This is a bit of a personal post, but given the conflict of ideology and reality I’m feeling, LGF seemed the perfect place to express it.

3 days ago, I got hit by a big pickup truck while cycling. Fortunately for me, I didn’t break anything, the police got their insurance information for me (I was writhing on the ground in pain and shock at the time), and unless the orthopedist gives me bad news about my shoulder next week, my sundry bumps and bruises will be healed hopefully inside of a week or so.

Now, in my ideal world, the insurance company would, without fuss, pay for my doctor’s appointments, the damage to my bike, my lost wages, my prescriptions, etc… basically making this as though, financially, this accident never happened to me. I’m very against the abuse of “pain and suffering”, because accidents like this shouldn’t be like winning the lottery for the victims, and it shouldn’t be a monetary open season on those who were at fault. And yes, I even believe this as a victim.

However, this is the real world. Being a for-profit insurance company, it’s in their best interest to try and give me the shaft and pay me as little as possible, not make sure that I, someone who isn’t even their customer, is well taken care of and that this accident doesn’t affect me financially.

So, this is the conundrum: Will this be a cooperative experience where I and the insurance company get along just great with mutual understanding of each other’s situations as it would in my ideological mind, or will this be a bloody financial battle where I’m forced to fight for as much as possible while they fight for as little as they can get away with in the hopes that the compromise that is mediated by lawyers is enough to pay for the things that I previously mentioned that I need covered?

Obviously this is the internet, so this isn’t so much a serious request for legal help as it is a means to vent, discuss, share, and possibly re-shape my views and positions on something that I haven’t had to experience before. If anyone has any related stories of them going through something similar that they’d like to share, I welcome it, and I hope that my documentation of my own experience will help others in the future.