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Dirty Tricks Insurance Adjusters Use

As a Florida personal injury attorney, I have become accustomed to the various tricks used by insurance carriers. When you are involved in an accident and report your claim to the insurance carrier, the company will send a licensed adjuster to evaluate the value of your claim.

While these adjusters may appear friendly and professional, it is important to remember that the adjuster is on the side of the insurance company. You should know insurance adjusters use to take advantage of you.

Insurance companies hire adjusters. Thus, their only job is to settle your claim as quickly and cheaply as possible so that they can save money for their employer.

In order to meet their goal of a quick and cheap resolution to your case, adjusters often employ a wide range of deceptive tactics to make sure you get a lower settlement amount than you deserve.

What is an Insurance Claims Adjuster?

After an injury accident, many accident victims personal injury claim with the at-fault party's insurance company.

In turn, their insurance company will try to retain their profits by adopting tactics to limit your settlement. You can try hiringdetermine insurance whether

adjuster, known as a claims adjuster, is appointed by an insurance company to investigate a claim andwhether they are required to pay for damages or not. The insurance company may keep them on the in-house payroll or hire them from an outside agency.

Once hired, they'll assess the damage, look into the details of the accident, talk with you and witnesses to the accident, and look through accident records to determine how much the insurance company is on the hook for. .

Dealing With Insurance Adjusters

You may think that an insurance adjuster is an objective party looking at details to get a fair accounting of what an insurance company is owed.

That could not be further from the truth. Insurance adjusters only have their client's best interests in mind and will perform their duties with a certain degree of bias.

Some insurance adjusters will go so far as bad faith tactics order to reduce the potential payouts offered by the insurance company using

to accomplish this by looking for any way they can to invalidate your claim inWays to limit your potential settlement include requiring you to prove shared liability, making you admit fault in the accident, or delaying the process so that you are at fault.

An insurance adjuster may focus on finding you at fault or your personal injury damages.

How Your Insurance Adjuster Will Limit Your Claim

In some cases, you may need to file a claim with your own insurance company. For example, you may file a claim with your insurance company after a car accident.

Your personal injury protection insurance may not cover damages caused to you and your vehicle by an auto accident, so you will need to file a claim with your insurance company in order to pursue compensation.

You may believe that your own insurance company will have your best interests in mind, but they are more focused on their bottom line than your financial recovery.

Don't be fooled by a claims adjuster from your own insurance company. They will also play dirty tricks to reduce your potential settlement. Remember, (when dealing with an insurance adjuster) this person works for the insurance company; you don't An important tip is to avoid giving a recorded statement to an insurance company without your attorney present.

The following are some insurance adjuster tricks used to limit accident victim settlements:

An insurance adjuster may avoid communication to create frustration

Contacting an insurance company after a personal injury accident may be difficult. Naturally, you want to process the claims as soon as possible in order to receive your compensation and move on with your life.

As you begin your insurance claims process, you will have many questions that an insurance claims adjuster can answer. , including:

  • Who can I speak to regarding my insurance claim?

  • Will my vehicle be repaired?

  • Can I get a rental car?

  • Do I need medical treatment?

  • How much can I get for my damages in a personal injury case or residential property damage claim?

While an insurance claims adjuster may be able to answer some of these questions, you may experience difficulty contacting them.

A typical claims adjuster handles approximately 150 cases at a time. With such a heavy workload, it can be difficult to get someone on the phone who can help you.

Sometimes, break-in communication with your adjuster can be more strategic than just a workload issue.

Insurance claim adjusters sometimes fail to answer or return your phone calls in the hopes that you will become frustrated enough to simply give up. They deal with the claims process similar to a war of attrition.

Once the injured party reaches a breaking point, the adjuster knows it will be easy to sell them on a lowball settlement offer, so they can put the whole incident behind them and move on.

Insurance adjusters will use the lack of communication to their advantage.

There have even been cases where the injured party received little or no communication from the adjuster and received a check in the mail one day. The injured party, believing the small check is the only money they can recover from the claim, cashes the check and settles the claim.

Stuck with only a minimum amount for rental car expenses, lost lost wages, and ever-increasing medical bills

. Adjusters are always aware of the statute of limitations on your claim. After an accident, there is a limit to how long you must file a lawsuit to recover your damages.

