After a personal injury, more often than not, you will have a hard time getting a claim from your insurance company. Insurance adjusters will always quote a much lower claim and apply several tactics, including outright deception, to ensure that you get paid far less than what you deserve. Getting a just claim on your own can prove to be a hectic process depending on whatever details on the injury you had disclosed after talking to the adjuster. It’s always prudent and advisable to contact professional injury law specialists like The Ruth Law Team early enough to get the best guidance on what steps to take.
We’ll go through some essential steps you can take by yourself but before that, let’s get to know who you’ll be dealing with, the insurance adjuster, and their mandate.
Who Is An Insurance Adjuster?
The insurance adjuster is an employee of your insurance company tasked with assessing your injury and pegging a monetary value to your claim. The adjuster will consider many factors that led to your injury and put together all relevant information to decide your claim by your insurance company.
Insurance adjusters work in the insurance company’s best interest; in that light, they always ensure they settle any injury claim with the least possible settlement value. It’s good to know this to prepare well before the negotiation process, arm yourself with all the information you can get concerning the injury.
What Next After A Disagreement With The Adjuster?
Before taking any step, it’s a good idea to stay calm and recollected, don’t let your emotions take the better part. With a quiet mind, you become more logical and discover the best ways to approach the situation. Keep in mind that the insurance adjuster is adept in dealing with various people under similar conditions. Their approach is to seal a deal quickly with the lowest claim value. Your anger may work to your adjuster’s benefit as your judgment becomes clouded.
Analyze the Offer Details
The adjuster will always rush through, giving a settlement offer as soon as they can. This is because they are aware that the sooner they do it, the more likely you’ll agree to it, as you won’t have all the information needed to know the actual value of your claim. Be patient and go through the offer details slowly. Check how the amounts were arrived at and their valuation, notice what has not been included in the offer. With the help of your attorney, you can use this information to come up with a counteroffer.
Write Them A Demand Letter
After identifying issues with the settlement claim they offered, you can write them a demand letter highlighting all the omissions they didn’t include before andalso table your counteroffer. It’s wise to involve your lawyer in drafting this letter in the best possible way to capture every detail and bring it out from a critical perspective. Attach relevant documents from police reports to medical reports that didn’t include in calculating the claim. Be sure to have non-monetary effects of the injury, like how the psychological effects impact your daily life.
Consider Dispute Resolution
Your insurer should have a complaints liaison office. You can decide to resolve your claim issue by stating what you expected to back it up with all the relevant information. You should hear from them within twelve days. Wait for their reply and ensure to keep a complete record of your communication with them.
Another way is by instigating an arbitration process where both you and your insurer will table their concerns to be heard and determined by a third-party group of arbitrators. The decision becomes final only if it is binding to both parties.
Consider A Public Adjuster
You can hire a licensed public insurance adjuster to assess your injury claim and give an expert independent opinion from your insurance company. They can come in handy if you’re still too emotionally affected from the injury to do a thorough assessment yourself. They’ll arrive at a small percentage cost of what they’ll recover for you, which should be worth it, mainly if your claim is enormous.
Don’t Accept The Settlement Offer
Be very wary of accepting the offer if you wish to renegotiate it, as it can’t be undone. Don’t bank a cheque awarded to you or receive any form of monetary reward coercing you to end your lawsuit. Any signature you may end up appending on the deal will render it sealed and done, and there is no undoing. That’s why having a reasonable attorney by your side is of the utmost importance throughout your negotiation.
