Yamaha ATV Bites the Dust – Too Little Too Late

My family and friends are accustomed to the constant level of vigilance I maintain regarding things that can harm us. That is a very nice way of saying I am a ____ (fill in your own word).

When I see a floor mat that is out of place, I put it back. Water on a floor? I go hunting for paper towels. And don’t even think of getting into my car without a seat belt. Does my paranoia make a difference? Well, I am fairly sure my superstitious practice of patting the side of an airplane twice does nothing to improve its airworthiness, but it has worked every time so far!

Why am I so on guard? There are two reasons. First, in my business, I see the wreckage of human misbehavior on a regular basis. Bad drivers, defective products, inattentive store owners, dangerous doctors, and the list goes on and on. My business can be discouraging, as my clients are suffering from the damage done by others. It comforts me to know I make a difference in the lives of victims by helping them obtain compensation for their injuries.

The other reason I am so attentive to safety is that our government does such a poor job of protecting us. The FDA, FAA, NTSB, CPSC, OSHA and all the other amalgamations of letters that represent governmental agencies charged with keeping you safe do a miserable job of preventing injuries.

But, every once in a while, a government agency does something right. From the Wall Street Journal Online (web link available at the following:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123850960193973809.html) on March 31, 2009 at 10:49 am EST:

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WASHINGTON — The Consumer Product Safety Commission said Yamaha Motor Co.’s U.S. sales arm has agreed to suspend sales of its Rhino 450 and 660 off-road recreational vehicles, and to offer free modifications to vehicles already in service that would make the vehicles less prone to rollover accidents.

The CPSC, in a statement, said owners of the affected Yamaha Rhino vehicles should immediately stop using them until the repairs are made.

The CPSC statement said the agency’s staff has investigated more than 50 incidents involving 46 driver and passenger deaths in these two Rhino models. The agency said “more than two-thirds of the cases involved rollovers and many involved unbelted occupants.”

Many of the accidents “involve turns at relatively low speeds and on level terrain,” the agency said. About 120,000 of the affected Rhino models have been distributed nationwide since the fall of 2003, the agency said.

The CPSC said Yamaha will install a spacer on the rear wheels and remove a rear antisway bar to help reduce the chance of rollover. The company will also continue to install half doors and additional passenger handholds on vehicles that don’t currently have those features.

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Hallelujah! The CPSC finally gets Yamaha to take two of its rollover-prone ATVs off the market. Of course, it only took “50 incidents involving 46 driver and passenger deaths” to get them to act. This is a classic case of “too little too late.” The government should ban all four-wheelers. They are unstable at all but the lowest of speeds, and people who ride them never want to go slow.

You know what I’m thinking? If there were 46 people whose deaths have been reported, there are others whose deaths have not yet come to light. And if this many people have died, there are hundreds who have been injured. Why didn’t the government act sooner? How must the family of the 46th victim feel, knowing there were 45 deaths before their loved one was killed in a rollover accident?

For that matter, why didn’t Yamaha act sooner? Why do big companies need a governmental agency to tell them to stop killing people?

My guess, and this is an educated guess, is that Yamaha made the decision to go along with the CPRC-requested recall for economic reasons. They probably figured the cost of doing business in these ATVs was too high. What caused the cost of killing people to be so high? Lawsuits. If Yamaha did not have plaintiff lawyers breathing down their necks, taking them to court and making them pay for their dangerous four-wheelers, do you think they would have yielded to pressure from the government?

The next time you hear some politician rail on against trial lawyers, ask him about the 46 victims of the Yamaha Rhino. How many more victims would there be if Yamaha did not fear the judgment of a court and jury? When you hear politicians talk about “tort reform,” what they are really advocating is closing the courthouse door in the faces of victims like the 46 families whose lives have been upended by an unstable ATV, a corporation that put profits about safety, and a government too feckless to stop them.

Steve Waldman – swaldman@gwlawyers.com

Wyeth Postscript – Drug Company Lawyer Adds Insult to Injury

I do not know if you read my prior post regarding the Wyeth v. Levine decision from the United States Supreme Court, but here is a postscript.

