9/22/26 Uber Under the Microscope: Insurance, Driver Safety & the Cost of Speeding

The Moneywise Radio Show and Podcast Tuesday, September 22nd BE MONEYWISE. Moneywise Wealth Management I "The Moneywise Radio Show & Podcast" call: 661-847-1000 text in anytime: 661-396-1000 website: www. MoneywiseGuys.com https://www.moneywiseguys.com/ facebook: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.facebook.com/moneywiseguys/ LinkedIn: Moneywise_Wealth_Management https://www.linkedin.com/company/moneywise-wealth-management-bakersfield/ Guest: Matt Clark & Chris Hagan, Local Attorneys of Chain Cohn Clark Law website: https://www.chainlaw.com/ The opinions voiced in this podcast are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual. To determine which strategies or investments may be suitable for you, consult the appropriate qualified professional prior to making a decision. Matt Clark, Chris Hagan & Chain Cohn Clark Law are not affiliated with nor endorsed by LPL Financial or Moneywise Wealth Management

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Live from the basement inside the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. Call or text in at 661-396-1000.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey, well, I need a dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. Hey, hey, said I need dollar, dollar, dollar, that's what I need. And if I share with you my story, would you share your dollar with me? Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through LPL Financial. LPL Financial and MoneyWise Wealth Management are independently owned and operated.

• 0:37Speaker 00

  Now, let's start the MoneyWise Show.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Welcome to the MoneyWise Show. We're live from the basement of the historic Woolworths Building in downtown Bakersfield. For the next hour, you are on News Talk 96.1 and 1230 AM KERN, streaming live at MoneyWiseGuys.com. You can call or text into the show 24 hours a day at 661-396-1000. Today, we are your hosts, I'm Sammy Abia, are we with?

• 1:03Speaker 03

  Dustin Weaver.

• 1:04Speaker 02

  Dustin, welcome to the show.

• 1:06Speaker 03

  It's good to be here with you.

• 1:07Speaker 02

  I'm very excited today.

• 1:08Speaker 03

  I don't think we've been on together in a little bit.

• 1:09Speaker 02

  A couple of weeks.

• 1:11Speaker 03

  Good to be back.

• 1:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, same here. We have a great show ahead. We have some, some really cool guests that are going to join us after the first break.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  Definitely looking forward to it.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm very, very much looking forward to it.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Hey, I'm looking forward to it, too.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Oh, you're here, Stephen? I forgot about you.

• 1:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's right, I get that a lot.

• 1:29Speaker 02

  Why don't we start with a market update, Dustin? We have some listener questions after that, too.

• 1:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, so it's just after 12, market's not closed for another hour or so. Looking like S and P's up a little bit, 0.05% to the green. The Dow 30, the dumb Dow as we call it, down 0.30. So, little green, little red. Russell 2000, which is the smaller company, is up about 0.63. And this is following a day where things were definitely up yesterday. You've got some of the tech stocks. Technology, technology.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  We had Intel up about 12%, AMD also up about 10%, which, one of the things that was notable about that is it brought their valuation as a chip company to over a trillion dollars. Not billion with a B, trillion with a T.

• 2:20Speaker 02

  Trillion dollars.

• 2:21Speaker 03

  Big, big companies.

• 2:22Speaker 02

  Is Elon Musk still a trillionaire? Of course, yesterday I mentioned that, you know, he's below trillion now.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  I haven't seen the most recent number on that, but it wouldn't surprise me.

• 2:31Speaker 02

  Poor guy.

• 2:33Speaker 02

  Poor guy.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Well, thanks for the update. We have some listener questions following up on the show yesterday, some really cool comments as well.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Thanks for talking about the gas prices and how owners of gas stations can make money off it. That makes sense. So, does places like Costco or Sam's Club lose money at their cost? Or do they look at quantity compared to quality?

• 2:57Speaker 03

  Well, I know you know some folks in the gas business. What can you tell us about that?

• 3:01Speaker 02

  Well, let's talk about quality first. All the gas comes from the same refineries, either here locally, or Long Beach, or San Francisco. Same gas, okay?

• 3:12Speaker 03

  Which there's what, seven or eight of them here in California?

• 3:15Speaker 02

  Yes, so each brand or each flag adds that little concoctions.

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Like an additive?

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Yes, Shell has its own, Costco has its own, Sam's Club has its own. So, from a quality standpoint, I challenge the fact that there are multiple qualities for the gas, right? It's, to me, it's all the same. Most of my gas station clients that I had when, when I was a banker, told me the same thing. The quality of the gas is the same all across. It's just what makes it different is whatever they add to it to make it cleaner.

• 3:50Speaker 03

  So, if you've got two stations right across the street from each other, and there's a 50 cent difference, what you're saying is, save the 50 cents?

• 3:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, so a lot of the time, gas station owners will own the two stations across and make that price difference for clients to see, but they're winning on both corners. In fact, Stockdale and California, the two stations across from each other are owned by the same owner, same family.

• 4:16Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 4:17Speaker 02

  So, it doesn't, like 50 cents difference or whatever, is not, doesn't drive me personally.