According to Florida Statute 95.11, most personal injury accidents have a four-year time limit starting from the day of the accident. Is.

If your claim has been pending for some time, the claims adjuster may refuse to contact you in the hope that the statute of limitations has expired.

In this case, you may be unable to recover through the claims process or a lawsuit. The adjuster is only concerned about the insurance company's bottom line.

For a Free Legal Consultation, 866-481-5347

Bad Faith Insurance Claim Handling

Florida Statutes 624.155 The Legislative Key to Understanding Florida's Bad Faith Insurance Laws. The statute provides that "any person may bring a civil action against the insurer when such person is harmed...",

from the actions of the insurer "not making an effort in good faith to settle claims in all circumstancesinvolved, and should have done so, if he had acted fairly and honestly with due respect to his insured and for his or her interests.

An insurance carrier has an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. When any If the value of the claim clearly exceeds the available insurance coverage, the claims adjuster must eliminate the policyholder's potential financial risk and tender the limits of the policy.

Other examples of bad faith conduct by an insurance carrier includeor

  • timely investigate

  • a claim Denying a claim without proper investigation (see above)

  • Failure to communicate in a timely manner with the claimant

  • Refusal to pay a valid claim

  • Irrelevant documents in an attempt to delay demand

  • once the claim is filed Refuses to change the material terms or items of the policy after

  • it has been provided Insurance defense attorneys if you or your business

  • deadline

property damage by ain the context of claims for

Bad faith conduct is even more common owners insurance claims for personal injury claims. For example, a policyholder will report a damaged or broken pipe that has caused water damage inside the home.

In response, we have seen insurance carriers dragging their feet while investigating such claims. In turn, the homeowner may suffer additional losses. Undue delay constitutes malice.

In other cases, the policyholder obtains a fully detailed estimate from a public insurance adjuster and submits it to his or her insurance carrier. In response, we have seen insurance companies ignore a respected public adjuster's estimate without providing any valid reason or explanation.

Even more humiliating is to receive a denial that the insurance company failed to investigate the matter. The best homeowner insurance carriers will do their own due diligence checks right away.

In addition, they will examine reports submitted by public adjusters on home insurance claims and retain their own experts in an effort to properly investigate said claim.

Insurance adjusters want you to admit fault in the accident regardless of the fact that the

works insurance company with which you are filing the claimMore often than not, this will be the insurance company of the person who caused your accident or the "fault party".

Rarely - if ever - will you hear the adjuster handling your case admit that their insured is liable for the collision.

Accepting liability on behalf of their insured may result in the insurance company paying out more money on your claim than they intended.

The claims adjuster will not only refuse to admit that their insured was the true cause of the accident, but they may take it a step further by asking you a series of loaded questions to get you to admit fault. Watch for conversations like this:

  • "I understand the other car ran a red light and hit you, but what else could you have done to avoid the accident?"

  • "I understand it was raining on the day of the accident. How much of an impact do you think the smooth roads had on your ability to avoid the accident?"

  • "You're new to this area. Did your lack of knowledge of the area change the way you drove that day?"

These types of questions may seem innocent enough. In fact, you may be inadvertently admitting that you may have been responsible for the accident.

Such admissions can seriously reduce the amount of money you can recover for your damages and injuries.

An Insurance Adjuster May Use Your Medical Records Against You

Another way that adjusters may try to avoid liability to their insured is by using their own medical records you. It is very important to pay attention to what you say to the adjusters - especially in any written communication. Pay close attention to their questions, and remember that they are not coming from a place of concern for your well-being. Rather, they are protecting the insurance company that pays their salaries.

In order to obtain your medical records, the adjuster must obtain a signed authorization from you.

As you prepare to sign this authorization, be sure to read it very carefully. You may find that the adjuster is requesting records that are completely unrelated to your accident, years ago and even before the injury occurred. This is yet another attempt to point fingers at someone other than their insured.

If the adjuster is able to obtain your complete medical history, they may be able to find an injury that is a few decades old and may attempt to label it as the actual cause of your current injury.

Consent can also be tried to obtain an independent medical examination, which is a physical examination of your injuries by a medical professional.

The problem here is that the examining doctor is never the doctor of your choice.

Instead, they are chosen by the insurance company and paid to try to stack the deck against you and to favor the insurance companies who sign their paychecks.

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