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Insurance professionals can use their experience to help resolve disputes-and earn extra cash.
The industry contains a small group of well-known insurance people who occasionally slip out of their normal roles and serve as expert witnesses in all types of insurance arbitration and litigation.
In the late 1950s, CBS network aired a series named "Have Gun Will Travel," in which the hero, played by the actor Richard Boone and named Paladin, rents himself out to settle disputes as a 19th-century mercenary.
This is the mentality that goes along with the insurance savvy needed to be classified as an "expert witness." The only difference between Paladin and today's expert witnesses is that he often rejected compensation in order to take on just causes. The tendency today is for the "best gun" to go to the "best buck."
Undoubtedly insurance-whether property, casualty, annuity or life-is a complicated subject dominated by precedence, procedure and contract. The kaleidoscope of covered risks, combined with a special brand of jargon and complicated contractual provisions, make it virtually impossible for any layperson, no matter how well intended, educated or intelligent, to make a reasonable judgment when insurance disputes escalate to the level of litigation.
So, before lawyers, judges and juries can render a judgment in a conflict, they must rely on experts to translate and explain the issues. The job of an expert witness is to put in plain words not only what the complicated issues of a dispute are, but also more importantly what they mean. As a result, these experts exert a significant impact on the direction and results of insurance litigation. There is nothing wrong with the concept of calling on expert witnesses to lend their knowledge to the resolution of complicated disputes. No one argues with the logic of seeking expert guidance in areas where we possess little experience and understanding. But problems can and do occur when each side brings in their own "dueling expert witness" in order to win the day.
Shades of Paladin
A few years ago, two companies were involved in an agent dispute and one retained me as an expert witness. With decades of industry experience ranging from agent to head of an agency company, I seemed well qualified to apply my...