Is the Insurance Company on Your Side? Not if They Do These Things

After an accident, if you are not represented by an attorney or you wait to get one, the insurance company–both yours, and the other side’s, representing the negligent driver–will reach out to you to ask you some questions.

If it’s the insurance company or the other side, representing the negligent party that caused the accident and your injuries, you might already have some idea that they aren’t on your side.

But when you speak to them (specifically, the insurance adjuster, who represents the insurance company which represents the negligent party), they seem really nice. Helpful. Almost like….they’re on your side. But are they?

Being Friendly

The insurance company is never going to come out and say that it “opposes” you or that it is “the other side.” They may be nice people personally, but their friendliness to you has a goal: to get you either to settle your case, quickly and cheaply, or to discourage you from moving further with your lawsuit at all.

How do you know this? What warning signs will you get that the insurance company is not exactly on your side?

Using Legal Defenses Against You

Insurance companies have lawyers that work with them, and they are trained in legal defenses to injury law. Insurance companies will often tell you about all the rock solid defenses that they have, and how “difficult it will be for you to win,” because of what, on the surface, sound like really good reasons why your case is terrible.

They know you’re not an attorney, and that you don’t have an attorney (yet), and so they are banking on you being intimidated into settling or even dropping your claim after you hear their legal “knowledge.”

Asking for Too Many Medical Records

It is reasonable for insurance companies to ask for your medical records related to the accident. It is, perhaps, reasonable to ask for records from a few years prior to your accident.

But many insurance companies will ask for records from ten years before your accident–or worse, they will ask for a “blanket” medical authorization, allowing them to get any medical record from any medical provider that you saw for any reason, literally, for as far back as they want.

All they are doing is fishing through your medical records, hoping to find something in there to give them a basis to say that your injuries pre-existed the accident.

Quick Settlement Offers

When insurance companies make offers to settle, many victims are happy about that. It sounds like they’re being fair, and offering money to help.

But what they are really doing is trying to get you to “quickly settle” your case. They know you might be in a desperate financial state post-accident, and will use that desperation to dangle money offers to you, hoping you’ll take it.

For example they may say that they will pay for your emergency room bill. What they are not saying is that if you agree to that, the emergency bill will be 100% of everything you ever receive from the negligent driver–you’ve settled your case for just your emergency room bills, and can never go back for additional compensation for your other injuries.

Don’t fall victim to insurance company tactics. Get your own help who is on your side. Schedule a consultation with our Tampa personal injury lawyers at Barbas, Nunez, Sanders, Butler & Hovsepian today to discuss your injury case.

Source:

investopedia.com/terms/a/adjuster.asp