What Should I Say To An Insurance Adjuster?

Jed Dietrich, Esq., Recognized as a Super Lawyer, is Committed to Providing Unparalleled Representation and Peerless Personal Injury Service. If You or a Loved One Has Been Seriously Injured in a Car Accident That Was Not Your Fault, the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. Could Help You Investigate Your Crash and Begin Asserting Your Right to a Fair Recovery.

You cannot always avoid talking to an insurance adjuster.

After an accident, the first call can come quickly. If you have been seriously injured, there is a chance you may still be in the hospital struggling with pain, anxiety, and an uncertain future when the insurance company decides to start doing its due diligence.

Although adjusters like to present their requests for more information and recorded statements as mere formalities, many companies employ these tactics in bad faith. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile, seizing every possible opportunity to minimize their liability at your expense.

You do not have to take on the insurance company alone.

A recognized U.S. News & World Report Best Law Firm, the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. has spent decades helping New York families fight back against an industry that is often more concerned with its own profits than its customers’ health and well-being. Our experienced team of attorneys knows what it takes to win high-stakes negotiations, and we have the results to prove it.

If you think you could have a case, call Jed Dietrich, Esq., today at 716-839-3939 to speak to a car accident lawyer and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation as soon as possible.

New York law requires that private automobiles carry private insurance or another, alternate form of financial security.

After an accident, drivers have a duty to exchange their names and contact information with the other motorist. If the crash was serious and you have injuries that cannot be ignored, there is a good chance the insurance company yours, or even the other driver’s will reach out as part of its early-stage fact-finding.

The terms of your own coverage may require you to share certain information about the accident with the insurance company. In general, this usually means:

1. Your name and contact information;
2. The time, date, and location of the accident; and
3. Your attorney’s contact information.

If you receive a visit from the other driver’s insurance, you may need to share your no-fault claim number and adjuster’s contact information, too. All of these details are necessary to confirm that you were actually involved in an accident but many adjusters would not stop there.

Instead, they will keep asking for more.

During your initial conversation with an adjuster, they might ask how you are doing and express some degree of empathy and understanding. This should not be too surprising adjusters are people, too, and their sympathy is often genuine.

But adjusters work for the insurance company, and the insurance company has its own priorities.

For the insurance company, paying a claim is a contractual obligation. You pay the insurance company, and they provide financial security if you meet certain conditions. This business model only works when the company makes more money from premiums than it loses paying claims.

Since insurance companies cannot turn a profit if they approve every claim, it is rarely in their best interest to offer a fair settlement without first trying to limit their own liability.

Insurance companies try to minimize their out-of-pocket liability in a variety of ways.

Some of the most common tactics designed to devalue personal injury settlements including, but are not limited to, the following:

Not every accident claim is complex.

If you have a straightforward case, the insurance company may be eager to settle, sometimes even before negotiations have begun. Furthermore, these early-stage offers are often designed to seem as attractive as possible. The adjuster might offer you more than enough money to cover your out-of-pocket medical costs, as well as some extra cash for property damage and inconvenience.

However, accepting a settlement comes with a caveat: once you put pen to paper and sign off on an agreement, you would not get a second chance to renegotiate.

Insurance companies frequently try to take advantage of financially strained accident victims, offering enough money to get them to go away but often not nearly as much as they would have been able to secure if they would ask a personal injury lawyer for a second opinion.

Insurance adjusters will sometimes ask for a recorded statement, too.

More often than not, providing a recorded statement will be posited as your chance to tell “your side of the story.” The adjuster might ask you a series of leading questions, but they will let you talk at-length about everything that happened before, during, and after the accident.

The problem with recorded statements is that they create an unchangeable record of events, straight from your own mouth a record of events that, if it happens to contain any inconsistencies or contradictions, could easily be used against you in trial. Just because the adjuster says that it is for your own benefit does not mean it cannot and would not come back to hurt you. In some cases, simply saying “sorry” for being involved in an accident can be interpreted as an admission of fault.

Depending on the terms of your insurance, you may be required to provide a recorded statement, but you also have a right to have an attorney present when doing so. Having a lawyer on-hand can ensure that the insurance company does not get to ask questions designed to trick you into providing information that can be used against you later on.

The insurance company may need to see your medical records at some point.

If you do not share your medical records, the adjuster cannot confirm that you are injured and if they cannot confirm that you are injured, the company has no obligation to pay benefits.

However, just because the insurance company needs some information does not mean that they need all of it but that certainly would not stop them from trying.

Some insurance companies routinely ask accident victims to sign blanket releases that give them unrestricted access to your entire health history, which they can use to attribute collision-related injuries to pre-existing conditions, potentially reducing the overall value of your settlement.

Do not take your chances with an insurance company that cares more about its profits than your well-being: call Jed Dietrich, Esq., today at 716-839-3939 to speak to a car accident lawyer and schedule your 100% free, no-obligation consultation as soon as possible.

Call the Dietrich Law Firm P.C. immediately at 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!