5 Things the Insurance Company Doesn’t Want You to Know

In a perfect world of personal injury law, an insurance company has your best interests in mind. The insurance adjuster reviewing your case focuses only on the hard data and physical evidence when making a decision as to whether to approve your claim. We do not live in a perfect world, and that is clearly evident after you read about the five things the insurance company doesn’t want you to know about filing a claim.

You Have a Limited Time to File a Claim

As with a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, you must meet a deadline when filing a personal injury insurance claim. The main difference between a civil lawsuit and an insurance claim is filing a civil lawsuit gives you at least one year to take legal action. Most states have passed laws that provide insurance policyholders with a much shorter window to seek just compensation. To meet the deadline for filing a personal injury insurance claim, most states grant policyholders no more than 30 days to submit the proper paperwork and as few as 24 hours to notify a law enforcement agency about a personal injury incident such as a car accident or a case of negligent medical malpractice.

Hiring an insurance attorney from Morgan and Morgan ensures you meet every deadline associated with your case.

Take It or Leave It

Many insurance companies bank on policyholders accepting decisions after the filing of an insurance claim. Because of this assumption, unethical insurance adjusters either deny claims or approve claims valued well below what they are worth. You do not have to accept the decision made by the insurance company processing your claim. Your insurance attorney either can file an appeal or decide to negotiate a settlement that provides you with financial assistance to recover from all losses.

The negotiation process starts with your lawyer submitting an offer, possibly followed by a series of counteroffers until your claim gets resolved or you decide to move on to the appeal process.

Take Advantage of Discounts

Insurance companies closely monitor expenses to maximize profit margins. They do this by implementing several strategies, one of which involves not informing policyholders about discounts as rewards for certain types of behavior. For example, a car insurance policy might include an incentive to drive safely in the form of lower monthly premiums that reward policyholders for maintaining a safe driving record. Insurance discounts often can be found in the fine print written into a policy, which an experienced insurance attorney should be able to discover when reviewing your policy.

Hiring an Insurance Attorney Is Not Cost Prohibitive

Insurance companies prefer to deal with policyholders that do not retain legal representation when filing a claim. They have much more of an advantage in dealing with policyholders that are not aware of their rights and the legal obligations imposed by state and federal insurance statutes. One of the most effective ways to persuade policyholders to file a claim without the legal counsel of an experienced insurance attorney is to state hiring a lawyer is cost prohibitive. This is an outright lie, as most personal injury attorneys operate on a contingency fee basis, which means they accept a percentage of the monetary value awarded for an insurance claim.

In other words, you do not have to pay any upfront legal fees.

You Have Access to an Insurance Guide

Many insurance companies do not want their policyholders to know about the existence of an insurance guide published by the state where they live. State-published insurance guides contain helpful information, such as the limits placed on setting premiums and the mandatory costs covered by approved claims. You do not have to request a print copy of your state’s insurance guide, as your state most likely publishes the information online, as well as offers it via a toll-free consumer advocate phone number.

Your insurance attorney can help you gain access to the helpful insurance guide published by the state where you reside.

Another thing your insurance company does not want you to know concerns the steps you should take after a motor vehicle collision. How you respond to an auto crash goes a long way toward determining the outcome of an insurance claim.

Call a Law Enforcement Agency

Unless you get involved in a minor fender bender, calling 911 should be the first item on your agency after a vehicle collision. A law enforcement agency fulfills two crucial purposes. First, responding police officers secure the scene of a car accident to prevent additional injuries. Second, the law enforcement agency that responds to a car accident is responsible for submitting a comprehensive incident report that includes physical evidence, as well as a conclusion that states whether one or more acts of negligence caused the crash.

Receive Medical Attention

Outside of minor fender benders, every car accident should result in all parties seeking medical care. Receiving a diagnosis and treatment creates a paper trail that demonstrates how much you paid in medical expenses. If you delay seeking medical care by as few as 24 hours after a car accident, the lawyer representing the other party might claim you did not sustain serious enough injuries to warrant visiting a healthcare provider. In addition, the insurance company processing your claim might decide to deny financial assistance based solely on you acting without a sense of urgency.

Contact Morgan and Morgan

You might find this step at different positions on the different lists of how to respond to an auto collision. However, where it lands on your list is not as important as making sure you contact an insurance attorney from Morgan and Morgan. Contacting one of the highly-rated lawyers at Morgan and Morgan helps you build a strong enough claim that results in the awarding of financial assistance. After reviewing the official law enforcement incident report, your insurance attorney might decide to collect more physical evidence to bolster your claim. For instance, requesting the footage shot by a traffic camera might show whether the other party involved in the car accident committed one or more acts of negligence.

File the Insurance Claim

Another compelling reason to work with an insurance attorney from Morgan and Morgan regards filing an insurance claim that is completely filled out with 100 percent accurate information. Just one open box or at least one box filled with incorrect information can lead to the denial of your insurance claim. Working with an insurance attorney also ensures you file your claim in a timely manner according to state law.

To avoid having an insurance company take advantage of what you do not know about the claim filing process, hiring an experienced insurance attorney keeps you informed about how to file the most persuasive claim. At Morgan and Morgan, our insurance lawyers specialize in representing clients to file the most convincing claims for compensation. More than 30 years of proven success helps you navigate the claim filing process without having to deal with an insurance adjuster who constantly tries to keep you in the dark.

You can expect to work with a responsive communicator who responds to emails, phone calls, and text messages as quickly as possible after receiving them. The attorney assigned to your case by Morgan and Morgan represents you during every step of the claim filing process. You cannot afford to hire a law firm that assigns an experienced insurance attorney to your case for a free case evaluation, only to have the lawyer disappear for the remainder of your case. 

Learn more about the things an insurance company doesn’t want you to know by scheduling a free case evaluation today with an accomplished insurance attorney from Morgan and Morgan.