The Troubleshooter 4-30-25

Yeah, ripped up.

News need advice, so.

You don't have.

Come running.

Just as fast as we can, the Shooter's gonna help coming. Man.

This is the Troubleshooter Show, now Tom Martino.

Not Tom Martino, but this is John Fuller filling in for Tom Martino and the Troubleshooter Network. Today is Wednesday, April thirtieth, and we have an exciting three days to look forward to. We're gonna cover a lot of ground. Update on Tomm. He's doing great. He texted me this morning. He's doing better than even yesterday, and so we're all excited to hear that and look forward to his speedy return. My name is John Fuller. Many of you know me.

Absolutely, you know branded agency is the agents there actually work for that carrier. When you call a direct carrier, the person you're talking to on the phone works for that direct carrier. As an insurance broker, we actually work for you. We represent you, and we look through the market to find items for you or products for you that work best.

So we are going to talk about all sorts of stuff today about you know, the different options you have for insurance, how that insurance comes into play in the event that something bad happens to you, Whether you're a victim or even whether you happen to make a mistake and cause an accident, and that unfortunately happens to listeners

Good John, you know, I'm glad you brought up how things are going, because we do have an interesting case that came up a couple of days ago, and I've been thinking about it and i'd like to get your input on this, because even though you're not a contract's attorney per se, I think most of your job is dealing with contracts and contractual.

Relationships to an extent.

So a few days ago, lady by the name of Haley called this. She and her roommate rented a downtown apartment at an eyewatering price of three thousand dollars.

Oh.

Everything went well until she and the roommate had some kind of a falling out. And I guess it was a serious enough falling out that the roommate had either applied for a protection order or got one. It wasn't very clear from the phone call. But that's not the

Of her lease.

Oh and unfortunately for Haley, that resulted in Haley being stuck with the entire three thousand dollars a month rent plus utilities, which she can't afford. Now, with the mistake I think that we possibly made during the show a few days ago, is we evaluated this matter from the perspective of the lease. What does the lease say? And sure says that she's jointly and severally responsible. But I've been thinking. Brad O'Brien confirmed that, of course, right, that's

How in the world did the tenant convince the landlord to let her off the lease? How did that happen?

Well, so what we infer from what Haley said is tenant one went to the landlord and said, hey, this is now becoming a physically dangerous and vironment. I mean, I infer that because Hailey said that there was mention of a protective protection order. So so so the landlord I assume, Now there are a lot of assumptions in

It's it's just a yeah, it's a tough situation. Let's uh, let's kind of dive into that as soon as we get back from the first break. To the callers out there, the number to reach us today is seven one three eight two five five three oh three seven one three eight two five five Help at Troubleshooter dot com. Give us a call. We're here to help you, and we'll be right back in just a moment.

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Hello John Fuller, coming back at you on the Troubleshooter Show. Here rapidly filling up the phone lines. We're going to go right to the lines. We will get back to Dimitri's issue. That is an interesting deal that's going to take a little while to discuss, So don't think that we're not dealing with that. But we have a whole list of callers here and we're going to get started right away. Lissa, you have an issue with your lease or your apartment. What's going on?

So I had to sign the lease on Monday. Sorry, daughter, But and after I signed the lease, we had went in to move our stuff and there was a cockroach on the wall.

Mind you, these.

Aren't newly or what they say are newly renovated apartments. So I was really shocked when I seen one, and so I had called the office was closed.

The next day.

I had called and informed them I wanted to break my lease. They said that they would have to get in contact with corporate because I told them I wanted all my money back, because I mean, I have a kid, like you know, I can't live with a roach infestation. I talked to the tenants nearby, and not a lot of them spoke English, so it's kind of hard to, like, you know, understand how bad the situation really was. Well, I guess it's so bad that they spray these apartments like fights every two weeks.

That means that.

There's like a major roach infestation twice every two weeks, is like really concerning.

Yeah, I can appreciate that. Have you seen evidence of this infestation or just one cockroach?

Well I had seen too.

I had seen the first one on the wall, and then the second one in the bathroom, and then when we further like looked at the baseboards and stuff, there was a bunch of dead ones, and so I was like, okay, well say like bomb. Then frequently I was like, maybe there's just not that much. I mean it was the middle of the day. Roaches are like nocturnal, you know,

Yeah.

Yeah, I used to live in New York, like in New York City, and cockroaches are a scourge. So if Lisa saw two cockroaches, that means there are two thousand more they will come out at night. But I think an even bigger issue than the disgusting revolting cockroaches. Is the fact that they spray these chemicals to right, and she has a little daughter, and god forbid, she has a cat or a dog or something. All of these creatures are gonna get poisoned or the cockroaches get poisoned.

Face on your experience, what should she do? Oh, I would definitely find a different place. Yeah.

Now, I do recognize that I may be unusually sensitive to cockroaches because of my early experience with him. But this is a serious issue. I heard her daughter in the background. She's a tiny little baby. So, John, does she have a leg to stand them? Does she have a technically valid reason to be afraid for her health and the health of her not just being disgusted?

Yeah, I think if the apartment poses a health and safety risk to the daughter, she's got a pretty good grounds, you know, to attempt to break the lease. Now, you know, listen, everything in real estate, everything hey By sell contracts, lease contracts, everything else. It's a contract and your rights are spelled out in the contract. And so what happens when you decide to break that lease is either laid out in

Well, Jean, I haven't. I think you're absolutely right, But I think that a lot of these problems are resolved before they even get to court or a default situation. So what do you think of this?

Elisa and John?

Why don't you tell the Why don't you follow up this conversation with your property manager who hasn't gotten back to you with the answer yet? With this You discussed this with a Tom Martino troubleshooter on the radio without mentioning the apartment complex's name or the name of the

On the air.

It's going to be up to them, and you can feel free to give them my personal cell phone number, Lisa, which Kelly here. When we're done with your phone call on the air, Kelly will give you my personal cell phone number. And please let me know what the apartment manager said about you being able to get out of this lease without incurring any financial burden.

I mean, there's a reason, Lissa, while we didn't ask what the apartment complex is at this stage, because you know, that's kind of the nuclear button when you go and put it out on the radio that you've got this massive roach infestation and everything else. So we're trying to give you as many tools in your toolbag to use. And what Dimitria is suggesting is that you let them know that this could go another way without without threatening. Don't be rude, you know, be nice, because.

Were extremely interested in prayer and on the air up there is very interesting, you know, jumping at the bit, like really really interesting looking.

Forward to it. So does that make sense to you listen?

Yeah, Yeah, they said that they.

Would give me a call back today early morning, mid afternoon to let me know what corporate had said. I'm assuming they're kind of realizing that if I decide to take them to court, they probably wouldn't win. I think the reason why so many of the people that live there, you know, happen to live there because they can'tward anything else and they don't understand that this is like borderline illegal, if not illegal to you praying it so many times.

So are you in the unit right now?

No?

No, we completely After that, After in that road we left, I was like, I'm not even gonna try to do this. I don't even want to do this. So we just went and stayed with my daughter's grandparents for a little bit, and can you find something different?

