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A “war” breaks out between CURE Auto Insurance and a Michigan accident attorney

Vaseline4 days ago

80 6 minutes read

Shortly after car accident attorney Steven Gursten wrote a critical blog post about the fast-growing CURE car insurance company earlier this year, he received a stern letter by certified mail from the insurance company’s own attorney.

“IMMEDIATELY REMOVE DEFAMATORY BLOG POST,” it said in bold, capital letters and underlined letters. “STOP ALL libel, slander and slander of healing car insurance.”

For Gursten, owner of Farmington Hills-based Michigan Auto Law and who has been blogging about driver safety and auto insurance issues on the law firm’s website for years, it was the first time an auto insurer responded to a message threatening a lawsuit.

He chose to ignore the request for his February 15 post, titled “Is Cure Auto Insurance Good in Michigan?”, and instead sent CURE a defiant letter.

In it, Gursten denied that his blog post contained anything defamatory. Some of the bolder statements, he wrote, such as how CURE “provides appalling advice to drivers to underinsure, personally exposing them to crushing medical bills,” were opinions protected by free speech or observations by attorneys of his firm who have done business with CURE.

Gursten wrote that if the insurance company responded to its legal threat, it would aggressively defend itself, including by issuing a statement from CURE’s CEO and erecting billboards near the insurer’s own billboards, advertising the company’s ‘victims’ would be asked to contact the insurance company. his law firm.

His letter also mentioned the “Streisand effect,” which refers to how actions taken to remove content from the Internet can sometimes backfire – by actually drawing more public attention to the content.

(The name is derived from how actress Barbra Streisand once sued to have an aerial photo of her home removed from an obscure website, but media reports of the lawsuit led to a wave of photo downloads.)

“Nobody likes bullies. Especially not me,” Gursten wrote. “If you choose to pursue this case and force me to defend myself, I will expose the shocking truth of what CURE did in Michigan.”

After Gursten sent the letter, there was silence for about six months, he said. Then, in late August, CURE filed the first of two defamation lawsuits against Gursten and his law firm. And Gursten would then take action on some of his threats, such as removing billboards.

The first lawsuit, in Wayne County Circuit Court, was recently dismissed. CURE filed a complaint in federal court to rebut what CURE says is Gursten’s “smear campaign” of “lies” aimed at driving the insurance company out of Michigan.

CURE says, according to its legal filings, that Gursten opposes the insurance company’s presence in the state because it will hurt his law firm’s bottom line. Law firms stand to lose money if CURE gives more drivers the ability to buy cheaper auto policies without traditional unlimited no-fault medical coverage.

A newcomer to the state, CURE arrived in Michigan in 2021 in the wake of the no-fault auto insurance renewal, which for the first time gave drivers a choice about medical coverage in their policy and introduced price controls on medical services.

Before the reform, all drivers in Michigan were required to purchase unlimited no-fault coverage, and it was easier for some law firms to turn a profit if they received a standard one-third cut on their clients’ medical benefits. Auto insurance premiums in Michigan were in many ways the most expensive in the country, especially in urban areas like Detroit.

When drivers save money by opting for a lower amount of no-fault medical care, known as personal injury protection, or “PIP,” it can ultimately drag down the profits of some accident law firms.

“Gursten has declared war on CURE,” CURE attorneys wrote in their latest lawsuit against Gursten and his law firm, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Detroit. “This is not an exaggeration, but rather a direct threat to CURE’s activities, in the words of Gursten himself.”

CURE is also one of the few auto insurers in Michigan that does not use a credit score-like metric known as an “insurance score” when setting rates for customers, which has contributed to the popularity of auto insurers in Detroit, where many drivers have less than perfect car insurance. credit and may be priced out of insurance sooner.

The insurer has promoted heavily in metro Detroit with billboard ads, TV spots and high-profile sponsorships with the Detroit Lions and Pistons. CEO Eric Poe has attended many news media interviews, often speaking out in favor of no-fault reform. The company says it insures more than 90,000 vehicles in Michigan and that 31% of its policies have a Detroit address.

CURE’s first defamation lawsuit, in late August, related to Gursten’s original blog post. About a month and a half later, Gursten launched his major counterattack.

He created a highly critical website about the insurance company – whenCUREwontpay.com – and placed a series of negative advertisements on electronic billboards to promote the website. The website includes a video in which Gursten warns about CURE and urges those with claims denied by CURE to fill out a form or call a number that connects to Michigan Auto Law.

The billboard ads feature a yellow smiley face in an apparent imitation of the blue smiley faces on CURE’s billboards. They tell motorists to visit the anti-CURE website and proclaim that “Cure Ins. is the 20th largest in MI, but 3rd in complaints?”

In an interview, Gursten noted how his letter warned of what would happen if CURE actually sued him.

“So that’s what I’m doing: I’m trying to draw out from the public the people who are really hurt by CURE right now,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, I’m inundated with people commenting.”

Last week, CURE filed the new lawsuit, expanding the defamation claims to the dedicated website and billboards.

The federal lawsuit seeks an order to remove the billboards, the website and the original blog post – plus damages. There is also a claim of trademark infringement for the CURE smiley face. (The lawsuit also names the Clark Law Office for “reenacting and reposting” some of Gursten’s “crusade” against CURE.)

In a telephone interview, Poe, CURE’s CEO, said Gursten’s website and blog are full of false statements, and that the billboards’ claim that CURE is No. 3 in complaints — behind only State Farm and Progressive — is very misleading.

That 2023 figure from the Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services counts 150 complaints for CURE, with three out of four complaints about “claims handling.” But according to Poe, this count can include almost anything, such as a customer not realizing a policy has expired or not wanting to pay a late fee.

Because a significant number of CURE customers previously could not afford auto insurance and may be new to the way insurance works, the company tends to get such complaint calls, he said. Additionally, he said the billboard numbers do not accurately reflect CURE’s current market size, as the company is growing more than 30% year over year in Michigan.

Poe also noted that the number of 150 complaints does not represent what DIFS considers “confirmed complaints,” which are complaints that have been investigated and determined to be the fault or fault of an insurance company.

It was unclear Monday whether DIFS keeps track of confirmed complaints for every insurance company in Michigan.

“It is clear to me that Mr. Gursten did not want to do any more fact-finding to determine whether or not these statements are misleading before deciding to launch a campaign,” he said.

Poe also defended CURE’s decision to pursue legal action.

“If you are running a business and someone makes false or misleading statements about your business, and this has a detrimental economic effect on your business, and you politely ask them in a cease and desist letter, ‘Here’s why they are false and misleading .’ ‘ and you try to be courteous and they refuse and then threaten a campaign and then launch a campaign, what are you supposed to do as a reasonable businessman?” Poe said.

For his part, Gursten insists that CURE is simply out to silence a critic – himself – who shares unflattering information that the insurer’s customers and the public deserve to know.

“It’s a silly lawsuit, but it’s also incredibly serious,” Gursten told the Free Press. “It shows an incredibly skinny insurance company that got caught and exposed doing some very disturbing things, and then tried to use this lawsuit to suppress this information and intimidate me.”

Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5406 or [email protected]. Follow him on X @jcreindl

Vaseline4 days ago

80 6 minutes read

Vaseline

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