When you are hurt in a car wreck, you will be facing an experienced and well-armed adversary in the form of an adjuster who is backed by a large company.
An insurance adjuster whose sole goal is to find ways to deny your claim, delay your claim, and don’t pay your claim.
How does an insurance adjuster make the most of the Three “D”s of DENY, DELAY AND DON’T PAY?
Well, the easiest way is for an insurance adjuster to attack you under the guise of wanting to help you and be reasonable.
It may sound good, but beware. It’s not true. Do you really think the adjuster paid by the insurance company of the driver who just hit you, hurt you, and wreaked havoc on you, now wants to help you?
First, the adjuster owes a duty to help their insured, not to help you.
Second, the adjuster wants to keep his job and paying too much to you would hurt him or her and worse yet for you, paying too little scores points for him with his boss and saves money for the company and its shareholders.
Third, open claim files cost the insurance money so they want to settle it fast. They know with time, things can change and they can lose control. Heck, you might even gain a better understanding of your injury as time passes and you receive the medical treatment you need.
Fourth, the “mushroom” method works just fine for the insurance industy. The longer you are kept in the dark and fed manure, then the less likely you will seek the help of a lawyer to represent you, know your legal rights, and get your medical bills paid.
The insurance company knows from their own studies over the years that knowledge is power, and their employees are well-trained in insurance law, medical issues, and the not so fine art of negotiation. You are one person against a large company; a very, very, very large company with resources that you cannot even imagine at their disposal.
Did you know that the insurance companies share claims and medical information regarding those claims with each other through a commercially available service. The fact that you were hurt before, may or may not be a factor in the value of your claim. But if you are alone when you learn this, it can be quite a shock, and is intended to scare you.
You can balance the scales in YOUR FAVOR.
How? By simply hiring an experienced personal injury attorney. An attorney who knows the law, the courts, the medicine, and you. A good injury lawyer can be your “slingshot” against Goliath insurance company.
Now, for a tidbit of information that is crucial in deciding to hire a lawyer or try and save some money by going it alone.
Insurance companies do not want you to hire a lawyer. Some adjusters even tell you that you do not need a lawyer, telling you that paying a lawyer costs you money so you get less.
This is simply not true.
Worse yet, the insurance company knows it is not true. Their own studies tell them it is not true. Their own manuals years ago were written to keep you away from a lawyer.
There have been several studies as far back as 1999 which document the fact that insurance companies pay higher settlements to injured people who use an attorney than those who do not use an attorney.
The insurance industry performed this study to find out if people who had accident claims received more money in settlement by using an attorney than those people who settled on their own. According to this study conducted by the Insurance Research Council, a non-profit organization that is supported by leading property and casualty insurance companies across the United States, it was found that people who used an attorney received on average 3.5 times more money in settlement than those individuals who settled on their own.
If an insurance adjuster tells n accident victim they don’t need to hire a lawyer because they will receive less money in settlement, that would not be correct. That would be a lie. That would be a warning sign that the person on the other side is trying to take advantage of you and is not to be trusted
So. Remember this truth. Kentucky injury lawyers…… When you hurt. We help!