Yeah, I think that's important too, to not not actually take possession of the of the property. But I was going to say, if you did take possession, you need to be taking lots of photographs of these of these roaches. But it's better that you didn't move in at all. So keep us in the loop, would you please, and we'll look forward to hearing back and trying to get you some help on this. Okay, thanks listen for the call. We're gonna we're gonna move along here. We've got Eric

Basically, I'm calling and get out for my daughter. She got roped into the the Vegas Hilton timeshare deal and as far as I can tell, she didn't really understand what was going on, and she felt like she was pressured and manipulated, and she thought what she was actually getting was ADIT card and either a free or discounted vacation. How old is you er, Well, this was she was

And okay, so you are.

Walked into one of the casinos and you know, they had a kiosk there with a couple of people and they kind of, you know, coerce her and.

Her So she thought she signed up for a credit card, and she walked out with a timeshare.

Yeah, in a three thousand dollars bill. All right on that credit said credit cards?

Eric, do you have a copy of everything she signed?

Yes? I do.

Can you email it to us please?

Yeah? Eric, I'm gonna put you back on hold. Kelly's going to give you the email address. I'd love to see all that paperwork. If you could get that to us, that would be great. We're going to go to a quick break, but do get that stuff to us and then we'll have a lot better chance of trying to figure out how to how to navigate through this deal.

Okay, Eric, thanks, go with a sure thing Denver's best rufer excelroofing dot com.

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Time for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three O three seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right, welcome back John Fuller here with the Troubleshooter Network. We are rock and rolland one of the coolest things about this show is that we have such an amazing audience out there that sometimes we get calls from people that are experts that chime in and help educate us about what's going on. And so we're going to go right to Scott. Scott, I understand you are an entomologist for the benefit of our listeners. What is that?

Okay? So I have degrees in entomology, which is the study of insects, and specifically I'm an urban entomologist because my work is around cockroaches and ants and termites and things like that. So how can you I am a real bug.

Guy, real live bug guy. So what do you have to offer with Lissa's issue with these roaches in this apartment with their young child?

Okay? Well, the first thing is that they really don't need to be spraying all those chemicals. There are a few, I guess I call them stone age companies that still do things the old fashioned way. But we've got a lot of phenomenal baits, which are basically, it's a food with a relatively non toxic poison in it, so that the cockroaches are acted to it, they eat it, and they die, so you can get rid of them completely without any spraying at all.

But Scott, isn't the issue that thing? I mean, it seems to me that it's more challenging in a big multifamily building where you have so many units. I mean, how can you ever really get you know, full saturation of a baiting program and just completely annihilate a population of roaches.

Okay, well, well, first of all, if it is actually an apartment complex and not a condominium complex with individual owners, right, it's real easy. It's just an accessibility thing. So if I can get in there and treat that, you don't have to there's no prep involved, so the tenants don't have to complain that, you know, they didn't have time to empty their cabinets and do all these other things. You can treat it. Well, they're actually there, and so

Yeah. So how would you compare the cost of doing it correctly with the cost of hiring these these hacked companies or stone age companies that you're talking about that keep spraying and not really making any dent in the problem.

Okay, Well, spraying is dirt cheap. The actual cost of a tank of insecticide is very very cheap, and dates are very expensive. So upfront there's a huge difference.

Hey, Scott, how.

Much you're looking at an annual and what's that.

Oh, how long would it take.

Let's say you had access to every apartment in the multifamily building, how long would it take to have basically ninety five eradication.

Less than three months? Most of them will be dead within about two weeks. But of course you're going to have eggs hatching in a few thing. Sometimes there's deep pockets, you know, there's there's a lot of variability, you know, insanitation. But but quite honestly, if you're thorough and debates work really well. And we combine that too, it's an insect growth regulator which sterilizes them. So that's kind of a double whammy.

So let's say you run up against a landlord that's just you know, cost adverse. They're not gonna they're not going to pay to do it correctly, and they keep paying for the really cheap way that doesn't seem to do anything, because it at least that lets them claim that they're trying to address the issue and that they're

Okay, Well that the first issue is really, uh, the the health aspects of the cockroaches themselves. And it's well documented that cockroach feces and cast skins, you know, because they mold, so that you've got all the shed skins of the bugs, of all those things induced to asthma and children, and it's it's very documented. So it's it's something that's that's real serious that there's a lot of them, because we see that in inner city areas where there

In there, right, Right, that's good information.

Are you an academic or do you have a company.

Yeah, I actually have a pest control company. I'm swamped though, so I don't even want to see the name of my company out here. I don't need the extra business.

Right right, well, but that's that's great information. Let me ask you one other things in your you know experience, if you you know, if if from an environmental standpoint, a kid is induced you know too, or introduced to these sheds and casts and poop and everything else and and and you know, gets asthma, that's that's something that follows with them the rest of their life, isn't it?

That is correct?

Okay, So, I mean it seems to me that there ought to be the information out there too to help lessa if this company wants to really fight this battle, to say that maybe this is just not the right apartment and not the least that they want to actually, you know, try to enforce and stuff. Scott, have you ever act as an expert and in these kind of matters.

I have been a.

Long time, but but I mean, it's it's definitely a habitability issue, and we do have habitability laws, especially in the city of Denver. I'm not sure what city she's in.

Yeah, well cool, Well listen, Scott, thank you so much for calling in. That's been great information. We appreciate it. Thanks for listening, and uh we'll look forward to, uh hopefully getting the Lissa out of this apartment and moving on. So thanks again. So we are nearing another break here. We do have a couple of lines open. The number is seven one three eight two five five. That's three

Yes, So I bought a vehicle back in March through the Sharpest Rides. I've been getting the run around in the past three weeks to get my car walk on. It'spet because I have a transmissing issue.

Is there a warranty on it or just you just feel like they should be fixing it?

Doesn't warranty on it. The onety is underneath the six months once he was sixty thousand miles.

You bought this warranty from the sharper rides when you bought.

The vehicle, Yes, it came with it.

When did you buy this vehicle back in March March of this year yes, okay, And what is the problem with the sharpest rides? Are they refusing to honor it or refusing to work on it or what?

So every d they've been getting me the run around trying to work on it, and I'm thinking a mom of three kids and have a baby on the way, and they are telling me that they have to go to the warrant manager instead. All up there every week, every day, going up there and stuff like that. The ward team manager is nowhere to be found. He is not you can hit ward with me onto getting back to me or anything. So it's just been very frustrating.

Okay, Well Marie, hang on a second. We'll be right back from this break. We're going to try to help you out. Okay, hang Tyger, So.

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Help.

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Okay, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network, getting back to the issues that we're going through today. So we're going to help Marie out here. In just a second, I've got yet another cockroach caller calling in to comment. We're going to take that first, because we always appreciate our callers with comments. So, Bill, what is going on with these cockroaches? How can we Hey?

This was around nineteen eighty. Okay, Well, we moved from downtown Denwood to Thornton and the cockroaches moved with us.

Oh oh, I mean.

They were sick. I tried everything. I'd set bombs off and on the weekend and we would go down to my in laws and spend the weekend and nothing worked.

What did you do?

Finally, remember Paul Harvey, Yep.

He was advertising this stuff was called roach proof, and I think it was some kind of boric acid stuff, and I'm and I put it around the house and it worked because then we bought a new house and we didn't move with us.

Now, did you disclose the cockroach problem to the new buyers.

Were renting a cockroaches?

I'm just kidding there. Uh, you know, I think that's yeah. I think that bor axes.

Threw away a refrigerator because they would just swarm and inside, you know, in the in the back of it and all the.

I mean.

It was thick.