• 4:26Speaker 03

  So, that could even be the same source? You've got the same delivery truck showing up to both places?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  It depends, it depends on your job or contract that you have in place. So, if, let's say you have a flag, a mobile flag, so you have a certain job that you have to sign up with through mobile. If you have a Shell, the same. And if you have 76, like some of my friends do, then you are able to negotiate your contract directly with the refineries, as long as you promise to sell a certain amount of gallons a year. So, what you do is, hey, I need to get as many gallons as possible, so I can get a certain pricing. Some gas stations, they make pennies on the dollar, but because they want the traffic to go inside the stores, that's their business model, and some actually make money outside as well as inside. That's the smart operator.

• 5:13Speaker 03

  So, they, they bring up a good point with Costco and Sam's Club. You drive by, they always have a lot of cars there getting gas.

• 5:19Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:20Speaker 03

  So, do you think the angle is to try and get people in the store?

• 5:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's definitely a quality, a quantity game for Costco, in this case, okay? So, the gallons sold is immense. I mean, and I have friends that are in the business, but frankly, I have a diesel truck, and it's almost 75 cents difference sometimes on a 23 gallon, sometimes twice a week. I go to Costco. I mean, I love you.

• 5:48Speaker 03

  It's on my commute, too. I'm right there with you.

• 5:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just a smart thing to do, plus the 5% on the city card. So, it's just a financial situation at that time for me. And I'm hoping I'm making a good one.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  Sounds money wise to me.

• 6:02Speaker 02

  But, but it's a quantity game for, for Costco. I'm not very familiar with Sam's Club, just because I don't, I'm not a member there. But from, from a Costco standpoint, because I've read about it, I studied it, it's all about quantity when it comes to the gallons sold.

• 6:16Speaker 03

  But without compromising?

• 6:17Speaker 02

  It's not a lost leader, though. It is not a lost leader for them. They're not losing money on gas, so they can attract you as a client, no.

• 6:24Speaker 03

  And then as somebody that's a customer, you're not compromising on quality?

• 6:28Speaker 02

  No, no, the, the, whatever addition they have, they, like Chevron has Techron, Costco has their own. It's very similar. And you, you know, the Kirkland brand, that's, that's their MO. They go and they get the same quality, they just put the Kirkland brand on it.

• 6:45Speaker 03

  Volume, you know they're using a, a high quality producer.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 6:49Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  That's, that's, that's correct.

• 6:51Speaker 00

  There's a little bias. You're asking the guy with the Costco hot dog tattoo. I mean, just saying.

• 6:57Speaker 02

  Do you?

• 6:58Speaker 00

  I, I, I'm talking about Sammy.

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a fake one, though.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:03Speaker 02

  I just make sure that I, you know, redo it.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Every time I go to Costco, I was like, I'm going to buy this college shirt. I have to check with Sammy to make sure we don't have the same one when I go to work on Monday.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  I'm just being money wise.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Hey, me too.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  You know, a dollar 50? And I, look, whenever I go to Costco, I gotta get the dollar, the, the hot dog. It's just too good of a deal to pass.

• 7:22Speaker 03

  You don't want to lose money on the deal, right?

• 7:24Speaker 02

  No, it's, plus it's a good quality hot dog.

• 7:28Speaker 02

  Right? I would say it's a good quality hot dog for a dollar 50 with a drink.

• 7:32Speaker 03

  Hard to be.

• 7:32Speaker 02

  Hard to be. There's another comment here before we go on our first break. I saw on Facebook where the truck drivers are going to protest high diesel prices on October 1st. I'm not drive any true, is there any truth to that?

• 7:47Speaker 03

  I'm not familiar.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  I'm not familiar either. Scary, stocking up, just going to cause people to stock up. He said, just like me. So, I guess this individual is stocking up on things just because October 1st, there's. I heard that Justin Leland actually told me about this last week, that there is talk about truck drivers going on strike October 1st because of the diesel.

• 8:11Speaker 03

  Because of the prices.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Well, I'll save that one for tomorrow when Justin's here. He may, he might be able to dig into that one.

• 8:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm not, I'm, I don't know. However, whenever he did tell me about these, Stephen, I did go over the weekend and got some, some goods. My freezer is, is full and my pantry is full with canned stuff. I'm sorry, I'm just a doomsday prepper that way.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  Did you see the message about Johnny Carson having a good idea for bad drivers? Says we should be able to shoot.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  I was saving that for our guests.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Oh, okay, all right.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  I was saving that for our guests. In fact, I would like to, to, to take our first break. When we come back, we'll read that comment after the introduction of our guest. We'll be right back.

• 8:58Speaker 02

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy Abiyahu with Dustin Weaver. We have some guests I want to introduce today. We have Matt Clark and Chris Hagan, partners and trial attorneys at Chaincone Clark. Welcome, guys.

• 9:12Speaker 04

  Thanks, Sammy.

• 9:13Speaker 05

  Thanks for having us.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Very excited to have you.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  We always have fun on the show.

• 9:16Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, definitely. Very excited to have you guys today. Got a bunch of subjects I want to talk about.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  Uh oh.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  Very, very simple ones. What did, Chris, what did you call it earlier? Softballs.

