- I'm going to tell you 11 huge
personal injury claim mistakes
that may result in you getting a smaller settlement.
If you avoid these mistakes,
you may get a much faster and larger settlement.
The first mistake is not realizing that insurance companies
have access to your past claims.
All of them.
They subscribed to the ISO,
which shows them every claim you've made.
So don't try to hide past claims
from the insurance adjuster.
One of the reasons why insurance adjusters
ask you for your date of birth,
your address, and your full name
is so they can run a claim search on you
and see all of your past claims.
The second mistake
that can cause you to get a smaller settlement
is to make a demand for a specific amount.
The best practice is to ask for a fair offer.
Let the insurance company make the first move.
Their offer might even surprise you.
It might be much higher than you thought it would be.
The only time that I recommend
demanding a certain amount to settle for
is if the other party has a limited amount of insurance
and your injuries are worth more than that amount.
In that case,
you may be better off asking for a certain amount,
which would be the policy limits.
The problem for making a demand that is too low
is that's going to be the most you can get
in your case, typically.
The insurance adjuster is going to mark their file
as you offering to settle for a certain amount
and don't expect them to ever offer more than the amount.
The one exception would be
is if your injuries worsened significantly,
and for example, you get surgery or something like that,
they may offer you more than the amount
than you previously requested.
But I believe in most cases,
it's best to ask them to make the first offer
and ask for a fair amount.
The third mistake that were hurt your settlement
is if you fall into the insurance adjusters traps.
I conducted a poll on my YouTube channel,
and most of you got it wrong.
I also know this because I see the mistakes
that my clients would make
if they didn't have an attorney.
I asked the following to my YouTube community.
I said, if the adjuster said,
if I can settle for X amount,
let's say $75,000, for example,
what would your response be?
And 79% of my community got it wrong.
The best response, if an insurance adjuster says,
if I can settle for X amount,
let's say $75,000, for example,
the best response is to follow up with the adjuster
and say, do you have authority
to offer me that amount now?
Throughout the entire claim,
you want the adjuster to make the highest offer in writing.
So every time they make you an offer,
get them to put it in writing.
Now, 41% of the people that responded to this question
said that they would tell the adjuster
they wanted to think about it
and they'd call the adjuster back.
The problem with that is it makes the adjuster think
you might be willing to take their $75,000 offer
or whatever amount they're offering.
Keep in mind that in most personal injury claims,
negotiations hate some time.
The insurance adjuster will often
like to make several settlement moves.
So maybe they'll settle the case by making five moves,
six moves, seven moves, eight counter offers.
It's not just one offer typically or two offers
or even three offers.
Another benefit of getting the adjuster
to put the offer in writing
is because sometimes insurance companies
switch the adjuster that is assigned to the claim.
And once it's part of the claims file in writing,
they can't deny that they made that offer.
Another mistake when negotiating with insurance adjusters
is wanting to believe the insurance adjuster.
Look, most insurance adjusters are nice people.
They're sweet. They're going to be friendly to you.
And it's human nature
to want to believe what they're telling you.
However, you got to remember this,
for every dollar the insurance company saves,
it's a less dollar in your pocket.
Look at it this way.
Negotiating a personal injury claim is like playing poker.
You don't always tell the other side what your hand is.
Sometimes you bluff.
In fact, in personal injury claims most of the time,
if not all the time,
the insurance adjuster is bluffing.
Another other trap when negotiating
with an insurance adjuster is if they ask you
what settlement range would you be willing to accept?
If you tell them, for example,
I take anywhere between 75,000 and a 100,000 dollars,
they're going to mark down
the lower end of the range, always, which is $75,000
and you're never going to get a penny more than that.
And likely they're going to try to squeeze you
and pay you for a lot less than $75,000.
Another adjuster negotiating trick
is they will ask you, will you settle for a number
that doesn't have a two in front of it?
Meaning let's say your cases where $240,000
they may ask you,
will you settle for a number
that doesn't have a two in front of it,
implying that would you settle for
a number for $199,000 or less?
Let me give you an example from a trip and fall case,
although it applies to all personal injury cases.
After we had made offers and counter offers
with the insurance adjuster,
he offered $150,000
and he asked me,
would your client accept an amount of money
that did not have a two in front of it?
He's implying would my client accept any amount
for $199,999 or less.
Now, if I would have said yes,
he would have marked that down in his file
and likely would have offered a lot less than $199,000
cause he knew we would take that amount.
Or maybe at best he'd offer $199,999.
Now in this case,
even though my client may have been willing
to take the $150,000 and she probably was,
I valued the case somewhere around the $240,000 range,
so I told the adjuster,
no, we will not settle this case
for anything with less than a two in front of it.
So in this case,
rather than me allowing the insurance adjuster
to control the negotiation, I made a counter offer,
which was way above the $200,000
that he was trying to pin me into.
Mistake number four,
that often results in smaller, personal injury settlements
is not giving the adjuster what they ask you for.
In one case, the adjuster asked me
for a surgical estimate.
In that case, the doctor said my client
may need surgery to his leg.
The insurance adjuster was offering around $15,000
when she asked me to give her an estimate
of the surgery costs.
Shortly after I gave her the estimate of surgery costs,
they increased their offer to over $84,000.
So pay close attention
to what the insurance adjuster asks you for.
Now just because the insurance adjuster
asks you for something
that doesn't mean you are required to give it to them.
In fact, it may even hurt your case.
For example, if another driver causes your injury
or you slip and trip and fall somewhere,
they may ask you for a recorded statement.
But if it's the other person's insurance company,
you generally are not required to give a recorded statement.
Mistake number five,
that can hurt your personal injury settlement amount
is being rude to the adjuster.
Now I know what some of you are thinking,
this is business.
You don't have to kiss their butt.