Yeah, that's disgusting. Well, thanks for that information. I think the boor axes, it's really along the same veins of what the expert that called in with bait stations and stuff that actually gets into the pores of the the legs and stuff of the cockroaches, and that's how the poison enters the system, rather than than you know, a spray or something that just gets on the surface. So I appreciate it. Now we know the rest of the story. Paul Harvey, you know, uh, thanks for calling in, Bill,

So Dimitri, yeah, hey, I'll be really happy to I'll speak with a caller offline kind of get some summary of what the problem is. And you know, I've always had really great luck dealing with viewerships, regardless of their previous reputation. I ignore that during my nation phone call, and because most of the time it's kind of a miscommunication problem or somebody didn't get the message or something like that. But I'd say more than half the time they step up and do the right thing.

That's what we want to see. That's the important thing.

Except Omera and they never called me back, they never respond to my emails.

And if they do, we will dutifully report that they have done the right thing. That's ree and so we'll give them that opportunity. So Marie, hang on, We're going to get your contact information. Dmitri will be in touch with you soon and we'll see if we can help you out. Okay, thanks for calling in you you bet appreciate it. So, mister Dan, we were talking a little bit off air, and this is exactly the kind of

And so.

Dan, maybe the good best starting place is just, you know, tell me about the discussions that you have with people about the appropriate level of insurance, because from my perspective as a plaintiff's attorney, there's almost no circumstance where twenty five is enough.

Exactly, any clients that come into any clients that come to our agency that we write, we have a minimum in house. We won't write a policy under one hundred three hundred one. That's nothing to do with us or our income. It says that we feel like that is the minimum base level of getting a decent level of coverage to take care of any sort of well, not any but take care of a vast amount of losses that you may have. We were talking a little bit earlier,

Friends, Hey I have cake. Okay, what does that mean?

John?

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three oh three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three oh three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

Rip.

You don't have.

Run incious as fast as we can.

Shoot's gonna help, come man Dix. He is the Troubleshooter Show. Now, Tom Martine, Welcome to the Troubleshooter Show. This is John Fuller filling in for Tom Martino. Many of you know me. I'm a personally injury attorney in Denver and have been for the last twenty three years. We are here today talking about all things insurance as well as taking care

Explain what that means, just yeah, and then you'll see repeat again, one hundred, three hundred.

So the first one hundred means outbound care to the other person.

That you may endure in an accident. The three hundred thousand, that second number, that's an aggregate amount. So if you hurt someone else outbound, three people at one hundred thousand each, six people at fifty thousand each. However, you break that down, that is basically the pool money you're working with. That last number, that last one hundred. In this scenario, this is going to be property damage. So it's gonna be covering other vehicles, school buses, motorcycles, trees, this cows.

Yeah, or even a highway sign. So let me interrupt you there. You talked about the total amount necessary for an accident. So it's one hundred per person, but three hundred per accident. So what happens if you have four people in the car. So if you have four people in the car, that second.

Number, that three hundred thousand, that aggregate is going to be what that that share that's going to be divided between those four people in that instant.

And how do they divide that?

Actually that that's gonna be based. It's gonna be claims based. Basically, what they're actually lost is now, if there's a lot of damage, like you said, you know, the majority of cases seem to stay around or one hundred thousand, but as you said, they can escalate pretty quickly. With our clients, again, one hundred three hundreds kind of our baseline. We prefer doing a to fifty five hundred, one hundred, even what you call a five hundred thousand combined single limit, which

So all that is great and wonderful from a liability perspective, But all that insurance coverage in the world does nothing. If it's you that gets injured and the other car has those same minimal limits that we're talking about, where does that come into play? So now we're going back to the uninsured or uninsured.

Motorist statistics are kind of all over the place, but I've seen upwards of seventeen percent.

Of the drivers and Kyrod just don't even have insurance.

Factoring for bad insurance, we're looking at about thirty percent at all. So when you're driving today, if you look at the three cars around you, one of them doesn't have insurance, doesn't have enough.

That's coblutely true. What could happen? I did some research one time. The actual numbers in Colorado are two thirds of the drivers either have minimal limits or no insurance at all. In Colorado two thirds sixty almost sixty six percent either have minimal limits which is complying that's legal, or no insurance at all. So I mean it's not just the one car, it's both of the cars on either side of you either have no or minimal limits.

When we're quoting people often we see that flip flopped. We see that you are buying the least amount of coverage for yourself and the most for the other guy. Yeah, Or when we're in a situation where someone's out shopping quotes, they'll come back. They'll be like, hey, I've found this great deal. We have a good relationship with our clients, will be like, here, send us a copy what you find.

Hey, yeah, I have a question. So the people who have the minimal insurance. Are they people who can declare bankruptcy? And the main question is someone has you know, minimal coverage and they get a judgment. Is that judgment dischargeable if they declare bankruptcy?

So, and I'm going to bring John on this because I've always been trained that in a situation where you declare bankruptcy, a bankruptcy is essentially a contract breaking your financial contracts, which you could actually forgive the insurance company from protecting or defending you in that claim, which means now you're back on your own.

Well, I mean, the short answer, Doc is yes, I mean, but the longer answer is what does it matter? I mean, if you get a judgment of two million dollars against somebody that has no assets, it's worthless. They don't even need to go to the court to declare bankruptcy. You're never going to collect your two million dollars. So that bankruptcy you know, discharge is about as valuable as that you know to them, Is that judgment is to you?

Well, my point is that the people who have this they don't care.

They don't care.

They have the minimum insurance because I have to. But then they say, well, look, you know you can't. There's there's nothing to collect. Why should I pay for more insurance when really I don't need it?

So so that's my typical argument, is that the reason you buy more insurance is so that you're allowed to buy greater limits for your family. Correct. You know, people call me all the time, and I welcome their calls, and I truly do. And and the call goes like this, how much insurance do I need?

Right?

And and for some reason they think I'm better qualified because I exhaust policies frequently, that that I'm a better you know, a better judge of that and stuff. So when we come back from the break, I want to talk about you know, I want to talk about like what happens when you don't have enough coverage. And I'm sure that you've had clients in that position. I've had people call me, I've had plaintiffs that have damages far

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All right, all right, all right, good afternoon, John Fuller here, we are moving rapidly forward in the day. We're talking about insurance stuff. If we can be of help to you, give us a call it three O three seven one three eight two five five. We are here to solve your problems and help out with any issue that you have.

I really want to know a lot more about the client than just their name and what they want to buy. Assets drive a lot of that, you know, if you have a lot of rental properties, things like that. Different carriers specialize in different areas, and we kind of were talking off air about uninsured motorists and umbrellas. A lot of companies are kind of shying away from that because

That makes sense.

I'm a big advocate if we have one thing for you, we keep everything in one carrier, especially if we're going to deal with an umbrella. We don't want any company pointing to someone else saying, oh, this is your issue, this is the overlap, this is double indemnity, this is stacking. We don't want to deal with any of that. We

To take that next step up to go to two fifty.

Five hundred, five hundred combined single limit, you're talking a couple hundred bucks a year you add an umbrella. Depending on the carrier what you have, it's going to range between you know, two hundred and twelve hundred dollars a year. But again, if you have those assets and you have things at risk, you really need to have those things. On a side note, it's interesting the gentleman who called

We do help out some.

Financial firms around town that provide advice to folks on retirement, and we also do reviews for their clients as well, make sure everything's stacked up and makes sense on their cory.