In an op-ed piece published in the Chicago Tribune under the heading “The Tragedy of Diana Levine,” (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-oped0313malpracticemar12,0,4620990.story), Wyeth lawyer Mark Hermann quoted the dissenting opinion from Justice Alito that the warnings already on the labeling for Phenergan were sufficient, and further warnings would have made no difference:

“As Alito wrote, ‘the physician assistant…disregarded at least six separate warnings that are already on Phenergan’s labeling, so (Levine) would be hard pressed to prove that a seventh would have made a difference.’”

Apparently, Justice Alito, along with sore losers Hermann and Wyeth, forget that the function of the jury in our judicial system is to make factual determinations regarding exactly these questions – whether a different course of action would have made a difference. In countries where there is no jury system, people (often women) who are victimized must rely upon other people (usually men) in black robes to tell them what the facts are. We have seen the judicial process differently for 220 years. We believe in juries, and the right of everyone to have their judged by a representation of their peers.

Mr. Hermann, Wyeth and Justice Alito are whining about the very core of American justice. They do not wish to argue a legal principle; they seek to relitigate the facts. They believe it is appropriate for a court of appeals to substitute its opinion for that of a jury. This is nothing short of hijacking justice. It is “judicial activism,” which conservatives – including those joining the chorus of Wyeth Wailers – have derided for years. Of course, as with everything else in politics, judicial activism is fine with Republicans as long as someone else’s ox is being gored.

Justice Alito was nominated to the Supreme Court by President G. W. Bush precisely to counter the trend toward “activist judges” put in place by his predecessors (could he have meant to include his father?). Here we have Justice Alito, joined by other latter day judicial activists Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Scalia, dissenting because the rest of the Supreme Court refused to engage in the worst form of activism. They sought to “read into” (meaning rewrite) the law authorizing the Food & Drug Administration a provision that said any warning approved by the FDA preempted, or prevented, any state court from finding that warning inadequate. There is nothing in the law enacted by Congress that prohibits such lawsuits. Until there was a new majority of “conservative jurists” on the Court, drug companies never thought they had a prayer of making this preemption argument stick.

These three justices, however, sought to do more than rewrite a federal statute. They effectively tried to rewrite the Constitution itself. The Seventh Amendment to the Constitution grants a right of trial by jury in civil cases, and further states that “no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” Nothing in the common law would allow the type of re-examination of the efficacy of the Wyeth warning attempted by Justice Alito. Perhaps we need our judges to focus on more of these Amendments than the Second. As with the Commandments, the Bill of Rights is a decalogue, and all ten are worth preserving.

There is one other point made by Mr. Hermann in his essay, and here is where he departs from exhorting about the way the law should be and gets downright mean. In criticizing a jury’s finding that Ms. Levine was entitled to $7 million in damages for the amputation of her arm (she was a professional musician), Hermann says the following:

“Although it is hard not to feel sympathy for Levine, it is equally hard not to be disturbed by the court’s decision. Levine had already obtained compensation for her injury—her $700,000 malpractice settlement—from her health-care providers. She needed no more from a second lawsuit.”

Excuse me, but who died and made Hermann king? Is he truly making the point that $700,000 is a fair value for the loss of an arm, after two painful surgeries, a lifetime of phantom pain, and the loss of a musical career that included writing and performing classical music for children? Would he deem it a fair exchange if we were to cut off his arm and give him $700,000? I expect he, unlike Ms. Levine, could continue his career in law with only one arm. How does he justify imposing his view of the value of human suffering on others? How can he justify giving the government that power? If the government can second-guess a jury’s decision as Hermann wants the Supreme Court to do, we will soon have the government deciding in advance what a human life is worth. Imagine that – having the value of a human life placed on a chart, like a Blue Book for Used People.

Do you think that is just imaginary? Well, friends, it is not in Texas. In Texas, our legislature has decided exactly what your life is worth, but only if you are killed by a doctor or hospital. In Texas, you are worth $250,000. In almost all medical malpractice cases, you can recover your lost income and medical expenses (subject, of course, to the drastic limitations on malpractice coverage offered by most carriers who cover doctors in Texas). But the value of you – your life, your pain and suffering, the love and guidance you give your children – has been set by our legislature at a quarter million dollars, dead or alive. After attorney’s fees and expenses, you or your heirs may see $100,000 of that.

