The Insurance Company and Your Personal Injury Accident

If you or someone you care for has suffered some type of personal injury, sooner or later it’s very likely that you and/or your personal injury attorney are going to have to deal with an insurance company. It’s best to remember that at the end of the day, insurance companies are in business to make money and are very reluctant to part with it no matter how valid your claim against them might be. Insurance companies have the financial resources to contest your claim in a variety of ways and hire legal talent that will explore every opportunity to dispute your claim or reduce it.

Common Ways that Insurance Companies Try to Avoid Paying Rightful Compensation for Injuries

Pressuring the victim to settle shortly after the accident without waiting for medical care and treatment that properly assesses the injuries. If an insurance company is fairly certain their client is at fault, they may pressure an accident victim to settle before medical professionals have established a prognosis. If they are successful, the victim might be stuck with catastrophic medical expenses that the insurance company is no longer liable to pay.

Advising the victim not to retain professional legal counsel. If an accident victim does not have a personal injury attorney to advise them of their rights and explain their legal options, they are at the mercy of insurance lawyers who are not looking out for the victim’s best interests.

Pressuring the victim to sign statements that are later used against the injured party. Insurance companies know that accident victims are physically and emotionally vulnerable after an accident. The aftermath of an accident is a very confusing time, and if an accident victim signs statements that they do not fully understand, the insurance company may use those documents against them later on.

Employing surveillance methods to disprove the severity of the victim’s injuries in some way, which can be used to influence settlement negotiations or a jury if the case goes to trial.

Low-balling settlements in an attempt to intimidate the victim into accepting a much lower settlement than their injuries warrant.

Refusing to negotiate and stonewalling the victim in an attempt to make them think that their claim has no merit.

It’s not fair to tar all insurance companies with the same brush, but personal injury cases can result in very large negotiated settlements or jury awards, and most of them will try to reduce the amount of money they have to pay in some way. You can be sure that the insurance companies will be acting in their own best interests, so it is critically important to have an experienced personal injury attorney to look out for yours and provide legal counsel so that you can make decisions based on what is best for you.