There’s a big “don’t say it out loud” rule in court: none of us can tell the jury whether insurance is involved. The idea is to keep jurors objective. But what we see all the time is the defendant (the insured) looking genuinely terrified that their personal livelihood is on the line, when that isn’t the reality. Too often, insurance carriers and defense counsel allow the insured to believe it’s “their money” at stake, even though the carrier is the one paying. And when a defendant is visibly af