• 9:29Speaker 05

  Softballs. But I said I'm more of a T-ball guy.

• 9:31Speaker 02

  Well, we had Matt on the show, what, six months ago, maybe?

• 9:38Speaker 04

  That's probably about right.

• 9:39Speaker 02

  I remember, in my head, I call it the Uber bill.

• 9:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what we called it, too.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  And you came and you talked about it briefly. You educated me personally, because I did not know what was happening. I read about it today, just to prep for the show, and it looks like it passed sometime in June.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  No, no, no. It did not pass. What happened was, there was a mutual agreement between two sides to basically pull down what you could argue was competing ballot propositions. Okay? And, you know, I think the theme here, and let me preface what I'm about to say. You know, I do not have some anti-corporate, you know, mindset, right? In fact, Chris and I are the proud owners of a corporation. Our law firm is a corporation. So, we are not anti-corporate. But, what you're seeing, and you're seeing more of this, I mean, you mentioned just a moment ago AMD now having a trillion-dollar valuation, right?

• 10:40Speaker 04

  What's Apple now? Four trillion, five trillion? Right? I mean, it's crazy.

• 10:44Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  The valuations of these companies is stratospheric. And so, what you're seeing with some of these large, large corporations, is they have figured out how to buy legislation, buy elected officials. And, you know, folks, if you think that their interest is in protecting your rights as a consumer, I got a bridge I'll sell you. Right? Because that is absolutely not true. I mean, I've never seen some corporate-backed initiative that was out there to protect consumer rights at all. And so, what you had with the Uber legislation is they wanted to eliminate people's rights to sue. And not just sue Uber, although

• 11:30Speaker 04

  it was, definitely would have impacted people's rights to sue Uber. But they wanted to eliminate those rights. And so, they thought that they could come into California, and they could spend a hundred-plus million dollars of their money to buy a ballot initiative, get voters to vote for something that was actually against voters' interest. And what ended up happening was, a bunch of lawyers in California, as well as medical facilities and doctors, got together. They pooled their resources. They raised around eighty million dollars. And they backed a different ballot initiative, one that would have actually been harmful

• 12:12Speaker 04

  to Uber in the long run. And so, in June, cooler minds prevailed, and both sides agreed to withdraw their ballot initiatives and just kind of leave things status quo. The point here is that it took eighty million dollars of raised money from, you know, a lot of that was from law firms. Our law firm, I mean, you know, I'll just put it out there. It's public information. You can look it up. I know this now. I've never donated this much to a political cause in my life, but we donated a couple of hundred thousand dollars. And I will tell you the amount of paperwork you have to fill out, once you make a donation of that size, is something else. It's all public record. And, you know, it took, it

• 12:53Speaker 04

  took a lot of law firms, like mine and others around the state, as well as doctors and medical facilities, to raise eighty million bucks to fight this giant corporate interest. Right? And, and so, you know, we were successful in this round. I don't know. Could raise its head again, and it could be, and next time, it may not be Uber. It may be some other gargantuan corporate interest that's trying to buy what amounts to laws.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  And here's what's important about that, right, is, your listeners may be thinking, "Oh, my God, eighty million dollars." Well, that is a ton of money. But, we were fighting a corporation that grosses over a hundred and fifty million dollars a day.

• 13:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:35Speaker 04

  They actually said they were prepared to spend four hundred million dollars on this one initiative in California.

• 13:41Speaker 05

  And just in California?

• 13:43Speaker 04

  Just in, it's only in California.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  Well, that's why you can do it in California, right? Because we have a process through which to get initiatives on the ballot, when you can't get the legislature to do what you want them to do if you're a corporation.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, they haven't bought enough politicians yet.

• 13:56Speaker 05

  Right?

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:57Speaker 05

  They're working on it, I'm sure.

• 13:59Speaker 02

  So, you mentioned earlier that the two groups got together. So, what's the outcome now?

• 14:05Speaker 04

  So, the outcome is status quo, basically. You know, there were a few, Uber is supposed to do some additional background checks on their drivers. Now, I will tell you that that, the technicalities of that, as I understand it, are still being worked out. You know, there's supposed to be some other limitations, as it relates to, that'll be coming in the future, as it relates to something called lean medical treatment. We can go down, that's a deep rabbit hole, if you want to go down it. But, so, there are some rules that will be coming. But, basically, it's status quo. Right? And what happened was, you know, Uber, even though they were prepared to spend four hundred million dollars, they knew that the ballot initiative, that the lawyers and the doctors

• 14:49Speaker 04

  had gathered enough signatures, and they were ready to be, get it put on the ballot, or it would have been on the ballot, that it would have been so devastating to Uber's business model that they didn't want to, even though they had four hundred million bucks to spend, they didn't want to spend any more, and they just wanted to leave things as they are.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  So, when I hear "status quo," I think it's the same thing. So, God forbid, I'm in Uber, a crash happens, I am still eligible to hire Matt Clark as my attorney to go against Uber, or that driver?

