Dealing with Insurance After a Car Accident
Being in a car accident is a traumatic, sometimes life-changing event. It’s not something that frequently happens to most people. Because a car accident isn’t a daily experience, it’s easy to make critical mistakes in the immediate aftermath of your wreck, especially when fault is not immediately clear.
The first thing to remember is that insurance companies are for-profit businesses. Whether it’s your insurance or the company covering the other driver, the reality is the same. They are not in the habit of paying large sums of money in the wake of an accident. The company is likely to low-ball the first settlement offer. They are likely to fight you on paying the full value of your vehicle or the damage and they might even create headaches about paying medical bills.
They’ll stall, refusing to call you back, losing your paperwork or passing your claim from department to department, anything to keep you waiting and keep the money in their pockets.
It’s important to protect your rights. To start with, don’t sign anything in the immediate aftermath of the accident. Don’t let anyone record your statement. And most important — get an attorney to protect your rights. You should even consider having an attorney on hand to look over the damage before an insurance adjuster gets a chance.
In these cases experience counts— and our attorneys have seen just about everything. For example, we recently recovered over ten times the original amount offered by the insurance company for an elderly client injured in a car wreck. The insurance company tried to dodge their responsibility, claiming the injuries sustained by our client were minimal and pre-existing anyway. We sued on our client’s behalf and obtained just compensation for her. She paid off all her medical bills and now has money in the bank for future medical treatment.
Our staff works hard to stay current with ever-evolving insurance company tactics, ensuring we ready to act and react in any situation. Contact us for a consultation if you have been seriously injured in an accident. We’ll fight for your rights.
