Top Mistakes That Hurt Personal Injury Claims

Jed Dietrich, Esq., Recognized as a Best Lawyer and American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys 10 Best Attorney, is Committed to Protecting the Rights of Accident Victims Across Throughout Buffalo and the Niagara Falls, NY Region. If You or a Loved One Has Been Injured in an Accident That Was Not Your Fault, Our Experienced Team of Attorneys Could Help You Collect the Evidence You Need to Obtain a Fair Settlement.

You should never have to pay the price for another person’s negligence.

If you have been injured in an accident that was not your fault, you could be entitled to significant compensation. However, filing a personal injury lawsuit is not always easy. Even if you have all the right evidence, you cannot afford to let your guard down. Any oversight or omission, no matter how minor, could come at the cost of your rights.

You do not have to take your chances in court. For more than 30 years, the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. has helped New York families assert their rights to a fair recovery. Call us today at 1-716-839-3939 to speak to a personal injury lawyer, schedule your free consultation, and find out how much your case could be worth.

Here are five of the biggest mistakes accident victims make before taking their case to court:

This is, arguably, the biggest mistake you can make after an accident.

Even if your injuries seem minor, they still need to be documented. Some injuries, like whiplash, are invisible. You might not even notice that anything is wrong for hours, days, or weeks after the accident. It is easy to put off a trip to the hospital when you feel like you can push through, but any delay in treatment could present a golden opportunity for the defense.

Seeing the doctor creates a verifiable record of your concerns. It also makes it harder for an insurance company or defense lawyer to accuse you of exaggeration or failure to mitigate damages.

Anything you say online could be used against you in court.

Even if your social media profiles are all private, insurance adjusters and defense attorneys have many ways to obtain information about your posts, comments, and pictures. They will look through your unrestricted albums and are not above sending contact requests to your closet friends and family members. If one person makes a mistake, it could give the defense access to content and tagged pictures.

It may not be fair, but writing a hopeful comment about recovery or posting a selfie of yourself outside could serve as a sufficient excuse for the insurance company to accuse you of exaggerating your injuries.

New York is a no-fault state, but that does not mean the insurance company is on your side.

Insurance companies are businesses. They care about profit more than they care about your health and well-being. For an insurance company to stay profitable, it cannot pay more money in benefits than it receives through premiums. Many companies proactively limit potential settlements by taking steps to offload liability onto their own customers.

Some of the tactics adjusters use include, but are not limited to, the following:

1. Acting concerned to get you to let your guard down;
2. Delaying the claims process, hoping you will give up and go away;
3. Asking you to provide an unrecorded statement without an attorney present so that they can twist your own words against you;
4. Demanding free access to your medical records, letting them attribute accident-related injuries to pre-existing conditions; and
5. Offering settlements that seem tempting but only pay a fraction of your claim’s actual value.

Sometimes insurance companies delay and stonewall, and sometimes they are all too eager to settle. If you have evidence on your side, there is a good chance you will receive an offer of settlement sooner than you expect. These initial offers are often made to look like good deals. They might include enough money to pay off your medical debt and go to physical therapy.

However, they are often deficient in other ways.

In a personal injury lawsuit, accident victims can recover a wide range of damages, including compensation for lost income, emotional pain and suffering, and physical disfigurement. Putting a price tag on hardship obviously is not easy. During settlement negotiations, defense attorneys will often fight hard to devalue both your economic and non-economic damages. Even if there is little doubt that you will eventually win, it would not stop the defendant’s legal team from trying to keep your settlement as small as possible. They might accuse you of failure to mitigate damages or say that, because you were found partly at-fault for the accident, your award should be reduced proportionately.

If you do not have the right representation, it is easy to get taken for a ride.

The insurance industry is no stranger to lawsuits.

Any insurance company that has been in business for a long time knows how to deal with legal claims. They have strategies designed to prevent you from suing in the first place, and tactics that help them control the pace of negotiations. If you take your case to trial, they will hire lawyers who do nothing but fight insurance claims to handle yours, too.

The insurance company can afford to make mistakes because it has money and a veritable army of lawyers. Most accident victims cannot afford to make the same mistakes. If you slip up, it could come at the cost of your settlement.

Do not take chances with your rights: contact an experienced personal injury lawyer today.

The Dietrich Law Firm P.C. has spent decades helping New Yorkers assert their rights to a fair recovery.

A recognized U.S. News & World Report Best Law Firm, we know what it takes to build a compelling, evidence-based case for recovery, and we have the results to prove it. Since our founding in 2005, we have helped our clients throughout the state secure more than $300 million in damages. We could help you, too, but you have to act fast. Call Jed Dietrich, Esq., today at 1-716-839-3939 to speak to a personal injury lawyer and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation as soon as possible.

Call the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. immediately at 1-716-839-3939 so that our aggressive, tenacious, and hardworking personal injury lawyers can fight to obtain the best result for your personal injury claim in Buffalo, New York. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and there is never a fee until we WIN for you!