• 15:20Speaker 05

  Absolutely. Yeah, that didn't change.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. Now, I will tell you one thing that happened, kind of in the midst of all this, which may be surprising to some of your listeners, but Uber kind of hoodwinked, everybody knows who the SEIU is, right? You guys know the SEIU, one of the largest unions in California, Service Employees International United, something like that.

• 15:45Speaker 02

  It's a big one.

• 15:46Speaker 05

  It's the largest, largest union.

• 15:48Speaker 04

  I believe so.

• 15:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. And so, Uber was able to sort of hoodwink those guys, as well as Governor Newsom, for that matter, into signing off on some laws that reduce the amount of insurance that Uber has to carry for passengers injured inside an Uber. Right? So, if you are in an Uber, and you are injured in an accident, you now have less insurance that you can go collect from than you would have had, basically, a year and a half ago.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  Well, talk about how they hoodwinked them, right? So, that Uber went to the union and said, "Hey, listen, we're having difficulty getting this legislation passed, through which we want to lower the total available insurance limits that are out there for folks that are injured in our cars." Right? And so, "Hey, union, if you can help us get this passed, we won't oppose any effort by our drivers to unionize." Okay?

• 16:48Speaker 02

  Those additional members.

• 16:50Speaker 05

  Right. So, Uber got the legislation passed, and then what did they do right after that? They announced that they're going to go autonomous. They're going to have autonomous vehicles. They won't have drivers anymore. So, they could care less if their drivers unionized.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  That's the biggest, big, what was that?

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Bait and switch.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  Bait and switch?

• 17:05Speaker 04

  Bait and switch. Yeah. No, it's, you know, I use the phrase "hoodwink," but you could say "bait and switch" as well. Yeah, it's a terrible result for consumers. I mean, people have less protections now, if they're inside of an Uber, and they're unfortunately in an accident.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  We don't have cameras on the show. We don't record, like, our faces. But, I'm shaking my head, listening to all this. I mean, especially a lot of the stuff that happens in the background, that we, and users, like, I have an Uber app, and I use it.

• 17:36Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  When I go internationally or nationally, I use Uber. To me, that's one of the safest apps.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  So, Sammy, the rules, and, you know, of course, insurance limits, it can vary state to state, I'm sure, country to country. But, you know, it gets back to sort of the theme, and that is, if you think that one of these gargantuan corporations, when they're out there trying to buy law, right, buy laws that benefit them, if you think that those are to expand upon consumer rights or protect consumer rights, you're crazy.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  So, I mean, just question. Let's say I'm traveling. I was in Prague, and I was in an Uber. That Uber crashed, just a small crash. And I just didn't want to waste time on, for my vacation, so I just exited the vehicle with my wife, and I went, and I finished the trip on foot. And I got to my destination. It was a very short trip. But, something happens like that internationally, can I come back here to Bakersfield and hire Chris Hagan to pursue that case?

• 18:34Speaker 05

  You could, but I'm not going to be able to help you, right? Because that happened in Prague. And so, whatever laws dictate a collision like that in Prague would govern, would govern that accident.

• 18:44Speaker 04

  Generally speaking, if you're in an accident, I don't care where it is. It can be international, it could be within the United States. The, where the accident occurred becomes the venue for a lawsuit. And so, if you were in an accident in Kentucky, in all likelihood, your case is going to be venue'd in Kentucky, and you're going to be subject to the law, the rules, the regulations of Kentucky. Right? And there are exceptions to that. I don't want to get into the deep legal weeds on it. But, generally speaking, it's, you are, wherever you're in the wreck, that's where your case is going to be handled.

• 19:20Speaker 02

  Insurance is a big topic in the state of California in general. Now, I hear that Uber is now, has the chance to limit that insurance. That means that...

• 19:32Speaker 04

  Well, it's not a chance. They already did it. It's a done deal.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  So, it's a done deal. So, do we have certain numbers, Matt and Chris, that we can share with the listeners, as far as just like what that maximum is, or?

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Sure. So, well, it depends, right? So, it depends on if you're in the Uber, or if you were in a different vehicle. So, if you are in a, if you are in an Uber, and that Uber driver is doing everything right, but you get involved in an accident with, say, a drunk driver. Okay?

• 20:02Speaker 05

  Which happened.

• 20:03Speaker 04

  It happened. It's happened in this community. Okay? In fact, we have a very tragic case where a young couple was killed in that very scenario. Some other folks that were within the Uber were injured. And in that instance, this is, this is a few years back. Uber at that time had a policy where they had a million dollars of what's called uninsured motorist coverage that applied to that vehicle. So the passengers in the Uber had a million dollars of guaranteed coverage. Okay. The drunk driver, you know, in that case had de minimis coverage, you know. It was either thirty, sixty or zero, meaning thirty thousand bucks per person, sixty thousand dollars per accident or zero.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  So the, the folks that were terribly injured and of course, the, the, the two young folks that lost their lives, their families were able to recover from that uninsured motorist policy. It's a million dollars. That has now been limited and I believe, Chris, it is now a, I, I can look it up on the break. Let me look it up. I want to be accurate.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I want, I want to look it up because that's, that's great for the listeners, I think, to, to, to know.

• 21:13Speaker 04

  It is substantially less than a million bucks.

