It’s a sad reality that many injured workers in Illinois find themselves in a desperate financial situation after a job injury. If you were living pay check to pay check before, what are you going to do if you get hurt and an insurance company is refusing to pay your deserved benefits? We are extremely sympathetic to our clients in those situations and do whatever we can to move their cases as fast as possible without jeopardizing our chances for success.
But the reality is that if a real dispute exists, an insurance company can bleed you dry by delaying a case with an appeal. You may be on the right side of the argument, but that doesn’t mean a case can’t be delayed a year or two. So you may win in the end, but lose because of the delay and how it harms your life.
Some clients ask us about these companies that provide cash advances against eventual wins. Basically it’s legalized loan sharking. They give you some money and charge you an insane interest rate. You only pay them back if you win, but they only give you a loan if the win is guaranteed to happen some day.
What’s crazy is the amount that they will ask to be paid back. I was talking with a Chicago medical malpractice lawyer about this the other day because a mutual client of ours had received a $78,000 loan advance from one of these places. The case was ready to settle and they were claiming that he now had to pay them $800,000 to pay back the loan. That’s more than 10 times what they gave him less than three years ago!!! That is crazy.
There ought to a be a law against this type of stuff. For our clients or anyone who asks my opinion, our advice is not to get one of these loans unless you have absolutely no other options and are as desperate as you can be. Even then we tell you to get the bare minimum and negotiate the terms of the loan down as much as you can. If you are being offered a $25,000 loan, instead just take $5,000 and go back to them if that money runs out.
Beyond that, make sure your attorney is doing everything possible to get your case ready for trial. Illinois work comp cases can take a while, but that shouldn’t stop your law firm from moving as fast as possible. If the insurance company is going to lose and appeal, we would rather that happen now instead of six months from now. Press your attorney for updates about when you can get an actual trial. Once they have all of your medical records and depose your doctor (and the one for the insurance company) 95% of cases should be ready to go. And when a case is disputed and an injured worker is not getting paid, the law is that via a 19b motion you should jump to the front of the line of the people that want to get a trial.
We are workers’ compensation attorneys who help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.