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Posts Tagged ‘insurance’

What You Shouldn’t Say to Insurance Adjusters

Posted on: January 31st, 2022 by Timothy Hendershot
Insurance adjusters are trained to appear friendly, but remember, they aren’t on your side.

Insurance adjusters are trained to appear friendly, but remember, they aren’t on your side.

An insurance company pays a claims adjuster to evaluate claims and establish the insurer’s potential obligation. You should never trust that an insurance adjuster is on your side, even if they appear kind and really concerned about your health and well-being.

The adjuster will, in most circumstances, be deliberately working against you. Insurance adjusters are taught to engage in informal conversations with victims in order to elicit adverse information about their cases. Remember that they work for the insurance company, and their primary purpose is to save money for the company by paying you as little as possible.

You must be extremely careful about what information you share with an insurance adjuster. Say as little as possible. Better still refer all communications to an attorney.

Schedule a free consultation at Cunnane Law in Edmonds WA to discuss your situation. Call or contact us online now.

What You Can Say to an Adjuster

You should not say anything to a claim adjuster or anyone else if you have already hired an attorney. Simply refer them to your legal counsel.

If you don’t already have an attorney, you can provide an insurance adjuster with basic information like your name, address, and phone number. We advise against providing any additional information about yourself, such as your employment status.

Limit the amount of information you share about the accident as well. It is acceptable to provide an adjuster with the time, date, and location of an accident, as well as details about the vehicles involved and any possible witness contact information.

Do not go into detail about how the accident occurred. Even if pressed, refuse to provide a written or recorded statement about the accident.

What Not to Say to an Adjuster

Never admit any kind of wrongdoing or say you’re sorry. Remember that a claims adjuster is looking for reasons to reduce an insurance company’s liability, and any admission of negligence can seriously jeopardize a claim.

Do not say you feel fine, or better than you did, (this is especially important when answering the common first question, “How are you?”). Never mention your current health situation.

Do not speculate about any injuries you believe you may have sustained. If your actual diagnosis is more serious than your self-diagnosis, your statement may present a problem.

Refuse any request by insurance adjusters to make a recorded statement. A recorded statement can sabotage your case.

What Are Insurance Adjusters Looking For?

The primary concern of many insurance adjusters is ensuring that a claim is not fraudulent. In most cases, an adjuster will conduct a physical examination of the vehicles involved.

The adjuster may contact medical providers to determine not only the costs of your medical care, but also whether previous injuries could be used to reduce the value of your current claim.

How Do Personal Injury Adjusters Determine Compensation?

If an insurance adjuster believes liability is clear after conducting an investigation, they may offer the victim a settlement. In almost every case, this initial amount is significantly less than what a victim may be entitled to.

Lowball offers are made in order to close the cases of the most desperate victims as quickly as possible. In more serious accidents, the adjuster may offer a larger sum, but it will still be potentially less than they could receive if they hired a lawyer.

Allow Our Law Firm to Help

For the past 23 years, Cunnane Law has assisted injured people all over Seattle and western Washington in dealing with insurance companies. An experienced lawyer could be extremely beneficial in ensuring that you do not accidentally say anything that jeopardizes your claim. We are aware of their tricks and can assist you in avoiding being taken advantage of. Set up a free consultation by calling or contacting us online.

Note: This information was provided not for any specific claim and is written in broad and general terms and may not be the right path to follow for a particular claim or case. This information is not intended to create an attorney client relationship. It is always best to receive direct legal counsel for your legal issues. It is never too early to call the attorney, but it can be too late.

Three Tricky Tactics of Car Insurance Companies

Posted on: November 2nd, 2020 by Timothy Hendershot
Car insurance companies are looking after their interests. Who is looking after yours?

Car insurance companies are looking after their interests. Who is looking after yours?

If you have recently been in a car crash, it is likely that you were contacted by a car insurance company.  Typically, they are very friendly in the beginning when they reach out to claimants. However, as nice as they might be, you need to remember that, as with any company they are in business to make a profit, which means your best interests are not their priority. So, when an auto insurance company tries throughout your claim to use clever tactics to save their bottom line at your expense, you should not be surprised.

Lowball Settlement Offers

One of the most common car insurance company tactics is offering a “lowball settlement.” An offer that has been deliberately calculated lower than what a claimant needs or deserves after a crash is referred to as a lowball settlement. Often, they can be less than 50% of what the claim value is.

Lowball settlement offers are irreversible once accepted, which is the reason why insurance companies love to use them. Your claim is closed and is almost impossible to reopen once you sign a settlement offer, irrespective of the amount. Let your car crash attorney review any offer and advise you before you accept it. Insurance companies will say the offer is only good for a few days to rush you into signing, but the truth is that actual offers are valid until the claimant has responded.

Recorded Statements

Another tactic insurance companies like to use is to call a claimant soon after an accident to try and get you to provide a recorded statement then and there. To keep you from getting scared and hanging up, they’ll probably not be very aggressive on the phone. They will probably use professional or confusing language to keep you on the line and hopefully say something on the record.

The reason why they want your statement on record is so they can find something to misinterpret into an admission of guilt which will increase your liability or decrease the  nature and extent of your injuries, either way leaving you with a lower settlement value of your claim.  Your safest option is to tell the at fault party insurance company, you will not be giving them a recorded statement. First, call your car crash attorney to talk about it.

Delaying Tactics

There are deadlines and statutes of limitation that insurance companies must follow with every step of a car crash claim. For example, in Washington State, car insurance companies must acknowledge their receipt of the notice of a claim within 10 working days of its original filing. WAC 284-30-360. Every insurer must complete its investigation of a claim within thirty days after notification of claim unless the investigation cannot reasonably be completed within that time. WAC 284-30-370.

Some insurance companies want to make you feel discouraged and unsure about your claims validity by using every single minute of each deadline before doing anything. All this in the hope that you will either drop the claim or accept a lowball settlement offer. Sometimes they wait to see how desperate you are to accept a low offer.

Do not let delaying tactics get to you. Team up with an experienced personal injury lawyer who can monitor the progress of your claim and press the insurance company for missing required deadlines.

The bottom line is car insurance companies are looking after their own interests. When you’ve been in a car crash, you need an experienced, tenacious car crash attorney looking after your interests. Contact Cunnane Law today, and we can help you avoid every tactic the insurance companies use that might trick you and cause you not to get full value on your claim.  And remember, before you sign your name, call Joe Cunnane.

Note: This information was provided not for any specific claim and is written in board and general terms and may not be the right path to follow for a particular claim or case. This information is not intended to create an attorney client relationship. It is always best to receive direct legal counsel for your legal issues. It is never too early to call the attorney, but it can be too late.

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