Rebeca Imgrund was on the way to her cabin in Winter Park with her nieces and nephews for a day of skiing on a snowy afternoon in January 2004 when she was hit head-on by another car.
The crash killed her 12-year-old niece and badly injured her 10-year-old nephew and 6-year-old niece, leaving the family with more than $1 million in medical bills.
On Monday, Imgrund and her sister, Brenda Smith, the children’s mother, told a House committee that Smith has been unable to pay her son’s bills since they reached their $400,000 insurance cap. Both women have seen their credit ruined and receive constant phone calls from bill collectors.
In emotional testimony, they asked a House committee to support a bill that would have forced the driver’s insurance company to start paying their medical bills after the company paid for the damage to the car.
“Nobody knows how bad the tort system is until you get in an accident like this,” Imgrund said after her testimony.
In 2003, the state switched from a no-fault system – in which car-accident injuries were paid for no matter who caused the accident – to a tort system, in which the at-fault driver pays.
Republican Rep. Mark Cloer of Colorado Springs, sponsor of House Bill 1044, said insurance companies are able to force victims to settle a claim because they can’t afford to wait for court action.
“Should you have bill collectors because someone else hit you?” Cloer asked. “Absolutely not.”
But Bill Imig, who represents an insurance trade group that writes 40 percent of the auto-insurance policies in the state, said the legislation would create problems similar to those found under the no-fault system.
“The bill will give an open checkbook to any provider who was treating a person injured in an auto accident,” Imig said. “It gives rise to enormous abuse by health providers.”
The legislation also would hurt victims because health providers could exhaust the coverage of the at-fault driver before they have the chance to ask for a pain-and- suffering payment.
And, Imig said, it hurts at-fault drivers because they may be forced to pay out-of-pocket if the health providers have maxed out their policy.
The House business committee is expected to vote on the measure Wednesday.
Two other auto-insurance bills passed in committee Monday.
House Bill 1030 requires insurance companies to provide customers with a uniform, written disclosure explaining the policy. It passed 12-1.
House Bill 1036 requires insurance companies to offer medical-payments coverage to customers and requires customers who decline the coverage to do so in writing. It passed 8-4.
Staff writer Chris Frates can be reached at cfrates@denverpost.com or 303-820-1633.
