I’m going to be talking more about caps in the coming months because it directly impacts every citizen in this State if they get seriously injured because of someone else’s negligence. I’ve written about this issue, so please check out that blog explaining this issue in more detail here. To update you on what is happening, the organization I belong to, the Colorado Trial Lawyers’ Association (CTLA), is now moving to the phase where the work is in full swing to get this issue on the upcoming 2024 ballot. What this means is that Coloradans are going to be inundated with advertisements taking positions on this issue. That being said, I suspect that our citizens will see many more negative ads about caps in an effort to try and scare Coloradans from voting for the measure. Insurance companies are terrified that voters will agree that caps are not in the interests of our citizens and will support the measure. I expect that we are going to hear warnings that they project insurance companies will raise rates on all of us, or that insurers will leave Colorado to avoid the impact of this law upon their ability to operate (they won’t mention their obscene profits) or any number of other dire predictions if Colorado becomes an anti-business state because of it. But what they won’t tell you is that many states in the Eastern part of the country have no caps and they don’t have insurance costs skyrocketing. This is merely about insurance company greed in wanting to make sure that they don’t have to actually, fairly compensate someone when they have suffered a serious injury with ongoing impact from that trauma. And it’s ridiculous. Insurance companies are already limited in the amount of exposure they have because of policy limits. In other words, if a person pays for a $100,000 policy, the most the insurer will ever be required to pay out if that person hurts someone is $100,000. That’s the extent of their exposure (unless they place their profits over their insured’s interests, but that’s another story). So increased rates are not an argument the insurers should be making, but they will. They will also likely argue that it’s the damn attorneys that are driving this and that the effort is solely for the benefit of attorneys. That isn’t true either. The true beneficiary is the People of the State of Colorado because we can be assured of the ability to be fully and fairly compensated from our harms and losses when the person that injured us had the ability and foresight to have sufficient resources to provide compensation in the worst cases. Currently, an insurer can give you a $1 million policy and let’s say medical bills are $200,000. Next, let’s assume that you have to endure immense amounts of pain and the suffering is ongoing and can only be lessened by prescription pain medication. Under current law, if you presented evidence to a jury that your non-economic damages (pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of quality of life, inconvenience, see my blog on them here) should be compensated by an amount of $800,000 (meaning within the policy limits), such a finding by a jury could be reduced by a judge to $729,790, saving the insurance company over $70,000 that should be going to the person who got injured. That’s why we are doing this because in my opinion, the insurance companies don’t need to have any other advantages which limit their exposure at the expense of even one person, much less all of us.