Again, I have a question. Yeah, you know, one of the things that you see on TV all the time is this bundling. So does it really save you money to have you a home and auto with the same company.

From a straight financial standpoint, it's usually the same.

I'm sorry if you're splitting everything.

Off and trying to take advantage of multiple markets, you're damaging yourself because you are giving up a lot of multiline discounts. And keep in mind, insurance is all about risk. So if I'm a product person or underwriter with an insurance company and you're coming to me with five different lines, that's five different points of risk. I know that you are going to be a better value to me because you're not going to have five areas of risk all happen at once.

But there's a bigger issue with that, and it's one that we kind of run into. It's like, you know, I think if I'm talking strictly as an insured as a guy that's buying insurance and stuff based on my experience, the more opportunities you give an insurance company to point the finger at somebody else and say that other company or that other policy should be the one that's on the hook for this loss, the more app they are

You know.

You remember the old Farmer's commercials where the guy and the old tweet sports coat was like, we covered it, you know, and that's not reality. Reality is we denied it, you know, and and then we got sued and then we begrudgingly decided to pay that claim down the road after you know so and so attorney whatever, you know, it it's just the first question was are we better off with the bundle? Yeah, I think so, to the extent that you can within reason. I mean, don't pay,

It's like, Doc, if you go to lunch today, you go to McDonald's for your fries, burger Kings for your burger, and a gas station for your Sota because you're trying to maximize money.

You missed the boat.

Yeah, you're you're spending the money anyway. You're you're giving up discounts, and you're giving up the continuity of coverage.

I really want one goes wrong.

Yeah, you don't want to have to point out a whole bunch of people or have the car carriers pointing at each other.

They love that. That's great for them, absolutely, I.

Mean they can they can stall out a court case forever just by reversing the point.

Yeah, that's that's absolutely the case. And so you know, practice pointer to most people. If you're out there shopping around, really take the time to try to find the best deal that has everything under one You know umbrella for lack of a better word, because I think in the end you'll find that you have better coverage and a better opportunity to get your damages taken care of. So we're going to go to a quick break. We will be right back and continue discussion. Give us a call

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On top of it.

I'm for an insurance checkup free, no obligation. In comparison, call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right, good afternoon, We're back. This is John Fuller or the Troubleshooter Network, and we are moving along here. We're talking about insurance coverage and and I'm talking with Dan Mahoney who is the principle of insurance Group of Denver. They're an independent agent. The cool thing about that is they're not beholden to one of the normal carriers there. They have a whole list of carriers that they're able to really custom formulate coverages to meet your needs and stuff.

And he's also going along with what the state says.

He's just trying to save money, but you know, intentionally or not, he's putting his own assets at risk instead of spending a little extra money in buying that extra coverage. I mean, at its core, buying liability insurance is protection for your own assets. And so it came as quite a shock to this guy that what do you mean by why are they wanting to know about my personal assets?

Right.

You know, if that same accident had happened and the guy had two fifty or something and he's only got a house and maybe a couple of cars, and he's old, and there's protections in place, the planet's attorney would likely conclude that, you know, and the um carrier would conclude that he's appropriately insured. We're just gonna take the two fifty if it's offered, which it probably would be. We're gonna take the two fifty, and we'll give him a complete release that lets this guy off the hook.

Right, and John, can you for both of you you can get separate covers. So if you have an old car and can you get like minimal collision and maximum and maximum liability?

Absolutely?

Yeah, so you can get you can you don't have to have twenty five.

It doesn't have to be.

If they get liability only of a big, huge number and just not have Cadillac coverage for your car. Okay, I have a gnarly ugly pickup truck that has more liability in the world, and it's straight.

There's nothing either. If it disappears, it disappears, and God bless whoever would take.

That exactly, it's probably worth more in the form of a check point insurance coming off than any buyer would ever give you on it. So so you know, that's the backdrop that we're dealing with. Is this real, you know, circumstance that happens to people when they just try to save a little money and get the bare bones minimum coverage and they think this could never happen to me, and it does, and it did to one of our

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All right, we're back. John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter network. We are looking at some open lines here and so we are here to help you if you have any issues that we can chime in on. If you've been scammed, if you've been ripped off, if you have challenges with contractors, issues with your vehicles, problems with your landlord, anything along those lines, and particularly if you happen to have been in an accident you have questions about that, I'm happy

Then you kicked out, but you can wait it and John, not only that, but the pay in my case, and here are the declarations that I'm going to ask Dan to go over review for me. The maximum is only twenty five thousand dollars. I wanted a lot more than that with the insurance company. No insurance company would sell me more than twenty five thousand medpay.

What turns that?

Is that going to pay for it? And not many companies will sell twenty five and I've only seen a couple that will sell one hundred, and it just varies. That's their you know, really, insurance companies hate medical payments coverage because it's it's a coverage that's not dependent upon fault, and so they can't really you know, they can't really you know, traditionally, their evaluations of risk are evaluating your likelihood to get in an accident. And we can we

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Ripped of.

News, so you don't have come.

Come run in as fast as can.

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Come man, This is.

The Troubleshooter Show Now, Tom Martinez, Hey.

Good afternoon. This is John Fuller on the Referral Network. We are here halfway through today. We are here to solve problems, take complaints, an tower quesestions. We're here to help you. If you've been scammed, if you've been ripped off, if there's something that we can help you on, give us a call. The number here in the studio is seven one three eight two five five. That's three oh three seven one three eight two five five. You can also reach us at help at troubleshooter dot com. We

Dan?

In your practice?

So it's a mandatory coverage that you can opt out of.

That's the genius. Why would anybody ever do that?

So when I hear people say I'm going to opt out of that, they say I'm going to opt out because I have amazing health insurance or I'm in the military, or I'm on I'm retired and I have Medicare.

Well, I haven't had an accident in thirty two years and need.

And you're impervious, right, That's the other one too, and you know everyone's going to get an accident, and statistics are out there to yeah, what is it like every seven years over over one thousand bucks? Either the problem with that is that is seven years going to be this afternoon or is it going to be in seven years?

Right?

And it's going to happen, so you have to be prepared for it. Well, how do you rebut that argument that I have great insurance, so I have Medicare. I hear that all the time. I have I have Medicare, and I have trap care for life and and and I'm totally covered. There's never going to be a medical bill that I have to pay. Why the hell should I have so pay?

When I talked through this, first thing is is that really medpay? I kind of look at it as it's it's buying you time. So it's it's giving you some money at the time of the accident that you can apply towards any early incurred costs or any ancillary care that you want.

To go out. That's going to make you feel better.

Uh So that's that's the first part of it. It's going to make it a lot easier. It's going to streamline the process.

Uh.

Second, especially if you're you're younger, is that uh you know, if you have kids and you're driving carpool and you have an accident and you have five kids all tucked up in your super four wheel drive wagon, if one of those kids doesn't have health insurance or doesn't have parents, don't have a good policy, all of a sudden, you're

I love when people tell me how great their Medicare is, and it's just a they're just misinformed. They just don't understand. I mean, a Medicare doesn't cover everything, number one, so you're not truly impervious to any you know, bill coming your way following an accident. But secondly, it's like, do you only drive by yourself forever and ever and you never have anybody else in your car? I mean, do

And almost anybody you talk to now it used to be optional back when healthcare shart getting expensive, but it's pretty standard now. Most policies have five thousand dollars deductible right out the door.

