Valid Psychological Injury Claims: Respecting the Needs of Survivors

Automobiles are potentially dangerous, with tens of thousands killed in motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and millions badly injured annually in the USA. Because of an inability for individual accident victims or those responsible for the accidents to pay for damages incurred, compulsory automobile insurance has been developed as a risk-distribution system. On the one hand, a danger is that insurers become less interested in the well-being of their claimants and more interested in maximizing their own profitability—denying any fiduciary obligation to anyone other than their shareholders. As a result, there are examples in which these companies fail to acknowledge valid psychological injuries in a manner that precludes survivors from accessing appropriate physical and mental health care. On the other hand, a danger is that claimants malinger, attribute pre-existing psychological problems to the event at issue, or otherwise feign. This analysis examines the literature on the importance of assessing validity and treating the psychological sequelae of automobile accidents. The authors conclude by calling for balance toward accident survivors with valid injuries (but only after vetting for feigning and related motivations), thereby ensuring that they receive adequate treatment that will ameliorate their suffering and allow them to regain reasonable qualities of life. That is, insurers should maintain the right to subject complainants to independent examinations, provided that the professionals involved apply the appropriate ethical standards in their assessments and in the interpretation of test results, toward establishing their valid needs for therapy. Such a change will require extensive use of psychologists and their knowledge of testing to determine the validity of potential claims of psychological injuries. This approach would not only be ethical on the part of insurers but it should also be cost-effective in the long run.