When you suffer injuries due to the negligence of another party, you may assume that the insurance company is your best friend in the process. The insurance agent seems sympathetic to your losses. Ultimately, you hope the insurance company will pay out for your damages. However, understanding the insurance company's role in the personal injury claim process is essential to managing your interactions with them.
What Does the Insurance Company Do in a Personal Injury Claim?
The insurance company is responsible for several key tasks related to your injury claim.
1. Evaluating the Incident
The insurance company will look at the factors that led to your injury and develop a strong picture of who likely bears liability for the incident.
2. Examining Your Personal Injury Damages
As part of the personal injury claim process, insurance companies will look at the damages you claim due to your injuries and offer an assessment of the compensation you request.
3. Paying Out Compensation
This is where it turns tricky. Insurance companies are for-profit entities. While they exist to offer protection to their covered individuals, they want to avoid paying out any more than necessary following an injury, since that payout impacts their bottom line.
Common Tactics Used by Insurance Companies
Because insurance companies exist to make money, not just to pay it out, injured individuals may find themselves dealing with a number of potential problems as they interact with the company and pursue compensation for their losses.
- Denying coverage for the incident: The insurance company may attempt to claim that it does not offer coverage for the specific type of incident you are claiming damages for, or that it did not cover the liable individual at the time of the incident.
- Denying the extent of your injuries: In some cases, the insurance company may ignore the full extent of the injuries and damages you sustained and try to avoid offering full compensation for them.
- Pressuring you to accept a low settlement: The insurance company may try to pressure you to accept a low settlement offer, including trying to convince you to take a fast settlement instead of waiting for the compensation you really deserve.
The insurance agent that talks with you may even try to get you to accept liability for the accident or pressure you to make statements that downplay the full extent of your injuries. All of these strategies can reduce the compensation the insurance company has to pay out after an accident.
The Benefits of a Personal Injury Lawyer
When you suffer injuries due to someone else's negligence, do not assume that the insurance company will be on your side. Instead, contact a personal injury lawyer to help you manage your claim. A lawyer can:
- Lay out the full damages you sustained due to the accident
- Evaluate the insurance policy to get a better idea of what compensation you should expect
- Fight on your behalf
- Manage dealings with the insurance company to decrease the odds of potentially damaging statements that could reduce your compensation
- Make sure your claim progresses before the statute of limitations runs out
Injured? Our experienced PERSONAL injury lawyer CAN HELP you get the compensation you deserve
Are you in the midst of a personal injury claim? Do not assume that the insurance company is on your side. Contact a personal injury lawyer at Bykhovsky Law, LLC to learn how we can help.
Contact us for a FREE CONSULTATION.