Yeah they do, and we're able to frequently use the medpay to at least help knock out that out of pocket minimum. It maybe doesn't cover every single bit of it, but it goes a long way. And so if you're really if you're one of those people that are like, Okay, do I pay the deductible or do I pay my rent? That medpay is the difference in being immediately in financial crisis, especially if somebody has to take a week or two off work, and being able to kind of maintain the

Yeah, Dan, you know, I've always been a big advocate of proper insurance in case I incurliability while driving or doing something else. But a fundamental shift in my thinking started occurring back when I I'd say six seven months ago, and I started seeing John quite a bit over here in the course of our participation in the show. And one thing that he impressed upon me is the importance

You're going to have to put that question in writing. I'm spreadsheet to answer all that. We're going to go to a break here right now, we'll address Dimitri's declaration sheet and and we'll sum it up in a much more concise question right after this break.

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All right, all right, all right, all right, good afternoon. John Fuller back with the Troubleshooter Network. We are trucking along here. We are here to help you solve your problems. We've got a couple open lines here. We'd appreciate your call. The numbers three or three seven one, three eight two five five. We are here to help you, not just with insurance issues. That is a rare opportunity to have two, you know, people that are kind of on opposite ends

That's like a college these Good luck with that, so real quick, let's put a couple of definitions around these things. So a declaration page is a ten dollars word for basically your policy summary. Usually it's one to two pages. Anything that actually has a dollar amount that you're paying, that's usually your declaration page. So don't be afraid of it when you go to look at it, because I

That's that's all it is. It's a transfer risk. So if it's your house, your car, something you.

Have a value, you go to insurance company you say, hey, i've got this thing, it's worth something. I want protection in case something happens. They say, okay, for this amount of money, we'll protect that. We'll take that risk. So we're transferring risk. So as we look at Dimitri's deck pages, again, this is just the summary, and this is a carrier I don't work with, so I don't know all the ins and outs, but I can talk generally about where he's at and what we can do with this. So

What's that saying is that outbound I have two.

Hundred and fifty thousand dollars of coverage towards anyone that I injure or cause issues for. In an accent, I have five hundred thousand dollars aggregate. Aggregate just means it's a pool. You can use it any way you want. You just cannot exceed two hundred fifty thousand per person or five hundred thousand total for the accent.

And what does the word outbound mean?

I use outbound to oversimplify it, but basically, if you cause an accent, you're at fault.

You injure someone else. This is where it's coming on. So it's money that's available to help pay for damages that you caused in a potential accent. Correct exactly, it's for that party that you damaged.

So the two fifty five hundred again five hundreds combined or I'm sorry, it's an aggregate. So if you have five people one hundred thousand each, you're great. Two people at two fifty each, you're great in this scenario. Now you got ten people in there and they all have one hundred thousand, your policies, it's not gonna sacon. Next line after that you're going into is the property damage

There is that liability coverage also part of the property damage coverage.

Yeah, that that last number is gonna be the property damage portion of it.

The liability amount is intact without any regard to what's done on property. There's no way you could exhaust the liability by taking care of a really expensive property claim. Correct, It's a.

Separate line item, separate coverage that's on there.

Rolling through the policy.

You also have twenty five thousand dollars in medpay typically that's about the most I'll see a carry offer. We just got done talking about that. Medpay really helps kind of close that gap between your first dollar of care until your other care kicks in, whether it's Medicare or you're you're awesome insurance policy or whatever it is that you have in your back pocket that you think is going to jump in. Also helps out if you have a passingers you're in your car who may not have

So let me interrupt right there, we're going to go to a real quick break, and we're going to come back and get a little deeper into We've actually got a caller with a question on insurance that will take right after this break, and then we're going to get into some of the more nuanced coverage like uninsured motorists and how that differs from liability coverage. Okay, we'll be right back.

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Good afternoon, John Fuller here on the Troubleshooter Network. We are talking about all things insurance this afternoon with me as a guest. Here in the studio is Dan Mahoney. He is the principal of the Insurance Group of Denver. You can contact Dan at seven two oh four to three six one nine zero after the show with all of your insurance needs. But he's here in the studio

Yeah, guys, thanks for taking my call or a very informative show. So I need your take on my situation two thousand and nine. I buy a new vehicle. I finance it, full coverage on it. It's been paid off for years.

Okay, the the.

Value of it right now with the age and mileage is probably less than two thousand dollars. I'm still carrying full coverage on it. What should I do? Should I just go to a straight liability with maybe an umbrella policy or what would be your suggestion?

Okay, well, yeh, I'll let you address that.

And then when we're talking about liability only, I always ask people what their pain threshold is. Basically, how much money can you afford to lose if someone came and stole that car in the middle of the I caught on fire, tree, fell on.

It, etc.

So, if the value of that vehicle is within your pain threshold and you don't mind self insuring if you will for that, I don't think there's a problem at all. The one of the things that you should consider is that ask your agent to give you.

A look at the.

Cost of both sides, because sometimes older cars also are really inexpensive doing sure. So if you're only saving eighty bucks, I think I would rather pay the eighty bucks than hold on to the three grand, because you don't know when somebody is going to steal your car.

Yeah or something, Tim, do you have other cars on the same policy.

No, I've just got the one vehicle and that's it.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, So, and I.

Drive very little. You know, I'm a old guy, so I don't get out on the road much.

Yeah.

If you're a guy who saves money, you got plenty of money in the bank. You're willing to take the risk. I think it's fine.

Yeah, okay, But the main thing is, maybe compare the costs between going straight liuability with the umbrellas versus what I'm paying now.

You might be surprised at the difference. I was going to say, it may just be so insignificant that you'd want to just keep the full coverage. The real important thing, which I'm glad that you're doing, is that your liability limits are enough to even qualify to get an umbrella policy, which for most carriers, I think is usually around the

So you know, on the hook for In other words, that's.

Exactly right, sir, You're exactly right. Hey, thanks for the question, Tim, appreciate the call today.

I appreciate it.

Yeah, you're back, appreciate it. We're going to go next to Oscar, who has another question about auto insurance. What's going on? Oscar?

Oh, similar to the gentleman is talked to you. I have a two thousand and three oh watches see four point thirty s Nick Lexus. However, I have some coverage, but I have another power similar and I'd pay about twenty eight hundred dollars a year for both of them. Boxes.

Hey, hey, Oscar, we're going to put you on hope for just a second. We're having a hard time understanding of their phone is very garbled. If you can try to stand on one leg or go to a different part of the house, we'll come right back to you in just a second. We just can't hear what the issue is, so we're going to go next to Tom, who has a question about motorcycle insurance, and Oscar will try to come right back to you in just a minute. Tom, what's going on, Hey.

Gentlemen, show really appreciate your information.

Thank you.

I wrote Harley's still do, but.

Not as much in the nineties and insurance back then, I had supplement to my employer, which was AFLAC, and also PIP to the insurer. Then I got ran over in two thousand and then those really helped contribute to my medical bills. I don't know if PIP or AFLICK are still in the picture for motorcycle riders.

PIP has gone well. PIP was part of that no fault that we voted out about twenty years ago. That was called personal Injury Protection. That's what PIP stood for, and that was the mechanism on your policy. And it was particularly, you know, really unique on auto policies or on motorcycle policies because many of the carriers wouldn't offer PIP for motorcycle riders. So there were a couple out there that did, and you were lucky enough to have one.

And that was through my employer? Okay, I work at a hospital, so I heard lots of stories doctors hanging out in the er that they knew I ride, and they told me.