You don't have to become their friends.
And I agree with you.
However, you generally want to be nice.
These adjusters have hundred plus files at any time.
And you want to be remembered
as someone who's being nice with them.
I'm not saying to fold over and do whatever they ask.
However, be assertive, be firm,
accept whatever amount you're going to take,
set your limit, file a lawsuit if you have to.
Do all of that, however,
being nice to them.
Understand this claim is not personal.
It is just one of their many files.
Yelling at an insurance adjusters
is not going to get you more money.
That being said there's times
where I've had to raise my voice to an insurance adjuster,
to tell them that I was serious about my point.
Mistake number six,
that can hurt your personal injury settlement amount
is thinking that
when you're telling the insurance adjuster
that you're in pain
that this is going to get you more money.
What ultimately matters is the pain
that is reflected in your medical records.
Medical records are the heart of your personal injury case.
If it's not in the records, it does not matter.
I don't care how much you're telling the insurance adjuster,
I have pain in my back, I've pain in my knee.
If you're telling him or her this,
and yet he looks at your medical records
and he doesn't see any complaints
of pain in your back or your knee
or wherever you're complaining of pain.
Or if you're not going to the doctor,
it's meaningless to the insurance adjuster.
Mistake number eight,
that will likely result
in you getting a smaller personal injury settlement
is if you don't tell the doctor
the cause of your accident.
I have had clients who go to the doctor
and on the intake form,
it doesn't ask them if they were in a car accident
or slip, trip and fall.
And they never mentioned the type of accident to the doctor.
That may be a problem
if the insurance company is challenging
that the accident caused your injury.
Now it's less of a problem,
if shortly after the crash,
you took an ambulance to the hospital,
then that initial visit was documented there.
But if you didn't take an ambulance to the hospital
and you're going to the doctor five days, seven days,
two days, a week, two weeks later,
and you don't tell them you were in an accident,
it can pose a problem
because the insurance company is going to say
that your injury was not caused by the accident.
It's always better
if your accident is reported to the doctor or hospital,
the first time.
It's much better than having to try to correct
your medical records later.
Now, mistake number nine,
mainly can delay the time that it takes the settle.
That would be,
if you don't give your proper insurances
to the hospital or doctor, after you go there.
If you were involved in an accident,
you should give your auto insurance
and your health insurance to the doctor or hospital.
Otherwise you're going to be ready for settlement
and you may have to pay back your health insurance company,
but you may not even know
how much your health insurance company
paid for your medical bills
because they were never billed by the hospital
because you never gave it to them.
Give your auto and health insurance to the hospital
and doctors from day one.
It's going to get the ball moving
and allow your case to settle as soon as possible.
It's also going to allow you to know as soon as possible,
how much you're going to have to pay back
your health insurance,
or maybe your auto insurance company from the settlement.
And that way you can know the bottom line
in your settlement.
Also if you don't give
your health insurance or auto insurance
to the hospital or doctors
within a certain amount of time,
it may be too late.
And by law, the health, the auto insurance
may not have to pay the hospital or doctor.
Mistake number 10 is waiting to request
your medical records, bills, and other documents.
As soon as you leave that hospital,
you should be requesting your medical records.
Your medical records from the hospital
are going to be different from the discharge papers
that they give you when you leave the hospital.
That is a very short summary of telling you what to do,
and it's going to state the type of injury.
But your medical records are going to talk about
the level of pain that you have.
They're going to talk in specific
about how the accident happened
and other important information.
Likewise, request your medical bills
as soon as you can.
Any time you have a major medical visit or MRI,
get those medical records and bills,
and then keep feeding them to the insurance company.
You want to be top of mind for the insurance company.
You want the adjuster to know your file,
but more importantly,
you want to give them proof of your medical bills
and medical records,
which can help them ask their supervisor
for the proper amount of settlement authority
to resolve your case.
Your goal is to get fair value
for your personal injury claim.
The only way that can happen fast
is if you're feeding the insurance company
with your medical records and bills and other documentation,
as fast as possible.
Get out to the scene,
take photos of the scene
if that's important in your case,
you may need to request to the police department
that they preserve all body cam footage of the incident,
cause that disappears sometimes after 60 days or so.
You may want to ask the 911 center
to preserve the 911 call,
because that may talk about how the accident happened.
You can actually use that against the other driver
or at fault party.
In one case that I settled for $350,000
in the 911 call, you could hear the driver saying
I hit him on a bike.
- [Driver] I was driving and I hit a man.
Well, he was on a bike.
- And that 911 call was helpful
in getting that $350,000 settlement
for my client's broken ankle and surgeries.
Mistake number 11,
if you're seriously injured from an accident
that someone else is at fault
is to at least get a consult
with their personal injury lawyer.
I'm not telling you automatically in every case,
to hire a personal injury lawyer, you don't need to.
However, at the least, if you're seriously injured,
talk to a personal injury attorney,
ask them what benefit they can do for you
that you can't do on your own.
As you can see from these 11 mistakes,
there's a tremendous amount that an attorney knows
that you don't.
I'm just skimming the surface
and you a sliver of the amount of information
that's in my brain.
And in order to get the largest personal injury settlement,
it's not about how smart you are.
I'm sure a lot of you are smarter than me.
It's about the experience level that you have.
All these mistakes I've learned over time.
When I started practicing as a personal injury lawyer,
18 years ago, I probably didn't know any of these mistakes,
but I learned them.
Avoiding these mistakes is important
in a personal injury claim,
but you know, what's more important
that may help you get a larger settlement
is knowing the questions to ask an insurance adjuster.
Watch this video here to learn these questions.
And if you're seriously injured in the state of Florida
or on a cruise, and you're considering hiring an attorney,
fill out the contact form in the link below,
and I'll see you next time.