Beware! California Casualty cheats, and consumers should be aware that they cannot be trusted to act in good faith as an insurance carrier.
(For more info, research about consumer rights, etc, and to participate in a car accident insurance knowledge aggregation forum, please see californiacasualtycheats.com)
In fact, Cal Cas doesn't respect our boys in blue either, and seems to make every effort to bend or break insurance rules to further victimize victims of car accidents. They may lie to you as well as they did to me. This is a form of professional negligence to beware of.
In Nov of 2008 one of California Casualty's client's caused an accident by running a red light. My 528i BMW was totaled and I was hurt (cervixalgia, neck and back pain, recurring headaches as diagnosed by my physicianat Kaiser). The police report CONCLUDED she ran the red. WITNESSES were present and one made this statement: "I know Salveson's car had the green light..." Meanwhile, their driver who was at fault told the Police "I don't remember much, but..." Not real credible, but somehow they found her lack of memory more convincing than that of the witness and the Police who conducted the forensic investigation.
In Civil court, the standard of judgement is "is it more likely to have happened one way or the other?" With no witnesses of their own, and in direct contempt of the Police's forensic conclusions, they denied my claim anyway. Does 0 ever trump 1? Not by any rational standard. Its was clearly more likely to have happened as I and witnesses and the police claimed. They refused anyway.
The CA Dept of Insurance asked them to reconsider. (Which is about all they can do, I found out the hard way). They did not budge. Go ahead and take us to court, they sneered. We don't care what the police or witnesses say.
Obviously, this is probably a recurring practice at Cal Cas: deny the obvious with no logic or proof to the denial, then delay to avoid paying out for as long as possible despite the aggrivation of suffering this causes innocent victims of car accidents.
I lost my car, my health, and wages, and on top of it their adjustor said "I think you have brain damage" when I tried to ask them to see that the health problems their client caused were being exacerbated by their refusal to admit well-established facts. Real classy. I lost my health insurance when the costs the accident caused my budget made it impossible to afford. I did not get a courtesy rental car and thus lost wages due to lack of transportation (I travel to do sales often). The headaches and pain caused me to lose wages at work (I work on commisson only). If they would have treated me fairly from the beginning, my situation would not have worsened as much as it now has. I went to a Chiro and they started treatment, but I could not afford it after Cal Cas refused to make things right. I had to pay out of pocket for the tow truck, the car storage, the costs of time and money trying to reason with them. Its been a terrible burden at a difficult time. If I had been more injured that I was, I think they would have responded. However, with their twisted legal logic they seem to have figured that they could just screw me because my claim wasn't big enough to cost them much even if they did screw me.
They even outright lied to me several times. The first was that they delayed processing my claim at all for over a month because they said that their client was in the hospital and couldn't be reached. This, even though the police report said that they had contacted their client two days after the accident when "she had been released from the hospital." Finally, when I knew they were lying and when they forced me to lose patience with their unprofessionalism, I got out the police report and got their client's phone number and called them. She immediatly picked up the phone. Time it took: two minutes the first time I called. They basically forced me to do their job for them. Totally unprofessional.
They also lied about the Police report. "The police report is not admissible evidence in a court of law", they threatened me. Well, that was obviously to try to dissuade me from taking them to court. Still, I took them to court and kicked their a*s twice for the property damage on the BMW only. The judges at both trials (they appealed, illogically, and lost that one too... for the maximum amount each time) said that of course they wanted to know what the police had concluded even if it was a form of "hearsay" in superior court.
Of course, every accident claim has two parts: property, and health/pain/suffering. After they lost twice in court, and two different judges said that they were wrong for denying liability from the start, they STILL REFUSED TO CLOSE THE CASE BY SETTLING THE HEALTH PART OF THE CLAIM.
Amazing. Even after being proven wrong, they are still sticking to their losing deny and delay strategy. I am now considering taking them to Superior court over their "negligence" and "bad faith" actions which have exacerbated my injuries and financial hardship. "Oh, you can't sue twice over the same accident" they told me, again trying to dissuade me from forcing them to do the right thing. But I won't be suing them over the accident, I'll be suing them next over their bad faith professional negligence, which exacerbated my financial and health burdens without the relief that by CA insurance law they should have given me especially given the total lack of evidence supporting their position, and especially given that apparently they think so little of our country's fine police officers and the CA dept of Insurance as well.
I'm still enduring headaches daily, and the medicine to make it bearable is expensive. It will continue all my life. I'd love to see a chiropractor too, but they refuse to give me any kind of comfort.
I'm not making this up to try to squeeze more out of them, I just want to see some basic justice done, espescially since the courts have twice already found in my favor. Is it right that when someone plows into you after running a red light that you are then dragged through the mud by their insurance company and denied all reasonable relief? Its just not right.
I urge all Cal Cas clients to boycott doing business with such a company, and warn consumers (as is my free speech right) that if you wind up doing business with them they may try to out and out screw you because they know (or think) they can.
P.S. I grant Ripoffreport fair use of the report above, but not exclusive use to the degree that I may post similar descrptions elsewhere as well as on sites created by myself without infringement, and that while the language and description above is theirs to use, the actual facts, language, and right of retelling of the story remain my property which I will continue to use at will in order to make consumers aware that Cal Cas is a bad faith insurer. If RR or its owners don't agree to that, they then should not post the content or can delete it. -Kevin Salveson
www.californiacasualtycheats.com