That's what I should get.

Luckily I did because I did end up getting hit by a drunk driver.

Gotcha cool? So what is your question today? Are you looking for what the right coverage is writers?

Is there something they can do for is it supplementary or.

DAN?

What do you do with your protection?

Yeah, the supplemental you would still buy through your provider or your.

Employer.

But this also kind of ties back to medpay, so you can also, you know, ramp up your medpay to twenty five grand. It's it's not a duplicati affleck goes a little bit further, but it will give you a lot more latitude in your care and treatment.

So what about using specific to a motorcycle rider? Because when I went through my accident, Roy Romer had put a tort in the law, and with my settlement, the hospital ended up being able to take out how much they I incurred while I was there out of my settlement.

So that's a little They took out the amount of the claim for the supplemental on your settlement.

No, no, for the hospital bills that I incurred.

Yeah, so that's actually exactly how it works. So and that goes back to what I was talking about earlier. When you incur bills as a result of an accident, those are actually your bills. They are your responsibility. There's no mechanism to just give them the name of the AFOL party and all of a sudden have them build that guy because he caused the accident. There's still your bills. It's just that those bills constitute the damages that you have the right to go after the at fault party for.

Does that make sense, Yeah, it does.

And I think I misspoke because I did get a settlement from the other driver, okay, and the hospital took the money off the top.

Of that settlement, yes, sir, Yes.

So it's like they double dip. They got the insurance and they got my settlement money.

Also, Yeah, that can actually happen. And you know, the only benefit of that arrangement is if you use your private health insurance and it gives you the ability to reprice the medicals down to a lower contract amount, then the actual expense of that medical treatment to you is quite a bit lower than what the expense is going to be to the at fault guy that we're going after for your damages.

Okay, So is that.

Still a law that they can come after a motorcycles if it's they get a settlement for their injury accident injury.

It's not just get money. Yeah, it's not just motorcycles there, Tom, it's it's everybody. Those health insurance companies have a right to get repaid whenever they use that. So that's a great topic. We're going to come back and visit about sebrogation and how that actually works. We'll touch on that in just a moment. We got to run to a break right now, Tom, thank you for the call. We've got Oscar still waiting, hopefully he's got his phone worked out and Dave on the line. We'll get to in

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Two for here for the Troubleshooter Network. We are rapidly moving through the afternoon. We are talking about all things insurance today. Our guest in the studio is Dan Mahoney with the Insurance Group of Denver. Dan's an independent agent, so he's able to talk about I don't know how many lines do you guys write for, like thirty different companies or.

Yeah, we probably have eight to ten what we considers the standard market Travelers Hartford, Safego, and then we have a whole nother set back end which are called access and surplus or specialty carriers.

Right, So I mean the advantage of an independent agent versus somebody that is, you know, a single branded carrier. I mean, are you often able to really put together more you know, competitive packages for your your clients than than those guys are Who do you think the proper Let me put it differently, all right, who's your ideal client? Who do you want to see coming through your doors?

Uh?

You know, auto and homeowner, somebody who wants to do the right thing. Keep in mind, any income can be garnished. Even if you don't have means that somebody can come after you're still exposed. So we want people who want to engage with us, not just somebody wants a price, Because if you just want a price, you're you're never going to get the right product and you're always gonna

Sure, no, it's it's absolutely a common sentiment. Dave, you've got a question on insurance. Let's uh, let's see what we can do for you there, Dave, go ahead.

Hey, thanks for taking my call.

My question is I drive a company car one hundred percent of the time, both for personal and for business. And it's one hundred percent paid for by the company. Okay, when I'm driving that at my personal time. Your discussion has me wondering, like how safe I am if someone is uninsured?

You know.

Oh, I was wondering if you could comment on that.

Yeah, if your company's commercial policy allows you for personal use, that coverage should extend over. An option that you can do is what they call a non owned auto policy, which basically structured like an autopolicy, just no car there. They're actually very cheap to buy. It's also a great alternative for folks that you know, living downtown Denver where you don't have a car, you're riding scooters, you're taking uber as, you're driving with friends.

Did Dave, do you have any other cars that you ensure in your household?

I have a motorcycle, so I have a motorcycle policy.

Okay, and that's say I don't want another car.

No.

So the important thing and what I was kind of looking for there, is that even when you're in that situation where the employer is providing you a vehicle and you're authorized to drive it both personally and for the business, is you know there are limits to what commercial policies have for their employees, and you'd be surprised, but a number of commercial policies don't really have uninsured motorists coverage.

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He is the Troubleshooter Show. Now Tom Martine, Hey, welcome back.

To the Troubleshooter Show. This is John Fuller filling in for Tom Martino. I am a personal injury attorney in Denver, Colorado, and have been a longtime contributor and supporter of the Referral page and the Troubleshooter Page. And I'm here filling in today and tomorrow and Friday. So you're gonna get a whole bunch of me. But we are having a great discussion today. We've got Dan Mahoney in the in the studio. Dan is the owner of Insurance Group of Denver,

Hear me now?

Yes, sir, you're coming through loud and clear. So how can we help you today?

Well, you have a previous callers use along the lines which I'm going to ask about, and that is, uh, should I drop the assurance on the waxes and maintain full coverage on my my seventeen mansa?

Is it just the value of the Lexus that has you thinking about doing that?

Yeah, because Alan Edwins and whoever was between nine and I just wonder if I should you go straight wi bils here there's that issue.

Yeah, Dan, I think that does go right down the lines of the last you know the other color about.

That, But it's your pain threshold and also about you know, getting a quote to see if it really makes sense financially. Insurance is a little unique that you know, just because you do something with one car, you think it might impact half of your policy if you have two cars.

It's not really the truth.

Insurance is measuring a whole bunch of different components and assigning risks to that. So even if you reduce use in one car, oftentimes the other car that you have on there might actually increase because you're shifting risk or more use to that other vehicle.

Would the caller be better off looking at raising deductibles and stuff or maybe converting over to you know, uninsured property coverage or something instead of comping collision or what do you recommend there? You know, obviously keep all your liability in place, and again it's just your.

Your pain threshold what you can afford to lose, and it may not be worth taking that risk either.

Once you get the quotes back, Yeah, well, hey, thanks for the call, Oscar. We appreciate it. We're going to go next to John, who's been holding for a couple of minutes. John, you have a question about auto insurance. What is going on? John?

Good show? Guys, I tuned in light, so I don't know if you've addressed this issue or not. What if you got a and this is not my circumstance, but I was just curious, what if you've got a nineteen year old kid, girl or guy, doesn't matter whether they have a driver's license or a Colorado ID, and they have no car, no insurance whatsoever. And they're renting these scooters going around by coors Field, this, that and whatever.

That's a great question. Is the nineteen year old still living in your household.

No no kid Whenever he needs anything, he gets rides from friends, that type of stuff.

Yeah, that's where that non owned auto policy comes and play again. Right, tremendous amount of coverage on that and they else that people don't think about is especially nineteen year old, it's gonna be really cheap for him to buy that as supposed to actually having a car in there. And at some point when he goes to buy a car, if he's had that policy in place for a few years, when he's coming into the market, he's coming in as a preferred buyer because he's had insurance in place.

Because there's a track record as opposed to coming in as not having insurance.

Or uninsured, and he's probably gonna pay the difference anyway by that time.

Yes, sir John, But guys, what if.

