Q: Personal injury claim settlement question. On the injury portion of my claim, insurer doesn't want to pay me one amount.

A: If there is no lien, I have never heard of an insurance company insisting on paying the medical bills and the pain and suffering separately. In fact, one would think the insurance company would not want deal with the hassle of paying individual medical care providers. Simply issuing one check to you would seemingly be the preferred method.

You are free to file a lawsuit. My suspicion is once suit is filed and defense counsel his hired, the insurance company will back off its insistence of splitting the payments and instead will issue you one check. I think going all the way to a trial is unlikely. But if the case were to go to a trial and you won a judgment in your favor, the insurance company would have no choice but to issue one check to satisfy the judgment.

A: It sounds like State Farm would like to exercise control over the payment to medical providers. Their practice of doing things this way COULD be over concerns that some claimants might negotiate with medical providers to reduce their bills - and if a doctor feels shortchanged, they'd pursue State Farm. That's only a general guess. You could discuss with attorneys the lawsuit you mention. However, you might not win a judgement if the court agrees with State Farm's reasons for doing things this way. As a large insurance company, their practices are reviewed by their legal department. They don't usually do things wrong - State Farm and other such companies take safeguards not to be challenged in court about their standard operating procedures. Good luck