DO YOU KNOW WHAT A 3RD PARTY RECOVERY IS?

DO YOU KNOW WHAT A 3RD PARTY RECOVERY IS? I mean with regard to Worker's Compensation?

I did not. Because my Compensation Claim was from an automobile accident, I had a civil case that was handled before the medical diagnosis was actually discovered. There was a three and a half day mistrial, time that was a blur for me because of pain, hours spent going to Doctors, waiting for Doctors, even then having to deal with Doctors seeing me only to act as an advocate for AIG, submitting required papers more than once, twice - even three times.

When I settled for a sum, I knew that the amount that was stated was not what I would receive. First, there had been a trial - and attorneys. That was 40% off the top. There we also expenses for the attorneys, and the trial. More money out of the pot.

I'll get down to the actual numbers in a bit. It's late and I have already been blogging too much today. The main point is this.... From a $400,000.00 settlement my amount of money that I ended up with was approximately $189,000.00.

That was wonderful - not enough to offset what happened to my life, but certainly it helped to find ways to adapt to all the changes I had to find to function and keep working.

The big news was the day I learned that every single cent of the $189,000.00 that I got as my portion of the settlement was going to be paid back - but not to the company that paid it to me. No, they paid it out fair and square. It would be going to ... yep, you guessed it. You must be much quicker than me! AIG. AIG gets all my settlement money. In little bits of every thing that they have to pay me, they take away some of the money, because "I OWED THEM" ALL $189,000.00.

Now I realize they have paid for my surgeries. They have paid my Doctors, and paid for my medications **(when my Adjustor will allow me to have them).

I just do not understand that because I had my body drastically injured, and someone was responsible for that - and no one, not one person, not one corporation should be entitled to what I had gotten for what I went through, just because they were insuring my company for workers' compensation.