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Yes. We'll take our first break. When we come back, there's a lot more with Matt and Chris. We'll be right back.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Welcome to the Money Wise Show. Sammy Abiyawi with Dustin Weaver. I'm here with Matt Clark and Chris Hagan. Great conversation off air. I want to bring it back on air, talking about insurance. We were talking about the Uber insurance going down from a million dollars to, you called it.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  It's a sixty-three-hundred policy now. So that, what that means, previously, if you were alone in the Uber and you were severely injured, again, this is an accident that was someone else's fault, not the Uber driver's, you had a million dollars of uninsured motorist coverage that you could collect from. Okay. That has now been reduced to sixty thousand dollar max per person, three hundred thousand dollar max per, per vehicle. So up to five occupants of the vehicle, you know, sixty thousand bucks apiece.

• 22:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's a bit of a drop.

• 22:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  You think?

• 22:35Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, so I'm not good enough at math to do the percentage, but let's just say it's over ninety percent drop, right?

• 22:43Speaker 03

  Yeah, from a million? Yeah, ninety-four percent.

• 22:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, thank you.

• 22:46Speaker 05

  So, so off air, Sammy asked us, well, if you're in that unfortunate situation, what do you do? And so we started having a conversation about the need for people to have on their own policies uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage. It operates effectively the same way, right?

• 23:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, I've been banging that drum for twenty-five years, Chris.

• 23:06Speaker 05

  We, we joke around about the fact that we're lawyers, but we oftentimes sound like insurance salesmen.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Well, coming from you guys, from me, like listening to you guys, it's not a sales pitch. It's a benefit.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, it's no different than, it's no different than when folks come see you, I would imagine that as a part of a, a financial plan, right? Sometimes you talk about life insurance.

• 23:31Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  Right? I mean, it's, it's a risk management tool and it's no different, uninsured motorist coverage is no different. And what, what folks, and again, I, I've been talking about this for twenty-five years, but what I don't think a lot of people understand is that uninsured motorist coverage on your auto policy. Look at your auto policy, people. Look at what you bought, okay? You bought liability, that's required, okay? You probably have some sort of a collision policy, you know, you obviously have property damage for the other vehicle. And then you likely have some uninsured motorist coverage. Now, you can waive that. Chris, explain that real quick.

• 24:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, so in California, insurance companies are required to offer uninsured motorist coverage to their insureds when they're either buying or renewing a policy and the insurance code requires that, okay? And so, but, but I think Matt's getting at is like, if you've got it, go look at your premium and look at the line item for what you actually pay for that coverage and you will realize how incredibly inexpensive it is.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  And here's the thing, okay? Let's say that you've got assets to protect, right? You got a home, maybe you got some cars, maybe you got a little scratch in the bank. And so you go, hey, I, I want to, I want to have a bit larger liability policy on my car, okay? I want to have a hundred thousand, three hundred thousand policy, hundred thousand dollars per person, three hundred thousand per accident. That protects somebody else if you cause a wreck. That's what how liability is, okay? So let's say you spend the extra scratch to get that kind of policy. Well, the requirement under California law is that your insurance company has to offer uninsured motorist on the policy, but they only have to offer it at the state minimum,

• 25:11Speaker 04

  which is thirty thousand per person, sixty thousand per accident, okay? You know, you mentioned this, Sammy, and I don't want to get into your personal case, but thirty thousand dollars, if you're involved in a motor vehicle collision, you have medical bills and you've missed time from work and you've got, you know, you, you've got some injuries that maybe go on for several months, that is not a lot of money, right?

• 25:31Speaker 02

  No, in, in fact, in my case, I, the lady just cut in front of me, so I had to T-bone the car and, and my hand is damaged for life. My, my, one of my fingers is damaged for life. I had multiple fractures in my hand, but the check I received was, I think, eighty-five hundred dollars or seventy-five hundred dollars when it was all said and done.

• 25:51Speaker 04

  Because the rest went to medical expense.

• 25:52Speaker 02

  Correct.

• 25:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. And it was probably she had a thirty thousand dollar policy.

• 25:55Speaker 02

  That's correct.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. So that's a state minimum. So if all you did, you, you, you did the right thing, you bought a larger liability policy, you got a hundred thousand dollars of, of coverage, maybe you've got two hundred fifty thousand dollars of coverage, but you don't tell your insurance company to raise that uninsured motorist limit, you got a thirty, sixty plan. And if you're a responsible driver, okay? So if you're one of the folks out there being responsible, you're not driving impaired, you're not driving like a maniac, street racing, you're probably less likely to get into an accident, okay? You're probably more likely, if you do get into an accident, to not be the person at fault. So don't you want that coverage that protects you and your family? Then that's, that's the uninsured motorist coverage, people.

• 26:37Speaker 02

  And you, earlier off air, you mentioned that the cost of it is not super high.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I, I can't price it because I'm not an insurance agent, despite the fact that I may sound like one, but literally take a look at your premiums and you're probably on a one hundred, three hundred policy for an additional one hundred, three hundred of uninsured motorist coverage, paying fifty dollars a premium period? And that's, that's very, very little money to really protect you and your family in the event that something happens.

