ND Chris:
Hello everybody, how are you doing today?
Mike Agruss:
Good. Thank you.
ND Chris:
Nice to having you here, with the top show today and the holiday season as will be coming, I just hope everybody doing great especially don’t get to any accident. Okay. Please say hello to your client and your new audiences.
Taylor Kosla:
Hi, I’m Taylor Kosla. I’m a partner at 844 See Mike. We handle consumer rights and personal injury cases.
Mike Agruss:
And I’m Mike Agruss. I’m the managing partner at 844 See Mike. Thanks for having us on today.
ND Chris:
Sure. We are very happy to have two lawyers today at the president of VSAM1040, Mr. Frankie Van, please say hello to your audience at your customer.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:00:59] Taylor and Mike and ND.
ND Chris:
Yes, let’s talk about the law today because again this is a law talk show. So we need to know a lot of detail in the car accident. And we’ve been discussing so many times weeks before, right? And we are very happy we receive quite a lot of emails and comments and questions about, okay, when someone they get in for, into the car accident, it’s very important, okay.
We should know what should we claim? And what should, who should we talk to, right? And today is there’s a few questions relate to your 844 See Mike. A lot of people, they question, why should someone to hire 844 See Mike for their personal injury?
Mike Agruss:
Good question.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:02:05]. You can go ahead and explain.
Mike Agruss:
Sure. So I’m going to give you an overview as to why people should hire our firm to handle their personal injury case. First, this is what we specialize in. This is what we do all day long. So we’ve helped out thousands of people with their personal injury cases we’ve been handling in these cases for 17 years, I have always done plaintiff’s work minus a short period of time.
I did insurance defense work on the other side. And so that gives me a good perspective on how insurance companies think and how they evaluate these cases. So in short, I know how the other side thinks and that triggers faster settlements and higher settlements.
And then I’d say the last main reason why people would want to hire our firm is we handle cases start to finish. We are not afraid to take cases to trial as much as we like settling cases early on. We also know how to litigate and go to trial and not all plaintiffs, personal injury firms do that.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:03:27].
ND Chris:
Yes. Thank you very much for your answer. Please expand very deeply and people they would understand. Okay. Why would they be hiring 844 See Mike, right? The second question is how does 844 See Mike investigate a car accident?
Taylor Kosla:
Absolutely. So the first thing that we do is we get a copy of the police report and the police report contains a lot of information. There’s actually codes all over the police report and we can look it up to get more information about the accident. What was the weather like? What was the traffic conditions? What sort of roadway was it? That’s always stuck on.
However, there’s a lot more information that we would like to obtain for an accident. So we do, what’s called a freedom of information request and that’ll get us any photos, videos that of the incident. We did it recently in a case where we had a client come to us, he was on a bike at 2:30 in the morning, coming home from work he’s in the restaurant industry in downtown Chicago. And he was hit by a cab.
It was a hit and run situation. So he comes to us, he’s really injured surgery. And he is like, I don’t know who hit me. So we were able to obtain video footage of the cab and we could actually see the cab going and had a passenger in it, drop someone off, and then return to the intersection, which is when he hit our client.
So we’re able to identify who the cab belonged to, and we’ll be able to track down the driver that way, after those two steps, we’ll we can contact a private investigator. We can send them to scenes of the accidents, take measurements and just do a little more on the groundwork that we don’t get from the police report and the foyer request.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:07:00].
Mike Agruss:
And Frankie, I want to add to what Taylor was saying. And I think something that viewers would want to know as well. We act on this investigation sometimes the same day or within 24 hours. So it’s important for people who are involved in a car accident to contact us right away, we can order the police report and get it within a matter of an hour. And then the moment we get that police report, we can start doing our investigation.
For example, looking at the intersection to determine if there’s cameras and if there’s cameras, we can then send, for example, the Chicago police department, a letter saying preserve that evidence. And so we act so fast in the beginning because witnesses disappear, evidence disappears. And so for the viewers, if you’re involved in an accident, it’s really important to contact us right away. So we can start that investigation.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:09:05]. This is the question outside of what he’s trying to ask based on our experience, the investigation, I know that we have a case that we just take it down earlier, not too long ago, within the month, some of the evidence can prove even on the police report could be put our client potentially at fault.
