A fatal commercial truck accident is almost always devastating for the families of the victims. There’s obviously a huge emotional toll involved in such a loss, but in a practical sense there may be serious financial burdens as well. For example, funerals for the victims can place some families in a difficult position. One of the most common questions families ask us is: Are trucking companies required to pay funeral expenses following a fatal truck accident?
Answer: Generally speaking, absent a jury verdict, trucking companies are not required to pay for funeral expenses following a fatal truck accident.
Some might think that if a trucking company’s negligent employee caused a fatal accident, the company would cover the victim’s funeral expenses as a matter of course. However, as we’ll cover in this article, that’s not generally the case. First, let’s talk about how the company’s insurance typically works.
Overview of Fault-Based Insurance
There are plenty of different insurance products one might buy—health insurance for your pet, home owner’s insurance, flood insurance, etc.—but most insurance policies can be grouped into two broad categories: no-fault insurance and fault-based insurance.
The main difference between the two is that with no-fault insurance coverage, payouts are based on eligibility and/or a contractual agreement, not based on a court verdict. A good example of that is life insurance: Barring a few exceptions centered around fraud and suicide, a life insurance carrier must pay the beneficiaries named on the policy if the policyholder died, because a written contract says they have to. There is no consideration of who’s at fault; the policy is simply paid because its terms have been met (i.e. the purchaser of the policy died under circumstances covered by the policy).
Other examples of no-fault coverage would include things like unemployment insurance, disability and dismemberment insurance, health insurance, or workers’ comp coverage. None of those policies need a court or jury to evaluate the circumstances and decide what should happen next—the insurer just pays because their contract (or a statute) says they must. While all of these no-fault insurance plans have their own catches and caveats that might prevent payment, the bottom line is that they’re a part of a system designed to fast-track compensation, and they’re based on the default assumption that a payment will, in all likelihood, occur.
The exact opposite is true of fault-based insurance. Fault-based insurance (otherwise known as casualty insurance, at-fault coverage, liability coverage, etc.) is rooted in the adversarial court system. This coverage is not a promise to pay whoever files a claim; rather, it’s there as a backup plan in case the policyholder is found liable for damages caused by their (or their employee’s) negligence in a court of law or they accept liability in a settlement negotiation.
Think of it this way: Imagine you could pay someone $500 a month to form an agreement that if you ever get arrested for a crime, they’d go serve your jail sentence for you. In essence, you’d be paying them to pay for your crime. Well, if such a scheme was allowed by law, you can bet that person would work hard to keep you out of jail. If the crime you’re accused of is serious enough and he’s looking at major jail time, your jail surrogate might even hire an attorney to defend you. But what is certainly true is that your $500-a-month jail stand-in would benefit from the fact that he only has to pay for your sins if a jury finds you guilty. And, at a minimum, he’s protected by the fact that you are innocent unless proven guilty.
That’s exactly how an 18-wheeler’s liability insurance works. If a trucker is found guilty of negligence in a court of law, the insurance carrier that he (or his employer) pays every month has in place an agreement with him that they will pay for the damages his careless actions have caused. But they have zero obligation to do so absent a jury telling them that they must. So, the answer to the question of, “Why don’t trucking companies whose drivers cause an accident automatically have to pay for funeral expenses?” is simply that they have no legal obligation to do so until the matter has been adjudicated (heard by a court and jury and a decision rendered). Are there some trucking company insurers who are willing to pay for things even though they have no obligation to do so? Sure, anything’s possible. Is that typical? Not at all.
The bottom line here is that the notion that an insurance carrier must pay for funeral expenses or anything else is wrong; there is no legal basis for this myth. The insurance carrier’s liability only becomes real when a jury says that it is real or when a lawyer convinces them that it will inevitably become real at mediation. Treating any aspect of a truck accident case as if the bad guys are obligated to do anything is a bad strategy because it misinterprets the most basic underlying concept of personal injury and wrongful death law.
What to Expect from the Insurance Company
As opposed to regular car accident lawsuits that typically deal with much smaller dollar amounts, trucking companies are required by federal and state laws to carry major insurance policies that can be worth millions. Since the insurance company is responsible for paying those millions if the policyholder is found liable, it’s quite willing to fight tooth and nail to defend its client. In both injury and fatality truck accident cases, you can expect them to bitterly dispute any claims that would cost them and their clients dearly. The main two ways you’ll see such resistance in these cases are:
- Arguing about fault: The trucking company has a lot to lose, so you’d better believe they’ll put up a fight to avoid or shift the liability for a crash. If they can transfer blame onto another party or to no one in particular by blaming you, a mystery car, road and weather conditions, or a dozen other scapegoats, that could potentially save them a lot of money.
- Attacking the character of your deceased loved one and/or your family: All too often, we see trucking companies try to dig up dirt on the victim or their family members. They hope that if the jury thinks the victim is a bad person, or the beneficiaries of the case aren’t nice people, they won’t want to award as much money.
The reason trucking companies often employ this ugly tactic is because the value of a wrongful death case is tied to the suffering that the surviving family members feel. If they can paint a picture of a sour relationship between the deceased and their relatives, then some juries might conclude that the family isn’t that torn up about losing someone who they clearly didn’t care for that much.
Our job as attorneys is to prevent the defense from muddying the waters with arguments like the ones above. By knowing what to expect from insurance carriers and how to keep them from damaging your case, we’ve successfully overcome their attempts to evade responsibility hundreds of times.
Funeral Expenses Are Just One Part of a Larger Battle
What all of this means for you and your family is that “who pays for the funeral” gets caught up in the larger dispute about whether or not the trucking company or its insurer should pay anything at all. Simply put, if you want to recover funeral expenses you must first win your case against the trucking company. That means you and you family find yourself in a situation that will only be resolved by a full-fledged lawsuit.
When we talk to clients, it’s common for them to want funeral expenses treated as a separate issue from the larger dispute. They often ask us, “Can’t they just agree to cover the funeral costs, while we deal with the rest of the dispute later?” Unfortunately, the answer to this question is almost always “no.” If they accept that they’re on the hook for funeral expenses, the insurer runs the risk of accepting liability for the entire range of damages their policyholder caused. Given the size of the policies, they are highly unwilling to do that.
To make matters worse, we’ve seen people who did not retain lawyers sabotage their cases through their desire to have funeral expenses covered. Here’s how it works: The victim’s family reaches out to the insurance company to get help with the funeral. Sensing an opportunity, the insurance company may to agree to help—but only if the family signs a document that says they received the money. Unbeknownst to the victims, what they’re signing is a liability release that effectively prevents them from taking further action against the trucking company and their insurer. In essence, the insurance company gets out of the case by only paying funeral expenses. Depending on how such a release was presented and written, it is sometimes possible to get a court to throw it out, but that’s not something you ever want to gamble with.
Grossman Law Offices Is on Your Side
Funeral and burial costs are usually among the first expenses families face, meaning they will be part of the damages a family who files suit will seek from the trucking company. Medical bills, loss of income, and other larger losses are all part of the same claim; it’s all tied together—which means the trucking company and its insurer will fight against helping with any of it. Recovering funeral expenses almost always means winning your whole case, and to do that you need someone with the experience and resources to help you do so.
The truck accident attorneys at Grossman Law Offices have a distinguished track record and decades of experience helping truck accident victims and their families. If you or a loved one were involved in a commercial truck accident, reach out to our attorneys any time for a free and confidential consultation.
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