In Texas, Ms. Levine would have lost twice. She likely would have recovered far less than the $700,000 settlement she received from the hospital, unless her lost income and medical expenses totaled $450,000, and I expect they did not. She would have lost a second time because our legislature has passed a law that creates FDA preemption where the Supreme Court says it does not exist.

Mr. Hermann would undoubtedly love it here in Texas.

Steve Waldman – swaldman@gwlawyers.com

Wyeth Not Such Good News for Texans

On March 4, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS, to those “in the know” and Tom Clancy fans) issued a landmark ruling in Wyeth v. Levine. The issue was “Preemption,” the doctrine that (according to Wyeth) mandates that when the federal government (acting through that bastion of patient safety, the Food & Drug Administration) says a product is safe, mere mortals in the state courts are powerless to say otherwise. Drug companies, and many other industries regulated by the federal government, have been asserting the preemption defense for years. The Bush Administration loved preemption, and its lawyers were cheerleaders (and often brief-writers) in support of big industry against individuals maimed by dangerous products.

In a 6-3 decision that pleasantly stunned many of us who represent victims, SCOTUS held that FDA approval of a product’s labeling did not preempt a “failure to warn” claim against Wyeth regarding its anti-nausea drug Phenergan (“Promethazine” to those in the generic world). You could hear the consumer advocates and trial lawyers shout and holler praise at this decision. We finally won one before SCOTUS! Even Clarence Thomas voted for us!

Those of us in Texas, however, could only manage a muted “Hip Hip” but not a “Hooray,” for this decision did nothing to undo a nasty bit of legislation, passed by the Tort Reformers of the Texas Legislature in 2003 (“TROTSK3” to those reading this blog), that enshrined in Texas statutory law the very idea of FDA preemption that SCOTUS just rejected. Section 82.007 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code (“CPRC” to those in the law biz) creates a “rebuttable presumption” that any warning blessed by the FDA is adequate under Texas law and cannot be the subject of a lawsuit based upon the manufacturer failing to warn a health care provider (doctor or nurse) or a consumer of a danger inherent in the drug. The full text of the section is reprinted below. The CRPC, by the way, is the place where Texas lawmakers write laws that affect lawsuits. In other words, it is a breeding ground for mischief by those folks who have the money to get (I did not say buy) the votes in Austin to advance their political-economic interests. Yes, I’m talking about TROTSK3s. Read the whole CPRC and you will need a large dose of Phenergan.

But, with apologies to the late, great Paul Harvey, we should review the rest of the story.

Wyeth, a big pharmaceutical company that has recently been acquired by Pfizer (the Viagra® folks), manufactured, marketed and sold Phenergan. Many of us have taken Phenergan, and it has probably helped a few of us overcome that sickening feeling we get from anesthesia, a bout of the flu, or reading stock quotes. Phenergan can be administered in a number of ways, including by injection, pill or suppository. When injected, it is commonly injected into an IV line in a manner where it mixes with the saline solution that constantly flows into the vein. The patient receives all the medication, but not in a concentrated dose.

Ms. Levine, who suffered from migraines that often are accompanied by nausea, was treated with Phenergan injected by “IV push,” which means she was given a big shot of Phenergan through her IV line. Phenergan, like many other drugs, can cause a reaction when it is injected directly into a vein, particularly if it is injected too quickly. Another risk of IV push administration is that the nurse will miss the vein and hit an artery, which is even more dangerous. This is what happened to Ms. Levine. She suffered a severe reaction to the Phenergan, developed gangrene and had her forearm amputated. She sued Wyeth in Vermont state court. Wyeth claimed a “preemption” defense, and neither the jury, the trial court, nor the Vermont Supreme Court agreed Wyeth should get away with failing to properly warn health care providers of the dangers of IV-push administration of Phenergan.

Wyeth appealed to SCOTUS, and a great deal of money (not just in this case) was riding on the expectation that the August Justices on SCOTUS would toss Ms. Levine and her case out on preemption grounds. SCOTUS had recently decided a different preemption case in favor of a medical device manufacturer. One can just imagine the cases of champagne chilled and ready to serve at Wyeth – or shall I say Pfizer – headquarters.