But we can be able to get the evidence enough to overturn that, that is something that’s what you want to explain to the audience. That’s what you try to say?
Mike Agruss:
Sure. And that’s also another reason why contacting us right away, so we can do that investigation because oftentimes police often, not oftentimes, they’re busy, they’ve got a lot of work to do. And sometimes for example, there may be a language barrier, car accident. And sometimes the officer may show up and things look one way, but it actually happened the other way.
And so we know how to analyze the report. Everything comes in different codes and numbers. We know how to translate that information. And then we also want to do our own investigation because it’s important for people to know, the cops aren’t there at the scene of the accident. They’re there afterward. They look at the scene, they investigate it, talk to a few people and they write up their report.
And sometimes that report isn’t right. And that’s why it’s important to let us do this investigation and I can give you, and I think we’ve been on the show and talked about this, and it’s a real clear example, how police reports can be wrong. We represent a guy who was on his motorcycle and he was driving in Chicago, on Milwaukee avenue that runs at an angle.
And there was a car on a side street that had a stop sign, didn’t see the motorcyclist and pulls out and hits our guy. The police report comes back and our guy is a hundred percent not at fault, but the report comes back saying the motorcycle was driving too fast for the conditions. And he was listed at fault. And we did our investigation and realized our guy does not have a stop sign.
The person who pulled and hit him did. And so it’s stuff like that. That allows us. We’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands of police reports to do that investigation. And so someone, the motorcyclist may think I’m not going to hire a lawyer. I’m at fault. I got a ticket. And in reality, that’s not the case.
ND Chris:
Well, thank you very much about your detail explanation because a lot of people they don’t know what to do and they don’t basically they have no, how to deal with a car accident. And especially when you come to okay, the police report and then something missing there or, and a lot of question, they have no clue how to resolve.
That’s why, okay. They need to call the law firm, right? That’s when you really do need a lawyer to protect for your case, right? Another question. Okay. They request, they want to know, okay. How those 844 See Mike, help people from recovery, from their injury?
Mike Agruss:
Right. So in addition, this sort of builds on what Taylor was saying. So we conduct this investigation immediately to figure out what happened. And then the next thing we do, which I think is just as important as this investigation is making sure our clients get better, right? That’s, you’re in a car accident, you’re injured and whether you get a settlement or not, the idea is to get better.
And I’ve learned over the years that oftentimes people don’t have doctors, they don’t know where to go. They don’t know where to get treatment, or they can a doctor and they know what to do, and they can’t get in for weeks. So what Taylor and I have done over the years is developed this network of relationships with doctors.
So whether it’s an orthopedic physician, a physical therapist, a pain management doctor, whoever it may be, we have this network that gets our clients in right away. And that is so important for two reasons. One to get better, right? Yes-
ND Chris:
Of course. [crosstalk 00:13:59].
Mike Agruss:
That’s the ultimate goal. To get better. And then two, treatment right away is so important when you’re settling with the insurance companies, because if you’re not getting treatment, the insurance company doesn’t think you’re injured and if you’re not injured, it’s going to of affect your settlement. So we have a great network.
I’m saying we can reach out to our network today and get someone into an appointment tomorrow. We’ve even been able to get people in the same day. And these are top doctors. These are orthopedic physicians, physical therapists, pain management, doctors, and it’s good. It really helps our clients out.
And once again, I think that sets us apart from tons of other lawyers in the sense that we have this network, it hasn’t been easy to develop.
ND Chris:
Right.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:14:47].
ND Chris:
Yes. We have another question related to a case. So how does a 844 See Mike view a case?
Taylor Kosla:
So we’ve touched on the first two important steps, the investigation, the police report and treatment. We have a really hands on approach. So we’re going to jump on getting the investigation started and getting you treatment right away. We will be there along with you, the whole road to recovery, staying on top of you, your appointments, making sure if you need to see another doctor, pain management doctor, orthopedic surgeon, to make sure that there’s not a gap in any of your treatment.
And then once you’re finished with all your treatment, that’s when we can order a complete set of all the medical records and bills and review it to really see the extent of your injuries, what kind of pain and suffering we can ask for. We’ll also reach out to your employer to complete a wage loss verification form.