• 27:03Speaker 02

  And you guys mentioned it protects you, even if you're riding a bike or walking on the sidewalk.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  Listen, it protects you in your own vehicle. If the other person either is uninsured or doesn't have coverage, it protects you as a pedestrian, it protects you as a cyclist, it protects you if you're in somebody else's car.

• 27:17Speaker 04

  Hey, how about one other one? It protects your kids as pedestrians. If there are blood relative living in the same household, I'm going to, I'm going to throw out the legal jargon. Insurance, California Insurance Code is section eleven, five eighty point two. That's the, that's the law on uninsured motorist coverage. It extends coverage to all blood relatives living in the household. So you don't have to be a licensed driver. If you're, if you're eight years old and you're, you know, riding your, your bicycle or you're on your scooter and you're hit by a car, it covers you too. And, you know, a lot of folks don't understand that. I tell my loved ones that it's the most important coverage on your policy, period.

• 27:59Speaker 03

  So we're saying uninsured. What if that person that hit you is insured? So different category, right?

• 28:04Speaker 04

  I'll let, I'll let Chris explain.

• 28:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, so the policy comes as a, as a package, if you want to call it that. It's uninsured, meaning the other driver doesn't have insurance or underinsured. So meaning, uh, let's say you've got catastrophic injuries, like we were talking about the Uber thing, there's sixty thousand dollars available to you under that Uber policy, but if you have your own uninsured or underinsured policy, you can look to it to compensate you for your injuries.

• 28:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, and the way that works, so use Sammy's case as an example, you collected thirty thousand dollars from this other driver's insurance. Now, you didn't get all of that because the vast majority went to medical expense, but the gross amount of the recovery was thirty thousand dollars. Let's say you had a hundred thousand in underinsured motorist coverage. Well, that hundred is offset by the thirty you already got, so there's seventy thousand dollars left and given the fractures in your hand and the lifelong limitations you have on the use of your hand, I would say your case is clearly worth the full hundred. It means you could have collected an additional seventy thousand dollars from your own insurance company.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, and listen, at fifty dollars, a, a, a premium period, if you're paying a premium on, on an annual basis, what's that over ten years? That's five hundred dollars?

• 29:15Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 29:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I like to think of insurance as a transfer of risk, right? And it's like, okay, so what, what do I have to come out of pocket to transfer this risk to the insurance company? That sounds pretty cheap.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, and, and I'll, I'll throw one last point out there that I think is, is important. The, uh, as it relates to, to just eliminating risk, right? When you're, um, when you start to contemplate purchasing things like life insurance, I, I used to ride a bicycle a lot, right? And I always looked at life insurance as being a really important way of protecting risk, but I also looked at that, that uninsured motorist coverage on like a death claim, especially for a wage earner, is really critical. And so if you want to have high, high limits of uninsured motorist coverage, you can do that. You buy an excess policy, some people call it an umbrella, we call it excess, and you add uninsured motorist to it and you can end up with millions of dollars of protection

• 30:09Speaker 04

  if that's something you choose to do. And it is way, I mean, way cheaper than life insurance.

• 30:16Speaker 02

  There you go, folks. Very good conversation. Learned a lot.

• 30:18Speaker 03

  That's great. And you know, we actually got a good question I wanted to throw their way, too. Says, "Good afternoon. So my daughter just started driving for Uber on the weekends to make some extra money. If she was to get in an accident, her car insurance, does her car insurance cover her, or does she need to buy something extra?"

• 30:33Speaker 04

  Super, super complicated question. Number one, she needs to talk to her auto insurance company. So if you have not disclosed the fact that you're driving for Uber, your auto insurance is not likely not going to cover you, because you're using that vehicle now for a business purpose, right? And I've seen that happen in a lot of Uber cases. The other thing I would tell somebody that may drive for Uber is through, I don't drive for Uber, and so I can't speak to exactly how it works, but I've had plenty of clients who do. And through the Uber app on the driver's side, right, their app is different than what you and I are looking at when we're trying to get a ride. They can go into the various benefits

• 31:13Speaker 04

  of being a driver, and it will, as I understand it, they can access some of the insurance information that's in there, right? And Uber has an insurance entity with a weird name. It's called Mobilitus, okay? And Mobilitus is essentially the insurer for Uber. It's really sort of like an offshore captive insurance company. But the point is, it's an insurer. And if you are a driver, so for this caller, you know, the daughter should go on to the app and look at the various benefits that are available should something happen.

• 31:50Speaker 05

  That's great advice.

• 31:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, great advice. We're gonna take our last break. Matt and Chris are still here, so keep the questions coming, keep the comments coming. We'll be right back.

• 32:08Speaker 02

  Welcome back to the Money Wise Show. I'm Sammy. I'm here with Dustin Weaver. Listeners, we still have Matt Clark and Chris Hagan here with us. Great conversation about insurance, Uber.

• 32:19Speaker 04

  We are not insurance salespeople.

• 32:22Speaker 02

  Right? Well, I personally learned a lot today just about insurance in general, but specifically about uninsured.

