Filing a claim after a car accident, or following any other negligence-related injury, will allow you to obtain the financial compensation you need. Personal injury settlements can include compensation for your medical expenses, lost wages, property damages, and even your pain and suffering.
Sadly, however, when people fail to obtain legal representation, they are often left at the mercy of insurance adjusters. These savvy and highly experienced professionals are trained to help insurance companies minimize their losses.
Although they can come across as friendly and sympathetic, an insurance adjuster’s first loyalty is always to the companies that have hired them. As such, they work hard to get claimants to do and say things that might jeopardize their outcomes. The good news is that there are several things you can do to scare an insurance adjuster and keep the tides turned in your favor.
Get an Attorney
Bar none: the absolute scariest thing that you can ever say to an insurance adjuster is that you’ve aligned yourself with a reputable personal injury attorney. For adjusters, this is a decision that levels the playing field. If you pursue your claim entirely on your own, the adjuster in charge of your case will attempt to leverage what you don’t know to limit your settlement or to avoid paying you entirely.
One of the greatest benefits of hiring a lawyer is that an attorney will already be well-versed in each of the different tools and tactics that adjusters have at their disposal. Visit this site to learn more about the benefits of hiring a personal injury lawyer.
When you mention getting an attorney, an adjuster may tell you that you’ll get the same settlement amount that you would without representation. This is simply not true. When negotiating your settlement, your attorney will strive to get you the highest amounts for each type of loss that you’ve sustained, and all related legal fees will be added in addition to these amounts.
Hiring an attorney will not lower the amount that you’re compensated for property damages, lost wages, pain and suffering, or any other loss. Instead, it will give you the greatest ability to obtain the highest possible settlement for your claim.
Refer All Communication Directly to Your Attorney
One of the most frequently used tactics among claims adjusters is getting injury victims to make statements that undermine their claims. Their friendly demeanor makes it easy to mistake their intentions. For instance, a claims adjuster might:
● Ask how you are feeling
● Inquire about your medical treatments
● Attempt to discuss your ability or desire to return to work
● Talk about your return to normal activities
How you answer any of these questions could lead to statements that are actually used against you. Statements that seem irrelevant in the moment could come back to haunt you later on, even if these statements are made in a casual way, and are not truly indicative of how you feel or of how well you’re recovering.
Referring all communication back to a personal injury attorney takes away one of an adjuster’s most effective tools: your own mouth. By letting your lawyer speak on your behalf, you’re ensuring that you never inadvertently jeopardize your efforts to get a fair settlement.
Properly Documenting Your Case
It is virtually impossible to submit a valid personal injury claim without properly documenting the injuries you’ve sustained. Not only does this require you to go to the doctor, but it also requires you to schedule this and all other visits in a timely fashion. The longer that you delay in receiving treatment after an accident; the easier it will be for adjusters to blame your physical injuries on other causes.
This is why it is important to visit the emergency room immediately after you’re injured. Moreover, you should always follow this visit up by scheduling an appointment with your regular physician. Your physician will have the best insight into your pre-accident health and thus, the best ability to document all accident-related changes.
Get a Second Medical Opinion
Keep in mind that emergency rooms often discharge patients after verifying that they’re in stable condition. Although you might lack deep lacerations, broken bones, or other obvious signs of injury, this does not mean that you’ve escaped your accident unharmed.
Visiting a chiropractor will allow for a more in-depth investigation of how this event has affected your musculoskeletal alignment and health. Issues such as whiplash or other forms of joint dysfunction, spinal subluxations, nerve compression, and disc herniation can sometimes be overlooked in the emergency room.
Damage to the spine and other supporting structures often leads to latent pain that takes days or even weeks to manifest. As such, whenever people sustain impact-related injuries, whether due to car crashes or slip and fall accidents, consulting with a chiropractor is advised.
Notification of this secondary care is another thing that puts claims adjusters on edge. That’s because they know that accident victims are taking an all-inclusive approach to learning exactly how their bodies and lives have been negatively impacted by the negligence of others.
Insurance adjusters have a sly way of taking and maintaining the upper hand when dealing with accident victims. The best way to put them on edge is by aligning yourself with an attorney who already knows all of the tricks that adjusters use. Following this decision up with diligent medical care will create a valuable record of your injuries, and a solid path to fair compensation.
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