You got the nineteen year old and, like I said, it's not my situation, but they just don't have insurance. They can't afford it, they don't buy it, they don't think they need it because they just ride scooters around and then they friends give them rides to go to the grocery store or whatever.

So is your question from the perspective of the guy's car that gets hit.

Yes, okay, how does he get his damages?

Yeah, I'll tell you how he looks to his or.

Whether it's does that go on under the uninsured motors part or what?

Yes, that's exactly right. That's a great question. So it's just like any other accident where you're hit by somebody

I think I heard this right. I have a couple million dollar umbrella policy, but I don't have that under the uninsured mot uninsured motors portion.

Yes, sir, have you have you looked into getting that?

What's that?

Have you looked into getting that extra?

Um?

Writer?

I think I'm gonna call my agent today after I get.

Off one with you guys. There's a lot of carriers.

Has ever offered it or even thought about it. I always thought, oh, I have two million dollar unbrother policies my wife and I and you know we're covered. We don't have any kids in the household anymore. You are not alone, and you want to pay the additional amount and get it for the because what is about thirty three thirty seven percent of people driving around without car insurance.

Yes, that's exactly right. So what you're going to find out there. And Dan was just telling me that this morning that a lot of the carriers now they don't want to ensure that extra risk for the uninsured motors coverage. But I can tell you that I would shop around on that basis alone. So if my carrier didn't offer that on an umbrella, I would go find a different carrier that did.

And there's also specialty carriers that will do it, specialty carriers, So just the UMBRESSI all they're really concerned about is that you have the requisite amount of coverage down below in order to qualify to get the umbrella above.

So if your carrier doesn't offer that, then I mean for the amount of money, it's it's pennies to change that coverage over to additional un for you and your family, and I think it's well worth every penny.

Okay, Wow, you guys are very much, very well educated and appreciated.

Thank you, sir, appreciate the call. Yes to me.

A couple of comments about his call. I have a feeling he was asking more about the property damage caused by the scooter rider and his umbro is not going to help him, and you and my our mind is.

Not going to help him.

So I'm wondering because the scooter is not likely to do a whole lot of medical kind of damage to the driver of the vehicle, right, It's more likely a big dent. So does the scooter company itself have insurance that extends in these cases in the same way. For example, a car rental company is not going to let you take the car off the lot unless you either buy their insurance or have your own. Are the scooter companies bound by any of those requirements?

I think that's kind of wild, Leon. I don't think many of them are dimitri most of them have. I mean, if you've ever rented one of those scooters, you would know this, and I have not either. But I did look hard at a case one time where a guy had been injured, and I was shocked at the length of the contract that you have to just scroll through and agree to, which nobody reads before they agree to it. But you scroll through it super fast and get down

But that contract was agreed to by the renter of the scooter. But if I'm walking down the street that's right. A scooter rider who's got a head full of dope right causes serious injury.

There's no state requirement that the scooter company maintained that insurance. So if the driver of it says I understand that I am liable for these risks and I agree to be responsible, then that may be your only avenue. Go back to the caller. Your nineteen year old kid that has no assets, it's living in an apartment that you know, has no car, no money, whatever, that may be your

And if I'm a pedestrian on the sidewalk that gets run over and injured, then is there any case to be made like this, Hey, that scooter company should not have given this guy a motorized vehicle that he took on the sidewalk and ran me over.

Yeah, there's a case to be made. But is there coverage to be afforded. That's a tricky deal. Let me tell you, man, these these scooter companies, you will find that they are so mired in different layers of corporate shield and stuff that you may find that you've got to find and figure out how to serve process on a company in China to actually get service a process. It's in federal court, it gets removed. It's a mess.

It was right.

I was more worried about the property damage. Okay, so it was more you know, who's going to fix the person's car?

Yeah, and who's going to pay for it? It's going to be you.

Guys said, they don't, you know, can they give a guy to riding a scooter a d u I test.

Or Yeah, they sure can. They can if your bike, Yeah, and your your bike or your horse. I know buddy's got a got a DUI on the back of a mule one time. But but yeah, you're right. Comping collision. It's your own insurance. That's going to be your only avenue. You can go through the guy in small claim's court and and try to get you know, get payments on that, but it it just comes back to you protecting you and and you know, unfortunately that's just one of those things.

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All right, good afternoon, John Fuller. Here we are wrapping up the last half an hour or so here of the Troubleshooter Show. I am a personal injury attorney. Today's show has kind of evolved into all Things about Insurance show, which is very cool because we've we've been able to talk about some things that we just don't ever, you know,

Yeah, I was just interested. I'm retired houses paid for around a million dollars, and I was just kind of interested to know what are you what's your take there, combined the two of you guys in terms of what kind of coverage for the car and for the home,

You what do you do with a call like this?

Obviously there's a lot more information I need to know, but basics are you know, you're showing your home, you should have at least a five hundred thousand dollars liability Your auto should be at least.

Two fifty five hundred. For umbrellas.

John might be able to chime in on this, but I always tell clients that they should probably buy an umbrella that's roughly equivalent to their assets. Basically, I look at it as low hanging fruit. So if John's ever enlisted by someone that you might hurt, he's looking at assets.

John knows that going against.

Travelers hard for safego who whoever it is, for a three million dollar umbrella is a lot easier to play in court than going after you individually because you're a person solutely.

There's a nice deflection there in.

That Umbrellas again range between probably two hundred and twelve hundred. It's your underlying coverages and any other risk factors that are going to affect that cost.

I was going to ask, like, Steve, what do you have for your liability limits? Already? Like are you.

Getting a question, how I met.

One hundred for auto one hundred and three hundred.

Okay, So it might be the case that the reason that quote sounds pretty high is that they first got to get you up to that two fifty five hundred level before you're able to qualify for an umbrella. That's that's yeah.

And actually if you move your auto too to fifty five hundred, the umbrella actually will probably drop.

Yeah.

So I kind of think of your auto policy or your home policies like the deductible on your umbrella, right, So the higher that deductible is, the less the umbrella is going to cost.

Okay, that makes sense. And then do you try to get the umbrella to match your money that you have in the bank or your total net worth including your home? So where do you try to get that?

So I can kind of speak to that as a guy that represents plaintiffs only. So my clients are people that have been injured and are going after people like you that happen to cause an accident, and we're evaluating what to do about our damages. And so I can tell you from my perspective. You know, number one, I've got to have a client who's got damages that are that are significant. You know, if we're talking of fifteen twenty thousand dollars claim, we don't even have this conversation.

Yeah, it does make sense.

So you know, talk to your agent about about up in those limits to the required amount that gets you into the ability to shop for multiple umbrella policies and then and then give a call to somebody like Dan to say, run it up the flagpole and just see what's out there in available coverage and do your price shopping. Then I think you'll be you'll be surprised that it may actually make really good sense for you.

Okay, all right, good, Thank thank you so much.

Hey, I appreciate the call.

Dan.

How can he get a hold of you? What's the good number for this guy to call you? Our phone number, our.

Entry number, if you will not a direct number, the base number seven two zero four to three six one nine nine zero. That's seven to two oh four to three six one nine nine zero. Or you can visitor webs said ig Like Insurance Group and Denver Igdenver dot com.

Cool. Uh, Patrick, We're gonna be right back after this break and we will take your call first up on the other side, so everybody, hang on, give us a call. We'll be happy to work through your issues as well. Thank you.