So if you were out of work for a week, maybe a month or two, because of the injuries you sustained, we’ll have your employer verify that you missed work on these dates, these weeks, and that’s something you should also be compensated for. So what we’re doing is we’re getting as much information as we can about you, your injuries, your losses.
And then we prepare a medical summary to send to the insurance company with the settlement demand. And if they give us a favorable offer, then we can negotiate back and forth. Or if it’s a really low offer, then we just make the decision know whether it’s to file the case or not.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:17:51].
ND Chris:
Yes. Thank you very much for your answer. It’s really helpful. Okay. And even me I have been interviews so many shows, but a lot of things I don’t know, until today I understand very clearly about, okay, the case, how you build a case and also okay. How you deal with the insurance and the police report, right?
All information is very necessary for people who get involved into an accident. So they must know about it. And today I understand very clearly 844 See Mike can help a lot of people and you try to resolve the issues immediately quick as possible way, after we have a few interviews before and I receive another call and they try to ask me about, okay, the compensation they were looking for the money.
That’s something, people they think, okay, they should have a good compensation because they got a good insurance. Okay. But the question is, how do 844 See Mike get a top settlement and how do you negotiate with the insurance company?
Mike Agruss:
Sure. So I can answer this sort of two parts. We, and when I say we at the office, it’s because this is so important to me. We are hyper organized. And we’re also very competitive. And I think that those are two things that really set us apart and get us top settlements. In addition to top settlements, we get our clients settlements fast.
And let me give you an example. This year, we rolled out new law firm software called Litify. It is the best in the business. And I’m not just saying that because we have it, because for the nine and a half years, before that we did not have the best in the business. We had one of their competitors. We have Litify software that’s incredible.
And the reason this is important is technology is everything. It keeps us organized. So all of these things that Taylor and I are talking about from opening up a case, ordering the police report, getting statements, I could list out 50 different things that we do and we make it sound easy. Litify organizes all of this. So we have, we’re a paperless office, right?
So we have this web-based platform that keeps everyone organized. It assigns events to everyone in the office and it’s totally transparent. So anyone can call our office at any given time. We can look up a file and we can see exactly what’s going on. What stage it’s at, is the client still receiving treatment. And it keeps everyone organized and it keeps things very efficient.
And that’s important because we’re able to monitor treatment. We’re able to order records and bills and we get everything done quickly. And then we keep track of what we’re doing. So when we settle cases, it gets entered into our system. And then we can refer back to that to see what cases should be worth. So in addition to being, hyper-organized, I’m super competitive. Taylor’s super competitive.
And that competition, we know what we want for our clients and we go for it. And then I’d say, lastly, I really think the people at our office really care about what they’re doing. They enjoy what they’re doing. And Taylor and I have our pulse on every single thing related to personal injury. I was messaging her last night at 9:45 at night about a big verdict that came down yesterday.
Because I want to share that with her in a trucking case, because I want her to know that was the result. And then the next trucking case we work on that could be a reference that we refer to. So we make this look easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. But honestly, behind the scenes, we’re, hyper-organized, we’re competitive. And we keep our finger on the pulse of everything that’s going on personal injury related.
ND Chris:
I like a hyper-organizers.
Taylor Kosla:
We’re actually so organized. We had a deposition at our office before COVID and the attorney represented the defendant, saw how organized and cleaned the office was. And he’s like, where are your piles of paper? That’s most law firms, you walk into their offices and there’s just piles of paper from the ground up. I’m sure you’ve seen, we don’t have that. Hyper-organized everything’s online on the computer. It’s great.
Frankie Van:
Thank you for the IT. [foreign language 00:24:23]. The way it is because the program can be able to organize and evaluate for us based on the previous case that we have, the information is that the system can be allowed you to do that as well?
Mike Agruss:
So actually the system is built on Salesforce and I feel like I’m selling the product right now. When I say that, so our firm’s been around this March for 10 years, financially this is the biggest investment we’ve made in 10 years. So I’m-
Frankie Van:
It costs a lot of money?
Mike Agruss:
A fortune.
Frankie Van:
Wow. How much is [crosstalk 00:27:13]?
