways here are being sufficiently insured, so a quick settlement is enticing and protect your house. A homestead is easy and inexpensive to file. Learn more here about filing a homestead.
We were well on our way to having the financial piece settled. We knew what Rhett would be getting now and were happy knowing we got the most we could for him, or so we thought. We have health insurance. Our big deductible had been met in our first 5 minutes in the ER. We were blissfully unaware of a little process known as subrogation.
We were told that Nevada is a Make Whole Doctrine State, so our health insurer would not be able to recoup any costs from the insurance settlement, because Rhett’s injuries far exceeded the insurance payment that would make him whole. We were advised to settle, so we took that advice and agreed to take the insurance settlement.
Prior to the settlement being official, we were told that NV has an unpublished Supreme Court case that allows your health insurer to file a lien against your settlement, although you have NOT been made whole, if your insurance policy has the verbiage stated in that cited case. Basically, the verbiage allows the insurance companies to skirt around public policy and/or the Make Whole Doctrine. Our health insurer had the verbiage, verbatim that was in this unpublished case. They have a subrogation policy that clearly outlines that they were coming after EVERY SINGLE dollar they had to spend. The insurance company gets to keep all of your premiums, you have to pay all of your deductible and they get to reimburse themselves every single dollar they had to pay out from your settlement. My less than favorable reaction and thoughts on this is a book in itself and a story for another day. Is anyone in the business of selling insurance for your insurance? What a joke.
The point is, imagine you find yourself in a somewhat serious accident… Being insured for $300,000, $500,000 or even $1,000,000 may seem like more than enough. Think of the hundreds of thousands of dollars an accident can rack up in a quick hurry. Just to give you some frame of reference, our first bill from the ER/ICU was $165,000 and the medical flight was $134,500. That doesn’t include therapies, surgeries, inpatient rehab, the doctors or anything. Imagine any kind of extended hospital stay or continued therapy costs. You throw in a going attorney rate of 33% and subrogation (or an uninsured party) and just in two claims, even being insured for $300,000, your entire policy is spent, leaving nothing for pain and suffering, opening you up for a lawsuit. This is good reason to be well insured and homestead your property.
We will have classes coming up in the future to learn more about what you can do to financially protect yourself. If you are interested in attending or learning more, you can reach me by any way listed below:
Christy Klingler. Realtor
Call. Text. 775.750.5492
Email: cklingler@dicksonrealty.com
Web: CHRISTY KLINGLER
