“Rising Industry of Insurance Claims in Response to Traffic Accidents”
Law offices are targeting people who apply to hospitals after traffic accidents in order to gain access to their personal data and subject them to persistent harassment, according to a report in Milliyet newspaper. The offices then use this information to try to persuade patients and relatives to file compensation lawsuits. This was demonstrated when the editor-in-chief’s 63-year-old mother was slightly injured in a traffic accident, and afterwards, the phones of his entire family did not stop ringing. Office workers repeatedly called trying to persuade the Sarıkaya family to file a compensation lawsuit and did not reveal the source of the personal data they had. Lawyer Levent Karakoç explained that such operations were commonplace, stating: “It creates great victimization by reassuring the relatives of the deceased, visiting them in hospitals, even attending funerals and circumventing the law… hundreds of so-called insurance brokerage companies were established for this purpose.” The Law on Advocacy makes it a crime to bring lawyers into work for profit. While victims are in pain and under duress, they can sometimes sign contracts without reading them, believing these promises, but the brokers who accept insurance pay-outs may receive half of the money, creating further distress and trauma for victims or their family members. It is of utmost concern how brokers gain access to identity information, hospital records, and phone records of victims. Victims or their relatives are urged to apply for legal aid by going through the bar association of the province. A legal regulation indicates that insurance companies should only receive applications made by the spouses or first-degree relatives of victims and lawyers.