Mike Agruss:
So we rolled it out in the spring of this year and I would say between licensing, we had to hire a company to roll it out. And then our IT guy who’s incredible, Josh has turned into our Litify admin. I’d say we’ve been at it now for about six months and we’re probably 75 grand invested into it. And this is no joke, right? So you are correct.
And what the beauty of it is, you enter all of this data and it is built on Salesforce and it will tell you what your numbers are. So it will tell you how many cases you have, how many are open, how many are closed, what they settled for, what the client got, what the firm got, what the damages were? And then you can look, we’ve only been doing it for six months.
So it takes a little bit of time to build data, just like anything else, but starting next year, we can look back on this year and see where we’re at numbers wise, how many people were able to handle, what our settlements were? We can keep track of the different insurance companies. We can keep track of injuries and treatment. And you plug in all of this information and it’s program to provide your data.
Frankie Van:
And then the program, will do everything for you. You don’t need experience no more. Right. [foreign language 00:29:07] I’m talking about if the system can do analyzed and everything like that, the anybody can do it. You don’t need the attorney.
Mike Agruss:
Totally. So here’s what’s interesting is the other side has this, right?
Frankie Van:
Yes. They have it. Absolutely. They have it.
Mike Agruss:
They have it. So I think state farm or will say some insurance company has a program I called, I think it’s, I believe it’s called colossus. So anyway, the other side has it, there are very few plaintiff’s lawyers who have Litify or something equivalent, and it really gives us an advantage. Once again, from an organizational perspective, from an information perspective, from a data perspective, it makes us very cutting edge.
Which that benefit gets passed on to our client. And there’s one other thing I want to add and Taylor and I joke about this at the office all the time. So how we get top settlements to negotiate with insurance companies, as you can see from the show, we’re like this at the office, we’re pretty easy to deal with lawyers.
And most people don’t like lawyers, right? We’re pretty easy to work with. I will say if the offer on the other side is reasonable, we accept. Everything’s good. We’re very easy to work with. When we decide to dig in and litigate a case, when we don’t think the other side is being fair. And I can think of a couple clients off hand who we’re working with from this show, we file, we litigate and we’re fierce.
We’re always professional, but we have a joke around the office when someone’s being fierce, they say, oh, you’re acting like a tiger, but we do have it. So, and that also gives us, it gives our clients an advantage because if something’s not very reasonable, we will fight tooth the nail to get there for our clients.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:31:35]. Now it come to another question I want to ask you, what is the reasonable settlement? How do you evaluate? And you think that is reasonable based on what information you think that’s going to be reasonable.
Taylor Kosla:
So I think the most important information is your medical records and bills because they really tell a story of your injuries and your treatment. There’s an assumption that the more treatment that someone has, the more injured that they were, so they’ll be able to tell whether you were injured and seeking treatment for a one month, two months, three months, or whether this was four surgeries that you had over the course of a year.
So that is most important and that’s why we really stress our clients get treatment right away. If you’re injured, get treatment and stick to the treatment, listen to your doctors, do what they tell you to do. I think that’s the most important piece. And then I mentioned lost wages. If you maybe have a white collar job and you make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and you couldn’t travel for work and had to take off weeks.
That’s all things that we can add to your demand. And that adds value to your case, and then of course there’s other things like pain and suffering that, but really the most important thing is those medical records.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:33:29]. Yes, you explained that based on the medical information, based on the time of the treatment, based on the loss, if they have any loss regarding the loss of income and everything like that. So we combine all that to evaluate the case and make a demand and get the reasonable settlement, right?
Taylor Kosla:
Right.
Frankie Van:
But the reasonable is, but sometime we happen to the problem, depending on the other part of the insurance, the case could be a million dollar worth you because you have two surgery and all that stuff, but then the other part you don’t have enough insurance. So what should we do about that? [foreign language 00:35:56].
Mike Agruss:
So what should we do about not having enough insurance and bad insurance?
Frankie Van:
That’s correct.
Mike Agruss:
This is-
Frankie Van:
You see what I’m saying, is all of time, because not all the insurance have all the money for you to get, right? Sometimes you get the limit, you can be hurt, broken leg or broken arm or anything like that. But the other party don’t have insurance on that situation. What should we do?
