Tactics Used By Insurance Companies That Seek To Reduce Or Deny A Personal Injury Settlement

Any claim made against an insurance company indicates that the same company could get asked to offer monetary compensation to a specific accident victim. Insurance companies have arrived at various ways for lowering the level of that compensation.

Possible requests

Ask the victim to make a recorded statement. Smart victims refuse to offer such a statement, until first speaking with an attorney. You can ask for a signed medical authorization. This can provide the insurer with access to all of the medical records for a given claimant. Again, smart victims speak with their attorney before agreeing to the insurer’s request. Personal injury lawyers in Sarnia know how to create a less comprehensive form.

Possible actions taken:

Issuing a denial of the liability claim: If the other side cannot be declared liable, the claimant has no case. Still a claimant does not have to accept a denial from a single adjuster. Claimants have the right to refuse acceptance of that first denial. In that case, the claimant’s case gets given to a new adjuster.

Encouraging acceptance of a quick settlement: The amount of money offered in such a settlement is usually quite low. It seldom covers the cost of all of the victim’s medical expenses. Moreover, once an insurance company has gotten a claimant’s signature on an agreement, the terms cannot be changed.

Presenting a strong argument against the wisdom of hiring a lawyer. In the absence of a lawyer, claimants’ access to good representation has been denied, throughout the negotiating stage. Consequently, the insurer has a greater chance for convincing a victim/claimant to go along with a given request.

Hiring an investigator: Some investigators trail the person that has made some type of claim. That step gets taken in the hope of capturing the trailed man or woman engaged in an activity that he or she had claimed their injured body could not perform.

Some investigators work in-house. They study the posted content on various social networking sites. That investigation is aimed at discovery of pictures that were posted by the victim/claimant. Here again, it is the investigator’s job to find a time when an allegedly injured victim was carrying-out an activity that he or she had claimed an inability to perform.

How to fight such tactics?

Smart claimants make a point of hiring a personal injury lawyer. Lawyers can help a client with forming the proper response to one of the insurer’s requests. In addition, an attorney’s assistance can strengthen a client’s resistance to pressure, such as insistence that it would make sense to accept a low but quick settlement.

An attorney’s experience allows that member of the legal profession to explain the possible consequences, if someone settles with an insurance company at a decidedly early stage.