When you file a car accident claim with insurance, you are seeking to collect the full compensation that you are owed. But even your own insurance company will be at odds with this goal, seeking to retain all the funds that they can, regardless of whether or not you have faithfully paid your premiums year in and year out. If you are working with another driver’s insurance company, then adjusters will be working hard to reduce your compensation or to find a way to deny your claim altogether.
While having an experienced legal advocate on your side can help you overcome these challenges, it also helps to know the things about your claim that an insurer would rather keep from you. Here are several things you need to know if you are going to file a car accident claim:
- When insurance adjusters from the other driver’s company calls, you are not obligated to give them a recorded statement. In fact, it is probably in your best interests to not do so.
- With a recorded statement, an adjuster is going to try to prove that you deserve less compensation, or none at all, regardless of how helpful or friendly they sound. They want to prove that you are to blame in some measure for the accident. In North Carolina, this would fatal to your claim. Because of contributory negligence, you only have to be deemed 1 percent at fault, and you would lose out on every cent of compensation. To win a claim, you have to show that the other person, the defendant, is 100 percent at fault.
- A quick settlement will never benefit you; it only profits the insurance company.
- An insurer might give you a check for compensation, not letting you know that if you cash it in, you may be accepting that payment as full and final, thus closing your case.
- If an adjuster asks you to sign a medical authorization, they are likely trying to get all your medical records in order to build a case against you. The bottom line is, you absolutely do not want to sign a single thing until you are able to consult with an experienced lawyer first.
- If you wait a bit before going to the doctor after an accident, an insurance adjuster might view this as evidence that you were not really injured.
If you work with a dedicated Greenville personal injury lawyer, you can have an advocate on your side who can not only help you get full compensation, but who can protect you from insurance bad faith and other adverse complications of a claim. Learn how such a legal expert could help you when you contact the Whitley Law Firm today.