• 32:29Speaker 04

  Can I make one last comment on that?

• 32:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, please.

• 32:32Speaker 04

  So, you know, the other thing that I think people should understand is, if you have a claim against your own insurance company, right, so that would be an uninsured motorist claim, or underinsured claims against your own carrier. Your insurance company, the company that you bought insurance with, has a legal duty under California law to treat you with good faith, okay? That other insurance company, so if you get in an accident and you're dealing with the opposing party's insurance, not only do they have no duty to treat you in good faith, they're likely treating you in bad faith.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, I mean, frankly, it was daunting for me to go through the process with the insurance company. So I think it's really, really good, a good practice to know of an attorney, preferably a local law firm, right?

• 33:22Speaker 03

  Well, you've seen our commercials.

• 33:26Speaker 02

  I don't want to go over the grapevine to talk to somebody or 800 number.

• 33:29Speaker 04

  You're not gonna talk to somebody.

• 33:31Speaker 05

  Well, they'll talk to somebody, just won't be a lawyer.

• 33:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I prefer to talk to somebody, state my case, go through and get educated along that process. That's what happened to me when I had my accident. A lot of people don't do that, right?

• 33:47Speaker 04

  A lot of people don't do that. You'd be shocked at the number of people that call that they've, you know, already settled a case. "Well, I was in an accident, and, you know, yeah, I went to the hospital, and I talked to the insurance company a couple days later, and they offered me, they offered me to pay my hospital bill and 500 bucks. And I took it. And I signed a release."

• 34:09Speaker 05

  And then it's too late.

• 34:10Speaker 04

  Over. Case over. Nothing more you can do. So, you know, we just say, "Listen, if you've got questions, give us a call. It's free to call us. Give us a call."

• 34:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, and listen, we don't take every single client that walks through the door, oftentimes, because they're seeking legal advice in an area of law that we just don't practice. But oftentimes, it's because there's really no value that we can add to their case, right? And so oftentimes, people come in to see us, Sammy, and the conversation is, "Hey, listen, you don't actually need our help. You're gonna, you're gonna do just as well as we can, based upon this claim. You don't need a lawyer helping you and taking your money."

• 34:48Speaker 04

  And then you don't have to pay us.

• 34:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 04

  And so here's some free advice. Just go handle it yourself. You know, we track these statistics pretty careful in our office. And somewhere around eight to eight and a half out of 10 people, that's the advice we give them, right? You don't need us. You can do this on your own, put more money in your pocket.

• 35:08Speaker 02

  That's great. To me, that's very, very important to talk to an attorney, especially if you don't have the knowledge. Like, I, I felt like I've dealt with insurance through my banking career, talked to insurance agents, to clients that carried insurance, but I still was lost after the accident, especially with, you know, I had my kid with me in the car, so I was emotional about the fact that that lady caused the accident.

• 35:31Speaker 04

  How old was your kid at the time?

• 35:35Speaker 02

  Seven.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  Okay, so you could have made a claim on his behalf or her behalf, too. It's called the negligent infliction of emotional distress claim, right, Chris?

• 35:43Speaker 05

  That's right. I don't know.

• 35:44Speaker 02

  That's the importance of talking to an attorney, right? And I did, but, but I guess...

• 35:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Look, I guess the common thread here is, you can give us a call, and we're happy to tell you, you know, is there a case that we think we add value to? Is it a case that we think you can handle for yourself? What are sort of the things that you need to be aware of? When if you are going to handle the case yourself, what type of claims can you make? You know, those are all questions that we can answer in about a 15-minute phone call.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  So, recent headlines, it's Uber. Are there other companies or other things coming down the pike that are similar in nature?

• 36:24Speaker 04

  You want, he put that one on the T for you. You want to take it, Chris?

• 36:28Speaker 05

  What are we talking about?

• 36:30Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, the answer is, I suspect, you're not, I don't think you'll see anything next year. It's kind of an off-election year in '27. It would not surprise me to see some other run at some form of what we call tort reform, which is just a fancy way of saying limiting consumer rights. That's what tort reform is, okay? It would not surprise me to see some effort either by one of the big insurance carriers, a group of the big insurance carriers, could be rideshare companies again, could be, you know, some industry on behalf of a products liability client, you know, some industry that might be subject to large product liability. It wouldn't surprise me to see something coming down the pike.

• 37:14Speaker 05

  It's happening right now, right? I mean, right now, there are a number of different public entities, including local public entities, including the city of Bakersfield, the county of Kern. I think some of the local school districts signed up on this, where they are trying to limit their exposure for the conduct of their employees, right? And so they're actively up in Sacramento right now.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  They literally went to Sacramento and said, "Look, guys, we can't keep teachers from misbehaving with these students. We can't control these people, but please don't hold us liable anymore."

• 37:49Speaker 02

  That's, that's...

• 37:50Speaker 04

  That's literally what they're saying. I mean, it's in writing, right?

• 37:53Speaker 05

  It's in writing. There's a memo that's being circulated. I mean, I hate to plug the firm, well, actually, I don't, but, I mean, go check out our webpage, and I discussed it. I wrote an article on it. It was in the, in the Californian. That's exactly what they're trying to do. Listen, again, it's just an effort by these public entities to minimize the rights of consumers and of victims.