When the decision in favor of Ms. Levine was announced, the legal world stopped rotating on its axis (I did not say “of evil”). This was the equivalent of Casey hitting the home run instead of striking out. There was a brief moment of silence and then a huge upwelling of cheers from the American Association for Justice (www.justice.org), and other pro-consumer and victims’ rights organizations. At the same time, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal and other folks who only like lawyers when they need one (and when they need one, they don’t want any silly little laws interfering with their right to hire counsel), began wringing their hands. As if there were not enough other issues in the world for them to wring their hands over.

Truthfully, CPRC §82.007 might not have prevented Ms. Levine from winning a lawsuit in Texas. Her lawyers may have been able to overcome the rebuttable presumption by showing that Wyeth hid evidence or misrepresented the results of its research to the FDA. Drug companies are legendary for their secrecy and the extreme measures they take to lock down their research. One of their big, nasty secrets – that they have had numerous doctors on their payroll for promoting their drugs and doing “unbiased research” into the effects of their products – is presently being unraveled. Perhaps Ms. Levine’s lawyers were good enough to dig behind the veil of secrecy and uncover some gem of hidden evidence or misrepresentation and show that the FDA’s approval was based upon “lies, damn lies and statistics.”

From where I sit, Ms. Levine was a very unfortunate woman. She has migraine headaches, an unfortunate condition that is difficult to treat. She needed medicine, and she unfortunately received Phenergan. Her nurse injected the Phenergan into her IV line, and instead of allowing it to mix with the saline solution, she unfortunately used the “IV push” method. Ms. Levine suffered an unfortunate reaction that led to gangrene and the tragically unfortunate amputation of her forearm.

About the only thing that happened to Ms. Levine that was not unfortunate is that she did not live in Texas.

Steve Waldman – swaldman@gwlawyers.com

CPRC § 82.007. Medicines

(a) In a products liability action alleging that an injury was caused by a failure to provide adequate warnings or information with regard to a pharmaceutical product, there is a rebuttable presumption that the defendant or defendants, including a health care provider, manufacturer, distributor, and prescriber, are not liable with respect to the allegations involving failure to provide adequate warnings or information if:

(1) the warnings or information that accompanied the product in its distribution were those approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for a product approved under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. Section 301 et seq.), as amended, or Section 351, Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. Section 262), as amended; or

(2) the warnings provided were those stated in monographs developed by the United States Food and Drug Administration for pharmaceutical products that may be distributed without an approved new drug application.

(b) The claimant may rebut the presumption in Subsection (a) as to each defendant by establishing that:

(1) the defendant, before or after pre-market approval or licensing of the product, withheld from or misrepresented to the United States Food and Drug Administration required information that was material and relevant to the performance of the product and was causally related to the claimant’s injury;

(2) the pharmaceutical product was sold or prescribed in the United States by the defendant after the effective date of an order of the United States Food and Drug Administration to remove the product from the market or to withdraw its approval of the product;

(3) (A) the defendant recommended, promoted, or advertised the pharmaceutical product for an indication not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration;

(B) the product was used as recommended, promoted, or advertised; and

(C) the claimant’s injury was causally related to the recommended, promoted, or advertised use of the product;

(4) (A) the defendant prescribed the pharmaceutical product for an indication not approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration;

(B) the product was used as prescribed; and

(C) the claimant’s injury was causally related to the prescribed use of the product; or

(5) the defendant, before or after pre-market approval or licensing of the product, engaged in conduct that would constitute a violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 201 and that conduct caused the warnings or instructions approved for the product by the United States Food and Drug Administration to be inadequate.

Just Who Is My Car Insurance Protecting – And Is It Enough?

During my 28 years of practicing law, I have represented hundreds of people injured in car accidents. These cases are all different, even though the issues are often the same. Back and neck injuries are often involved. Strains, sprains and ruptured disks are common – bad backs and necks are responsible for more lost time from work than anything other than the common cold (and new research on the rhinovirus may result in the cold becoming less common). Productive people become “patients,” at the mercy of doctors, hospitals and therapists (Oh my!). If they are fortunate and have health insurance, they must navigate the confusing and often impossible world of deductibles, co-pays and EOBs (Explanations of Benefits). Approximately half of all personal bankruptcies are due to uninsured medical expenses. People who cannot work can quickly become destitute. On the medical side, my clients often face conditions that do not respond to “conservative” (i.e. nonsurgical) treatment, and in some cases, surgery is either not offered or too frightening to consider. My clients stress out over all these issues, and it affects their peace of mind and their relationships with their families.