Mike Agruss:
I feel this is, when we’re on the show, we’re always talking about this. And I feel it’s a public service announcement where I promise if people are watching the show and you learn one thing, the one thing you should do call your insurance and maximize your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.
It is, we’re talking it’s dollars a month, maybe five bucks a month, 10 bucks a month. And it prevents you from being in a situation, if someone doesn’t have insurance or they don’t have enough insurance. So there’s a big misconception that people think, oh, my auto insurance is, if I hit you and then you can sue me. No, your auto insurance, it protects yourself.
So I have, and not all insurance companies have this option. I have a million dollars of uninsured, underinsured motorist coverage. And the reason being is if someone hits me and they’re at fault and they have no insurance or 25,000, which is the minimum, I can then go after USAA, which is a good insurance company.
They pay well, I can go after my own insurance and say, hey, this guy, who hit me has no insurance. He has minimum and then I sue my own insurance company for that money. So I feel like this is my calling in life. It’s to get everyone to call their insurance company, please and say, I want to maximize my auto insurance coverage.
And you don’t have to get a million bucks. A lot of companies don’t offer that, but even like 250, 300, 500, the different in that and a $25,000 policy might be 10 bucks a month. And we see this all day long at the office. We see people with massive injuries, million dollar cases. And there’s a $25,000 policy.
Taylor, just settled the case, and literally the check came in two days ago, our client is a minor. He was on his bike in the loop downtown on Michigan avenue. And he was hit by someone else, hospitalized, fractures to his skull. He’s lucky to be alive. It is at least a million dollar case, and what do you think the other side’s insurance is?
Frankie Van:
2550. Yes.
Mike Agruss:
And then what do you think this kid’s dad’s policy is 25. So literally he’s getting $25,000 because they didn’t maximize their insurance and it’s the family’s upset and it’s really sad. And it literally five or 10 bucks a month to do.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:39:18]. I just mentioned you have a million dollar policy and you don’t wish anybody hurt you, but if they do, they will pay big time, right?
Mike Agruss:
USAA will pay me big time.
Frankie Van:
How do you be able to get a USAA? You have a military member in your family?
Mike Agruss:
My father.
Frankie Van:
Okay.
Mike Agruss:
My dad-
Frankie Van:
Not everybody can get a USAA, because that’s a military insurance?
Mike Agruss:
Correct. My father was, he’s a retired cardiologist and he was a medic. And I’m fortunate enough, I got it from him.
Frankie Van:
So as long you have a family member in the military, and then you can be able to buy it from them.
Mike Agruss:
Correct. But so even setting that aside, we could talk about umbrellas or there’s umbrella policies. So for example, state farm, Allstate progressive, most of these insurance companies have what’s called an umbrella policy where it’s a separate policy.
You could get a million dollar coverage, and then you just need to make sure that when you get that umbrella policy, that it covers you in a situation like a car accident. If someone doesn’t have insurance or doesn’t have enough. And it’s just a matter of asking that umbrella carrier, hey, I want to be covered in case someone injures me and they don’t have insurance.
Frankie Van:
It’s umbrella is both way for somebody suing you, or somebody you and umbrella is that including in there. I thought they, I do have the umbrella, but I didn’t have to look in again. So the umbrella is sometime you buying it for, to protect you and your asset if somebody go after your asset or yourself. So then the umbrella will pay for the plaintiff, but umbrella, they have a umbrella.
Mike Agruss:
So certain umbrella policies will also have a UM UIM coverage. So for example, if you have a million dollar umbrella to cover assets, and a lot of people have a million dollar umbrellas are common. And if you’re in a car here in Chicago and the guy who hits you has no insurance, or a $25,000 policy, you could then reach out to your own carrier and say, hey, I’m hurt this guy doesn’t have insurance.
I want to submit a claim to be on, to your own carrier. There is a distinction though not all umbrella policies cover that UM UIM coverage, you just need to ask. So if I got you to call after the show, your carrier, it looks, I’ve got one person, right? Now, we need to get the rest of the viewers call their-
Frankie Van:
But do I understand the umbrella, not everybody can, everybody can get the umbrella, but I know for sure, you have to buy a maximum policy available to you. Not like you buy 100, 300, but when the maximum is 500, you have to buy the maximum. And then after that, you can buy umbrella. You don’t buy, you cannot buy a hundred thousand dollars policy and buy the umbrella. They don’t give it to you.