• 38:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're saying too many, too many teachers, I mean, look, this may be overly graphic for a noon radio show, but too many teachers are having sex with too many students, because, you know, we got Snapchat and Instagram and all these other things nowadays, and we're getting the snot suit out of us, you know, Sacramento, and we can't control these, these teachers. So now we gotta put limitations on a student's rights to make a claim against the school. And it's actually much more broad than that. I made it, that's like a very narrow example. But they're, they're looking to put limitations on essentially all cases against public entities.

• 38:50Speaker 02

  So you guys were able to raise about $80 million for the case against Uber as attorney firms. Is there, is there, is there an ongoing effort to continue raising money towards...

• 39:03Speaker 04

  It's interesting, it's interesting you say that.

• 39:05Speaker 05

  And just know, I mean, again, it wasn't just law firms. I mean, there were doctors, medical practice groups, other people who had interest in it, but, but absolutely, right? So there continues to be an effort by organizations that we're members of, by groups of doctors, by medical practitioners and others, to continue to create a war chest to fight these corporations who are trying to take away the rights of the consumers, right?

• 39:31Speaker 04

  And when we say consumer rights, I just want to make sure we're clear. It means people like us.

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 39:36Speaker 04

  Like you guys, like me, you know, people that don't have a trillion dollars in the bank, ala Elon Musk, although I wouldn't say that was in the bank.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:47Speaker 04

  It doesn't, you know, it's, it's just everyday folks. That's who you're trying to protect. That's the consumer. And, and it's an uphill battle. Again, you kind of go full circle here. When you're having to battle with corporations that have valuations upwards of a trillion dollars, it's, it's a challenge.

• 40:05Speaker 05

  Let me give a real-life example, going back to the Uber thing that we talked about earlier. So one of the initiatives that our organization and groups were trying to get on the ballot, that we ultimately reached an agreement with on with Uber, was to require...

• 40:20Speaker 05

  Certain protocols for the background checks that Uber was doing because they were having a big problem with sexual assaults by their drivers, okay? And so as a consumer advocacy group negotiating with Uber to bring our respective initiatives down, we were successful. We were successful in making real change to protect real people.

• 40:43Speaker 02

  And, and that's the reason why I ask about that initiative to continue, like keep raising money, keep, keep, because to me, the consumer is the largest group in, in, in, in the American society. However, we don't come-

• 40:59Speaker 05

  It's the economic engine of a society.

• 41:01Speaker 02

  Yes, but we don't come together as, as, as a specialty group or special group or special interest group, right? Because we don't have that anywhere. We're all busy on the treadmill of life. You know, you're, you're doing your makeup in the car, you're, you're drinking your coffee in the car because you want to get to your office on time because if you lose that job, then you, you can't pay bills. So it's hard for the regular population to think outside of those parameters. That's why I feel like people like you guys that are, that have the expertise, are able to raise money and defend these, this population, it's very important for us.

• 41:40Speaker 04

  And, and it's, and I'll tell you, Sammy, it's not easy. I mean, raising money, even for a cause that was so important and we thought critical to people in California, it, it was challenging. I mean, you know, again, our law firm contributed, but there were a lot of law firms out there that didn't, or they contributed a, a real de minimis amount, even law firms that would have been woefully impacted had this legislation or had this ballot initiative passed. And so it's hard to raise money. I mean, it, it, it took a Herculean effort-

• 42:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  -to raise that 80 million bucks. And when you're going against a corporation that's worth hundreds of billions of dollars in, in, in, in, you know, in the case of Uber, it's a daunting task.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I looked it up. They're making 150 million a day.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  That's what I, that's their gross revenue a day.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Revenue.

• 42:32Speaker 05

  150 million. You know how I knew that number? You know how it came out? Because they were sued in a sexual assault case out, and I think it was Arizona.

• 42:39Speaker 03

  It's Phoenix.

• 42:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so there were, there were punitive damages and so Uber had to disclose their finances to the plaintiffs in that case, and that's how that number came out.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. I have a lot more to talk about, but unfortunately we don't have time. Stephen brought this up to me this morning about just DUIs in general and, and they important, and that's why it's very important for us to carry insurance. And, and what's the term you guys used?

• 43:05Speaker 05

  Uninsured motors.

• 43:06Speaker 04

  Uninsured motors.

• 43:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, so a major takeaway is review your uninsured motors. If you were to make a blanket advice for the listeners now.

• 43:13Speaker 04

  Most, most people have an app on their phone now with their Geico or their Progressive or their, you know, personal express, whatever. Look at the app. Look at what insurance you own, see if you got uninsured motorist coverage, and see if it's enough to protect you and your family. That's really the thing to take away.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  That's great.

• 43:28Speaker 02

  Thank you guys very much for, for being with us today. Who do we have tomorrow, Stephen?

• 43:32Speaker 03

  Tomorrow we'll have Justin and Seth sitting down with local economist, Dr. Richard Gerhart. Until then, be smart, be safe.

• 43:41Speaker 02

  Be money wise.