So what makes these cases all different? The clients. Plain and simply, they are all individuals. Like fingerprints and snowflakes, no two clients are alike. In a world that classifies, stratifies and tries to dehumanize people by making them “claimants,” “plaintiffs” and “covered persons,” we lawyers are challenged to remember that these folks are unique. When they get out of bed and hurt, they are not part of any group, classification or file. Pain and uncertainty make people lonely, even when surrounded by loving family. They often turn to us for help beyond our abilities. Many of us have heard, “I would trade anything to go back and not be hurt.” Until time travel is a reality, our role is to help our clients pick up the pieces and move forward.

So that does all this have to do with car insurance?

Here is how: I can help you avoid a future travesty built upon a tragedy by helping you review your car insurance policy. This may sound off topic, but I see what happens when people are underinsured, as most of you are. If someone you love is critically and permanently injured in a car accident, it is likely there will not be sufficient insurance to cover his or her losses. The usual result is a claim that only recovers a fraction of the person’s economic losses. The news that there is not enough insurance to pay for the harm my client has suffered, and will suffer in the future, is difficult to deliver, and even more tragic to receive.

This blog will address the types of car insurance people can purchase in Texas, and what that insurance will do for them in the event of a car accident. It will not prevent anyone from being involved in a car accident, suffering physical injuries or losing a job. However, this advice may keep you from losing your savings, and your mind, by informing you how to properly and adequately insure yourself.

The summary below is a bit dry; it is difficult to be witty when talking about insurance. However, it is important, and it can help you.  Remember – all the following statements relate to TEXAS law and insurance coverage available in Texas.  Other states’ laws, and the coverage available in those states, may vary significantly.

First, understand that insurance is not for the good times. When things are going well, insurance is just a line item in the family budget that costs too much and provides no benefit. The term “insurance” has become generalized to mean anything that protects you from the unknown, meaning bad things that have not happened, at least not yet. We pack an extra shirt when traveling, as insurance in case we spill ketchup on ourselves. We leave a set of house keys with a friend, in case we lock ourselves out or the alarm company calls. Extra batteries, bags of ice in the freezer, candles, flashlights – all are insurance for the next hurricane.

Car insurance is required by law. Currently, you must have minimum bodily injury liability insurance limits of $25,000 per person, and $50,000 per accident, along with property damage liability limits of $25,000 per accident (that minimum went up effective for policies taken out or renewed after April 1, 2008, so you may still have slightly lower limits). Do you know what all that means? Do you know about the different forms of insurance coverage that are available to you, and the protection they provide if bad things actually happen?

Well, go no further. The answers all lie within this blog. Print it and paste it on your refrigerator. Forward it to your friends. What I am about to tell you can save you a pound of heartache at an ounce of cost.

A. LIABILITY COVERAGE: When someone makes a claim against you, alleging your negligence caused an accident, your liability coverage comes to your rescue up to the limits of the policy. Your “Good Neighbor” will pay claims from their “Good Hands” to the person you injured, up to the amount of your limits. Limits? What do I mean limits? Those numbers on your policy represent the maximum amount your insurer can be required to pay in the event you injure (or cause the death of) another person, or damage property. So, if you have the current minimum limits, you have bodily injury limits of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident, and property damage limits of $25,000.

That means no single person may recover more than $25,000 from your insurer for their injuries. If more than one person is injured due to your fault, all the people you injure can recover no more than $50,000 from your insurer, and no single person can recover more than $25,000 from your insurer. The total amount of property damage that can be recovered from your insurer is $25,000.

The key words are “from your insurer.” You can be sued for more than your coverage. If you injure three people, and each of them has $50,000 in damages, they can obtain a judgment against you that will far exceed your limits of coverage. What happens with the amount in excess of your limits? That is for you to pay, if you can. The same is true for property damage – you can run into a Mercedes and cause $75,000 in property damage. Your insurer, however, will only get stuck with $25,000; you get stuck with the rest. If you are sued, your insurer will be “on your side,” and they should provide an attorney to defend you. However, the insurance company will not be responsible for one penny more than your limits.