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Wait time for an insurance checkup free no obligation comparison call Compass Insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right, all right, all right, good afternoon. You're back live at the Troubleshooter Network. I'm John Fuller. As you all know, I'm a personal injury attorney here in town, and we are talking today about insurance and mostly auto insurance and stuff. We did have a question from the YouTube listeners about, you know, your short term care or your long term care policies that you hear some companies offer out there. Dan, What experience do you have with

Just to disclose also is that in the state of Colorado you have to have a special designation to sell long term care. I surrendered my designation just because the market is narrowing quite rapidly. A lot of companies are no longer playing in that space. Short term care is usually something you're going to get from your employer. It's going to do that just short term care. Long term care is looking at assisting as you get older, if you have medical issues you need a lot of treatment

Okay, Color, If you have any more specific questions, to give a shout and we'll try to work through that. Patrick, you've been holding for a while with a question about auto insurance. What is going on? Patrick?

Yeah?

Hi, So I have a twenty fifteen Ford Mustang and my insurance Progressive.

I had it.

I bought it.

It was nice, look new, everything was good on the body. And then about a year later, so I bought it in June of twenty three, and then about August of twenty four, the back quarter panel started peeling off and it looks like someone bondoed a previous repair from a previously accident on it. And I tried to put in an acclaim and they said it is not covered.

Yeah, and they're saying that because the damage didn't occur while you owned the vehicle or pre pre existed the ownership of the vehicle. Is that is that what they're telling you.

Pretty much. I'm just making sure that's accurate.

And that's I mean, that's not that's not play in dirty. I mean that that's the insurance company saying, you know, we're going to ensure against any risk from this date going forward. We're not going to ensure against anything that's not yet discovered, you know, So that I have to say I'd de side with the insurance company on that one.

So as an alternate, something you might want to consider is if you pull a carfax and you find the shop that actually did the work, you might be able to go back to them and see if there's a warranty that will apply. Oftentimes, insurance companies, the contract or the shops that they use, will guarantee the work. But it's only the life that you own the vehicle, right,

Go ahead, Patrick, Yeah, that's correct, because Calper Collision is the one who did it, and they did it in New Mexico. But yeah, as I read their warranty, it's only for the person who owned the car at that time.

Correct. How extensive is the damage, Patrick.

I got a quote for it. They want forty six hundred dollars longer because it needs a whole new quarter panel.

Holy moly, I wouldn't think a quarter panel would cost that much. Do you know how long ago Collision did the repair?

Yeah, they did it, I think late or early twenty twenty, early twenty twenty three, I believe maybe late twenty twenty two.

I think I'd go argue with them because body works should last long. Absolutely it should absolutely, yeah, warrant.

They literally just bonded it and painted it and called it good.

You know, Caliber is a big operation. I mean, they they they're not insignificant. They've got a presence I think in probably just about every state out there, and many of them in Colorado. I mean, I kind of think that I agree that they should. You should be able to have a hard conversation with them about, you know, at least compromising the cost of the repair, because certainly, you know, whoever paid them for the first repair didn't really get the benefit of the bargain out of it.

Better word, Okay, if I got it properly repaired, like a whole new quarter panel and all that, would they then yeah, maybe cover it?

Yeah, absolutely they would because because once it's back to being all repaired, it's in the exact state that they insured it in the first place. And as soon as you actually had a covered event, that insurance policy would kick in and then they would have to do what they have to do.

So yeah, perfect, thank you appreciate it.

You bet. So, we still have half of Dimitri's question over here, and we were just getting into the the uninsured motors side of the game in the limited time that we have left, and we're gonna have to go

From the main overwriting perspective that I learned from John over the month. I want to insure myself, right, I want to buy insurance from me.

Right, And that's what you should do exactly. All right, We're going to address that question right as soon as we come back.

Go with a sure thing Denver's Best roofer Excel Roofing dot com. You don't pay a cent until you're content. Time for an insurance checkup. No obligation comparison call Compass insurance paying too much your coverage at dozens of insurance companies find out now three all three seven to seven to one help. You'll think you're his only customer when you choose Frank durand the real estate Man dot com to list your home with Remax Alliance three all three nine two zero sixteen twenty two.

All right, all right, all right, welcome back to the Tom Martino Show, the Troubleshooter Network. This is John Fuller. We are wrapping up our day here. We've got just a few minutes and we wanted to end on a high note with Dan discussing, you know, umbrellas, and then particularly the ability to add a um writer to an umbrella and why a party may want to do that. So from your perspective as an agent, and give me your best shot, right.

So, an umbrella, just think of it as an umbrella. It sits over your underlying policies. Underlying policies actually require a certain amount of coverage already being written in them.

The umbrella is going to act essentially as a multiplier of whatever that underlying number is. So just on liability, just.

On liability, nothing else, and that includes the uninsured motorist. Some companies will do an endorsement for uninsured motorists on an umbrella, meaning what meaning that there's not a lot out there?

No meaning that an endorsement means, oh, I actually extend the um to the limits of the umbrella. Right.

So, now, in this situation, if you have the UM of two fifty five hundred, you have injuries exceeding over a million dollars. You can't mow your own lawn anymore. You need help, go to the bathroom. All that you need a lot more money. You can go back now into your own umbrella, trigger that endorsement, and then you can go after your own umbrella for that those funds that you need for.

Is that an addition to the auto policy or does that become the new limit? Okay?

In this case, it's going to become a new limit. The umbrella will multiply the rest, but the personal injury doesn't.

Usually, So I wouldn't collect one and a half million with a million dollar un brell policy. I would just collect the one million.

No, you would.

You would bet you would collect from different sources. So your underlying policy with a five hundred your umbrella, if you have the endorsetion, okay, another million, okay, so you still would get one point five.

Very cool, thank you. Yeah, so it's a it's a cool thing, it actually. I mean listen, umbrellas are only for liability. That's all they do is extend the liability. They don't protect you or your family for anything until you get into a claim that would trigger your uninsured motorist coverage. Okay. And if you have a traditional umbrella, what you'll find is that you have a in your

Unless I specifically bought the correct kind of umbrella. And what percentage of umbrella I didn't know about this until yesterday. So what percentage of umbrellas are there are actually.

Do what I wanted to do? Almost none?

Yeah, I can only think of two or three carriers that will even offer it. Oftentimes people don't want to buy it. I actually just did when I think this week, I think it added two hundred and sixty dollars to the policy to add the uninsured.

Are you saying almost none of it added automatically or none of them offer it period? A lot of carriers just won't even offer it. But you do still have those that do specialty lines and stuff, and then we can also go to specialty lines if a carrier doesn't. I mean, is that a type of coverage that you recommend for your customers? Yes, you know, insurance.

When you start talking about endorsements, you're starting to talk about percentages on percentages, risk upon risk.

And.

Yeah, at a certain point you can be over insured. So you know, if you're just worried about protecting assets, you've got enough assets you can take care of yourself. Something horrible did happen, maybe it's not a big deal to you. But for two hundred and sixty eight bucks and you have all those assets, yeah, you can afford it.

So why not? Well, I you know, I look at it from a little different perspective because I'm representing people that that all of a sudden, through no fault of their own, are are handed this bill of goods. Okay, and that bill of goods may include a lifetime of medical care. It may which maybe they have great health insurance for, but that's really difficult to parlay out into a lifetime of care. Typically people end up on public assistance at some point in that process, Medicare, Medicaid through