You never have to deal directly with the insurance company or the at-fault party’s lawyer when you’re represented by counsel. Some injury attorneys limit their practice areas to specialize in malpractice, product liability, defective medical devices, and other types of high-dollar injury claims.
Most minor personal injury claims are straightforward. Often, a claim can be settled with a few telephone calls and letters. Claims adjusters aren’t lawyers, so your discussions won’t include many complex legal terms or concepts.
Most personal injury attorneys offer a free case evaluation. You can meet with as many attorneys as you like to find the right attorney to fight for you.
I was involved in a motor vehicle accident over two years ago. A car did not stop at very busy intersection while the lights were…
In most cases, having a lawyer helps the victim receive a higher settlement when compared to plaintiffs who do not have a lawyer.
When a person is injured in an accident, he or she may have to submit a claim to the relevant insurance company. Many times, this process can be long and confusing. This situation is exacerbated when the victim is trying to recover from the accident.
Before negotiating with the insurance company, you should be aware of the full extent of your damages. Your attorney can help you identify sources of damages. Consider the amount of property damage you have sustained. Add in your medical expenses, including hospital bills, visits to follow-up treatment, travel costs associated with seeking treatment, prescription medication costs, rehabilitative care and any anticipated future medical expenses. Additionally, you may be entitled to compensation related to your lost wages, decreased earning capacity, disability and other economic damages. In some states, you or your family can receive compensation for loss of services, loss of support, loss of companionship and loss of consortium. Talk through the possible damages for which you may be able to receive compensation with your personal injury lawyer.
While many insurance companies perform their duties as required under the law, some cut corners and use deceptive practices in order to protect the financial interests of the insurance company by denying or paying only minimal amounts on valid claims.
Some insurance policies specify that the insured must report claims within a certain period of time and must submit information within a given timeline. These rules apply when the insured is filing a claim against his or her own insurance company. Additionally, not handling necessary communications with the insurance company promptly may send a message that the claim is not important to the claimant. In any event, all claims should be completed and a lawsuit filed before the statute of limitations expires, which would forever bar the claim.
Remember that insurance company agents represent the insurance company’s interests, not yours. Therefore, insurance adjusters often are not really concerned about the victim’s injuries and are only concentrated on resolving the claim for as little as possible.
Some insurance agents may offer a prompt settlement to entice the claimant to accept it and not hire an attorney, which may mean a larger payout down the line. Having a personal injury lawyer handle negotiations places this task in the hands of someone who is more experienced in this realm.
Your lawyer will present your claim in the light most favorable to you, so that the insurance company and their claims adjusters are given the correct and proper information to adjust your claim and to maximize the value of your claim so that you are fully reimbursed for your losses.
A few examples are: Water Damage. Fire. Theft or vandalism. Damage from storms, such as hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and high winds.
As far as property insurance goes, you pay a premium to protect your property and reasonably expect any claim to be reimbursed in full. You may be disappointed to find out that the insurance companies look to minimize their losses and pay you the lowest figure that they can. This is why you need to hire your own insurance claims lawyer ...
If your insurance company denies your claim, or does not pay the full value of your claim, you do not have to accept this result Insurance companies very often wrongfully deny and undervalue claims. An insurance claims lawyer will represent you, and can file a lawsuit to obtain the benefits you deserve under your insurance policy.
Insurance companies use insurance adjusters, and sometimes insurance company lawyers, to determine the amount of your claim. The claims adjuster will visit your property and conduct detailed inspections. You would be well advised to have your own adjuster and/or lawyer at this stage of the process to protect your interests.
If you say the wrong thing, give inaccurate figures or out of date information, the insurance company will use this against you to lower the amount of your claim.
Wites Law Firm has a legal team that specializes in insurance claims and has taken cases as far as the Florida Supreme Court where we won, and forced the insurance company to pay the full amount of its $2 million dollar insurance policy. If you are going to fight your insurance company to get what you are owed make sure you bring a team of lawyers who will show that you mean business!
Personal injury lawyers handle accident claims on a daily basis. They can assess a claim and inform the potential client whether or not the situation presents a viable claim. Additionally, they can recommend a course of legal action to pursue.
However, once you have been involved in an accident, your interests and the car insurance company’s interests may not align. If you have to make an uninsured motorist claim or otherwise seek recourse against your own insurance company, you may be confused about your rights.
After an accident, you may have been physically injured. You may have never had an injury of that nature before. Personal injury lawyers have seen a number of injuries and may be able to recommend medical tests and procedures that may provide you with more information or that may help your treatment.
The vast majority of personal injury cases settle outside court. However, some insurance companies will proceed to trial in order to prevent claims of that nature from arising in the future or to avoid getting a reputation as a company that will resolve every claim through settlement. Therefore, it is important that you retain a personal injury lawyer you can provide you with competent legal representation in court.
Once a personal injury lawyer estimates the potential value of a claim, he or she can negotiate with the insurance adjuster. Most laypeople are not seasoned negotiators. They may not know the techniques to get the insurance company to pay the maximum amount on a claim.
Not all cases are cut and dry. Some may involve multiple tortfeasors or raise questions of liability. Personal injury lawyers understand the laws in the jurisdictions where they practice and can use this knowledge to consider strategies in settling the case.