You have to buy a maximum first. And then you can add on the umbrella, but umbrella is very cheap. I think we pay it for 600 a year. So it’s not that bad, but because you have the insurance already on the regular car insurance cover up to that amount, rarely, anything beyond that. And then it could be, you might never use an umbrella.
Taylor Kosla:
So that’s only another $50 a month, that’s what we’re saying. And that’s for an umbrella. Just to maximize the coverage available without the umbrella is less than that. So it’s really important for the viewers to maximize their insurance coverage.
Frankie Van:
Correct. [foreign language 00:44:33].
ND Chris:
Yes. Thank you so much. Those information is very important for one who own the insurance, and they supposed to understand, and if they wanted to full cover for their injuries and they had to maximize the insurance policy, right? That’s a good thing. Again, I have a very good comment about the hyper organizer.
Okay. That’s something new today. I just learned, okay, this is very good. I need to look at this. We don’t have much time right now, but we have still, we still have a few more minutes. This is the last question. And this question is I, they concerned about, 844 See Mike, how are the attorney of 844 See Mike different than other 1.3 billion lawyer inside the country?
Taylor Kosla:
Well, let Mike, take this one.
Mike Agruss:
So this is, this is a good question. And so here’s the short answer. You don’t have to believe anything I say, you don’t have to believe anything Taylor says, please go online, Google the firm, you will see our reviews. You’ll see our Yelp reviews. You’ll see our Google reviews. You’ll see the service we use BirdEye to manage other reviews.
We have over 1500, five star reviews. Every single client that comes through the door cases, we work on cases. We settle, I’m actively involved in, and I’m always at the end concerned about how is the experience and look, we’re not perfect, right? And when we do get feed back at the end, that’s not a five star.
I call people and I say, what could we have done better? I’m always trying to improve things at the firm. So we stand out by our reviews. We stand out because we are tech savvy and we’re using a law firm software Litify that very few people in the country let alone state are using.
And we also have a different approach at our office where I tell people all the time, if you look at other personal injury websites, law firms, websites, when you go on the landing page, it’s always the lawyers on the front and it’s all about them and their awards and their accolades. And we have this people for approach where it’s, it’s literally, it’s all about our clients.
So we treat people like friends, neighbors, family, and, and it’s not just talk I was Taylor and I were just talking right before the show. And I was asking her about a case that we just settled for a woman who had an issue with her car. And it turns out Taylor was neighbors with her in Wisconsin at a summer home for a long time.
And we ended up helping this woman out free of charge with this issue. And so that’s what I’m talking about, whether we’re working on a big personal injury case, whether we’re helping out a neighbor, we look at these cases differently. We do a people first approach. We’re in one of the most competitive markets in the country, personal injury in Chicago.
And so I know that we need to be better than every single law firm out there to get this type of business. So we’re super concerned with our clients. We’re concerned about the experience, getting them good results, getting them fast results. We’re super fast at the office. And like I said, take a look online, you’ll see our reviews.
I think you would be very hard pressed to find other personal injury. I say, personal injury, other lawyers in the country who have this level of reviews. This is once again, people don’t really like lawyers and we’re really trying to change that up and disrupt that because we want it’s a bad situation when you have to hire a lawyer and we’re trying to change that experience and do things totally differently.
And I think we’ve done it, Taylor. Look, we work on this every single day. So it’s not easy once again.
Frankie Van:
[foreign language 00:50:04].
ND Chris:
Yes. Again, one more time. We do appreciate your time and thank you so very much for explanation. And then for guiding and your experience and being, working so hard for getting your customer our journey later and general, before we say goodbye, please say goodbye to the audience.
Taylor Kosla:
Thank you so much for having us once again. And we look forward to coming back, and teaching more about car accidents and what you should do if you’ve been in the car accident and how we can help.
Mike Agruss:
Thanks for having us on Frankie, it’s always good to see you.
Frankie Van:
Yes. Good to see you guys too.
ND Chris:
All right. And before we say goodbye, we wish you all happy and be safe on the holidays season coming.