ADVICE: If you have assets worth protecting, you should consider raising your liability limits. See the discussion of uninsured motorist coverage below for an even more important reason to raise your liability limits.

B. PERSONAL INJURY PROTECTION/MEDICAL PAYMENTS COVERAGE: These are two forms of “no fault” insurance that pay you in the event you are injured in your vehicle, regardless of whether the injury was someone else’s fault. The minimum amount of Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage is $2,500. PIP will pay your medical expenses (at 100%) and lost earnings (at 80%), up to your limits of coverage. Medical payments coverage differs in two ways. First, it does not cover lost earnings. Second, if you recover your medical expenses from a third party (another driver), your “medical payments” insurer has a right to be paid back, but your “PIP insurer” does not.

With $2,500 in PIP coverage, you provide protection for yourself and your family members. Each occupant of your vehicle who is injured, and each family member (who resides in your home) injured while occupying someone else’s vehicle, has $2,500 in PIP coverage. PIP is the best value in your insurance coverage. However, in today’s world of high health insurance deductibles and co-pays, $2,500 is often too little to insulate you from a substantial cash outlay. Raising your PIP rates is a low-cost solution.

ADVICE: Raise your PIP limits to $5,000 or $10,000.

C. UNINSURED/UNDERINSURED MOTORIST COVERAGE: This is another coverage that affects you and your family. Uninsured motorist (UIM) coverage is usually purchased in the same manner as liability coverage (a minimum of $25,000 per person, $50,000 per accident, and $25,000 in property damage). If you suffer an injury due to the negligence of another person who has no insurance, or too little insurance to cover your damages, your UIM coverage steps in and pays you. Again, you are only covered up to the limits of your coverage. So, if you have $100,000 worth of damages, and your injuries are caused by a person with $25,000 in liability coverage, you have a $75,000 shortfall. If your UIM limits are $25,000, that is not enough. You will have an uninsured loss of $50,000. In order to prevent that shortfall, you should raise your UIM rates.

But, there is a catch. Your insurance company cannot be required to offer UIM coverage limits in excess of your liability limits. So, to purchase $100,000 in UIM coverage, you must also purchase $100,000 in liability coverage. Here is where they get you coming and going. With the cost of medical care and the number of drivers with minimum coverage or no insurance at all, you need as much UIM coverage as you can afford. However, (by example), to get $100,000 in UIM coverage, you must purchase $100,000 in liability coverage.

ADVICE: Buy as much UIM (and liability) insurance as you can reasonably afford.

When you price insurance coverage, you will find that liability insurance is much more expensive than PIP or UIM coverage. However, remember that your first goal of obtaining insurance coverage is to protect you and your family. PIP and UIM coverages protect you. Liability coverage only protects your assets. As much as we all want to cover our assets, we need to think about protecting ourselves and our family members.

Finally, let me offer a word about the independent insurance agent. For many years, I have worked with my good friends at the GEM Agencies in Houston. Ed Schreiber and his staff have worked very hard to find me the best coverage from the best companies at the best price. If you buy insurance from a company agent (Allstate, State Farm, etc.), you may receive outstanding service and excellent coverage. However, you will only have the opportunity to buy that company’s products. An independent agent has access to more companies, and with an independent agent like Ed, even if you pay a little more, you have someone whose good hands are always on your side, regardless of whether or not they are your neighbors. And Ed did not ask for this plug, although I ran it by him to make sure he did not mind (he didn’t!).

One last note about insurers and agents. As with all other professionals, not all independent agents are alike. And there are some automobile insurance companies that are downright awful to deal with if you have a claim. Some agents have only one goal in mind – getting your business by offering you the cheapest coverage available. Remember that you get what you pay for. Cheap coverage is often insufficient coverage with a lousy insurance company. Check out your agent and the insurance company he or she is trying to sell you. The Texas Department of Insurance (http://www.tdi.state.tx.us/) has resources that will help you learn more about an insurance company. There are complaint databases, and a great deal of information regarding any agent or insurance company you are considering. The Department of Insurance also has a staff whose job includes helping you decipher the information available on the website. Don’t be afraid to call or email them.

Steve Waldman – swaldman@gwlawyers.com