If you have been seriously injured and are looking for a quick settlement, you are almost invariably going to get less than the value of your accident case. To give the insurance company a reason to make something approaching a reasonable offer, you need all of your medical bills and records and often a written analysis of your case from a doctor – either a treating doctor or “independent” medical expert – as to the extent and scope of your injuries. If you settle a case before you have all of the documentation you need for your claim, you have little chance of receiving fair value. Our law firm will not even consider taking a case if the client is trying to settle the case before her doctors understand the full scope of her injuries.
Insurance adjusters use anything you say to knock down your settlement offer, or they pass along the information to the insurance company’s lawyers to give cross-examination fodder against you at trial.
To give the insurance company a reason to make something approaching a reasonable offer, you need all of your medical bills and records and often a written analysis of your case from a doctor – either a treating doctor or “independent” medical expert – as to the extent and scope of your injuries.
By demanding more than the value, you telegraph to the insurance company that you don’t know the value of your claim. When your case does settle, there will be a good chance you left a lot of money on the table. Because an insurance company’s response to a ridiculous demand is not to make a real settlement offer.
However, there is a time limit on filing claims related to the accident that you should be aware of. All states have a statute of limitations which imposes a strict deadline on how long you can wait before filing claims. Under Maryland’s statute of limitations, you have to file your claims within 3 years after the accident.
When our attorneys do allow for these statements, we set them up under controlled conditions to limit any damage the client can do to the case.
If you are going to take the risk and delay, do not talk to anyone about how the incident happened or the extent and scope of the injuries.
When the adjuster takes the statement from an unrepresented person, the intent is usually to find a way to defend the claim as opposed to simply obtaining information necessary to value a claim. Usually, the adjuster tries to take a statement very early on in the process, and often before the car accident victim has been fully diagnosed with their medical problems. Additionally, part of the statement also includes leading questions such as “when did you first see.”, “What did you do to avoid…” and the like. These are calculated to do nothing more than give the adjuster an excuse to discount the claim or to be used against you in court.
The best bet for automobile accident victims is to talk with the best personal injury lawyer you can find as soon as possible after the wreck.
One trick that adjusters frequently use is to “disregard” or “disallow” some of your medical expenses incurred by following your doctor’s orders for injuries sustained in the accident. They use many different justifications from the amount was too much, to the treatment was disallowed. In every instance though you can be sure that the adjuster will find issues with your medical treatment. It may be that the treatment was “excessive” or maybe that there were “gaps” in treatment or the treatment was not warranted or unrelated to the injury caused by the accident (according to the insurance company). This is a common trick used both in settlement negotiations and for litigation defense.
Usually, the adjuster will say something like “ we accept responsibility“, “ our insured was at fault ” and the car accident victim assumes that means that the adjuster will be fair and reasonable when talking about settlement. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is part of a designed program to pay out as little as possible on car accident claims. If the adjuster can script the relationship such that the car accident victims believe that they can handle the case on their own, without an attorney, the insurance company will surely pay less money ultimately on the case. In the meantime, the insurance company can get a statement from the car accident victim that can be used against them and obtain other information that will do nothing but hurt the case.
The general statute of limitations in Texas is two years from the date of the accident. The closer that the adjuster can get the claim to the statute of limitations the better for the insurance company. Most of the better personal injury attorneys in the Houston area will not accept a case that is only days or weeks away from the statute of limitations. So never wait until the last minute to think about getting an accident lawyer. In some cases, the injured person fails to take appropriate action within the two-year limitation period and they have effectively waived their claims.
An insurance company adjusting a car wreck claim as a reasonable right to ask for relevant medical records that pertain to the injury sustained in the accident. However, in practice what the insurance company will do for those representing themselves is to ask for an unlimited release of medical records through an authorization for release of medical. The releases usually are not limited in time and usually do not include only those medical records related to the wreck, but rather all of your medical records to the date of your birth may be obtained by the insurance company. Surely, records more than 10 years prior to the accident are not relevant for anything.
Usually, the time when the car accident victim first understands that they really need an attorney is when the subject of money comes up. Until then, they had been told that the insurance company was accepting responsibility for the accident and they mistakenly believe that that would lead to a reasonable offer. When the insurance company says they “accept responsibility” that usually only implies you will receive an offer and has nothing to do with the fairness of the offer and as a rule, for those not represented by experienced counsel, the offer is almost universally a joke. One reason for this tactic is that up until the time the people understand they need a lawyer; the insurance company is driving the process. In the meantime, they have obtained all of your medical records, even those they would not otherwise obtain, and have taken a statement that they can use against you in court. Further, the cases been substantially delayed and that has consequences as well.
There are two types of individuals who report and track claims.
A car passenger claimed that an accident caused or aggravated a herniated disc. The passenger had a lower back fusion surgery. Below is what a back fusion surgery looks like.
Days after a crash, a Progressive adjuster may offer you a check for a small amount. They usually offer between $1,000 and $3,000 to settle your personal injury case.
Progressive is an agent for home insurance in Florida. It is an agent for home insurance, condo insurance and renters insurance.
In Florida, most of Progressive’s auto policies have bodily injury liability (BIL) insurance limits of $10,000 per person. The most that these policies will pay out is $20,000 per accident. Of course, Progressive sells car insurance policies with higher bodily injury liability limits.
Progressive lets anyone with a claim track a claim. Therefore, people with injury claims against Progressive can track their claim.
It may get Progressive to pay you more money for your car damage. On the other hand, Progressive will give you a much harder fight on any diminished value (of the car) claim. Likewise, Progressive is cheap when it comes to offering compensation for your pain, suffering and medical bills.