After filing an accident claim, the insurance provider of the other driver will probably contact you to get more “details” regarding the accident. Be forewarned: they will try to reduce the value of your claim using any information you provide, and they can try to pressure you into accepting a smaller payment before you discover you’ve been cheated.
Fortunately, there are a few ways to defend your legal rights against the insurance provider’s attempt to underpay you. One of the ways is to contact reputed law firms, such as Stewart J. Guss, Injury Accident Lawyers, who can assist you in all the related legal proceedings.
Have a look at the following information;
1. Immediate Contact
One of the methods an insurance company does frequently is calling you right away to catch you before you have a chance to speak with a lawyer. If that occurs, just politely say that you don’t want to talk to anyone until you’ve had a chance to discuss it with your lawyer. Do not allow them to pressure you into speaking until you have had a chance to get legal representation. The insurance company should never speak to you directly if you have already retained legal counsel. Instead, they should speak to your attorney. Inform your legal counsel as soon as possible of any such attempt to get in touch with you personally.
Never give any statements to insurance adjusters without your lawyer’s knowledge. An insurance adjuster will act like your friend and will say they are doing everything in their power to help you. But in reality, they are doing exactly the opposite. In the end, they are employees of insurance companies, and their goal is to minimize loss to the company. To do that, they will try every strategy to lower your settlement. A lawyer is aware of the insurance adjuster’s strategies which is why the insurance adjusters advise against hiring them. A lawyer can protect the victims from the insurance adjusters and their cheap strategies.
2. Lowball Offers
The first time they speak with you, adjusters frequently try to lowball you with a grossly inadequate monetary settlement offer for property damage. They may also ask you to sign a renunciation of your legal right to sue in an effort to stop any future personal injury claims. At this stage, resist the want to agree to anything and resist the need to allow the adjuster to pressure you into doing anything you don’t want to. Simply state that you’d like to wait to discuss it with your attorney.
The problem with accepting this lowball offers is that you cannot revert it. Once you accept the lowball offer, there is nothing else you can do. It is true that you will have mounting medical bills and other expenses. And you will be tempted to accept the offer to mitigate these losses soon. But in reality, accepting this offer will just cause further financial losses and nothing else. You will not be able to recover from your losses with the initial offer. Consult with a lawyer and calculate the losses you have incurred and determine a settlement amount you deserve. Then fight with the insurance company for that amount.
3. Recorded Statement
During the call, an adjuster can also ask you to provide a recorded statement about the incident. You are almost never required to do this by law, and if you do, it will only be used against you in court. The tape is all that the insurance company needs to examine for potential evidence that could lower the value of your claim. You are not required to explain in any way how you believe the accident occurred; merely point the adjuster to the police report or your attorney. You might provide them with basic information like the number of persons involved in the collision, whether or not anyone was wounded, and the type of medical attention that was provided. Usually, they don’t require any more details from you than that.
4. Blame the Victim
One of the most common strategies followed by insurance companies is blaming the victim for an accident. If you don’t have solid proof that the defendant caused the accident, then you might have made the insurance companies’ job easier. The insurance company will blame you for the car accident with vague evidence. In addition to blaming the victim, they will also claim you don’t have enough evidence.
This is why you need to have an attorney by your side who can collect evidence and prove fault. An attorney will know about the cheap strategies of the insurance company and can counter them.
5. Delay the Claim
Another common tactic followed by insurance companies is to delay the claim in the hopes that you will accept a lower offer. They know how to stretch out a claim process. They will ask for unnecessary documents and say you missed some documents to stretch out the claim process. By delaying your compensation, they will pressure you to accept a lower settlement. You will feel the pressure of mounting medical bills and other expenses.
You can avoid all this just by hiring an attorney. An attorney will not allow the insurance company to delay or deny your claim. Attorneys can pressure the insurance companies to give you the compensation soon. They know what documents to submit and what not to submit. So they can make the process go faster and get you the compensation you deserve.
Getting legal assistance from an experienced vehicle accident law firm is the best approach to defend your rights following an accident. A trustworthy attorney with glowing testimonials from former clients and a track record of successful case outcomes would be most helpful to you. That entails locating a person with extensive training and expertise addressing cases similar to yours. An attorney can completely change the course of a case with their expertise. But not all attorneys can do that. You need to find an experienced attorney that you can trust and feel comfortable with.
Kim Marks