3 Ways Insurance Claims Adjusters Might Try to Play You

Getting a recorded statement, a signed medical authorization form, and discouraging accident victims from working with a personal injury lawyer are tricks insurance claims adjusters use to influence settlements. Tricky strategies are used to lower or delegitimize settlements. Knowing these strategies helps injured parties know how to deal with the adjusters and protect their rights.

Getting a Recorded Statement

The main goal of insurance companies is to pay accident victims less than what their claims are worth. Companies employ adjusters to gather facts and investigate claims. Statements are key to any investigation. Adjusters ask victims questions that favor the companies. A trick they may try to pull on victims is asking for signed or recorded statements. If they do not succeed, they ask for interviews.

Everything that a victim says can be used against him or her later on during the settlement process. Adjusters can sneak in questions whose answers they can take out of context and hurt a person’s car accident claim. They may use answers to make injuries appear less extensive and severe. While still recovering from shock after an accident, a victim may exaggerate, apologize, or omit crucial details when giving a recorded statement.

It is important for a victim not to trust an adjuster and agree to recorded statements. He or she can choose to leave communications to a personal injury attorney.

Discouraging Working With an Attorney

Insurance adjusters do not like attorneys being involved in cases. They know the backing of an attorney usually leads to a higher payout to an injured victim. Consequently, the adjuster can try talking the injured party out of seeking an attorney for his or her case.

The adjuster may tell a person that a lawyer will delay the settlement process, take a third of the settlement, or say the person will net more without involving an attorney. That is incorrect because unrepresented parties walk away with significantly less than what they would have received even after paying the attorney’s fees. An independent study commissioned by the Insurance Research Council (IRC) found accident victims working with injury lawyers to recover 3.5 times higher jury verdicts and settlements on average than those who handle their cases themselves.

Signing a Medical Authorization Form

Insurance adjusters are likely to ask injured victims to sign a medical authorization form, which may seem harmless at first. Some people sign the forms out of desperation to recover damages from insurance companies. The forms provide another way for adjusters to try to avoid liability and use people’s medical records against them.

Forms are usually written broadly to allow adjusters to obtain a person’s complete medical history. The adjuster may be requesting records unrelated to a victim’s accident, going back many years before the person’s injuries occurred. If the adjuster finds an old injury or condition, he or she might try to use that against a person’s claim. The adjuster could say that a person had a preexisting condition and should, therefore, not be eligible for full compensation.

For people to avoid walking into secrete strategies unaware, they should keep in mind:

• Be wary about signing any authorization form and read the authorization very carefully.
• Should not sign medical authorization forms that remain in effect for an indefinite period. Forms should state that they remain valid for only a specific number of days after they are signed.
• An insurance company should limit the form to reports and medical bills that pertain to one’s accident and the treatment that was needed due to that specific accident.

Injured victims are not legally required to sign medical authorization forms to get settlements from insurance companies. When unsure of the documents to sign, they can verify with licensed attorneys.