Clients tell us stories all the time about their experiences with insurance adjusters. Spoiler alert….they are not good experiences. As a personal injury lawyer in North Carolina for more than 25 years, I have seen insurance adjusters go to great lengths to deny and diminish valid injury claims. The key to dealing with an insurance adjuster is understanding what makes them tick. An insurance adjuster is, to put it bluntly, a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Unfortunately, many people don’t figure this out until it is too late.
What Does an Insurance Adjuster Do?
Insurance adjusters are the behind-the-scenes players in the insurance world, working for insurance companies to evaluate and settle claims. Their job is to assess the details of your claim, determine the extent of your losses, and negotiate a settlement — all while keeping the insurance company’s profit in mind.
The insurance adjuster’s goal is to find any reason possible to deny your claim. If they can’t find (or create) a reason to deny your claim, then they work to pay you as little as possible. Remember all those TV commercials that you have seen portraying insurance adjusters as kindly, generous souls? In such shows, the adjuster is normally sitting on an injured person’s front porch, drinking sweet tea, shaking hands, kissing babies, and handing out big checks. This is all done in an effort to get people to trust the insurance company. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it works in the real world!
As you might be aware, insurance adjusters work for insurance companies. Insurance companies are for-profit businesses, which means, the goal of the insurance adjuster is to make money for the insurance company. They make money by either denying your claim or paying you as little as possible. The less they pay you, the more they keep for the insurance company. As soon as your claim is finished, your case is closed and they will never think about you again.
Does lowballing policyholders make adjusters bad people? Ultimately, insurance adjusters are just doing their job for the insurance company. Now, it is up to you to understand the role of the insurance adjuster. If you put your fate in the hands of the insurance company, you will generally not be happy with the results.
How Does the Insurance Adjuster Deny and Devalue Claims?
The insurance adjuster has many tools at their disposal to deny or devalue your accident claim. You probably won’t even recognize many of their bad faith insurance tactics until it’s too late. Right after a motor vehicle accident, the insurance adjuster may call you up and explain how sorry they are for your misfortune. Right after they get done with the generic and uninspired apology, they move on to offering you a “drive by settlement”. What’s that? A drive by settlement occurs when the insurance adjuster gets you to take a quick (and small) check, right after an accident, before you speak with a personal injury attorney and understand the true value of your case. The adjuster swoops in, gets you to sign a release and gives you a check for a little bit of money.
Another favorite ploy of the insurance adjuster is to get you to give a recorded statement about the accident and your injuries. They will explain that this is a formality and that it needs to be done before they can possibly pay on your claim. Remember, the insurance adjuster has been trained in the laws of negligence as applicable in North Carolina. Their goal is to get you to say something…..anything…that they can use to deny your claim.
In North Carolina, we have the law of contributory negligence. If you are found to be even 1% responsible for an accident, your recovery can be denied. While the purpose of the recorded statement might seem like it’s just checking a box, it’s not. It’s an opportunity for the insurance adjuster to ask you slanted questions with the goal of getting you to say something that they can then use against you.
Insurance adjusters will often ask you to sign a medical authorization so that they can “collect the medical records and bills related to your injury.” If you have previously signed one of these medical authorizations for an insurance company, pull it out and take a quick look at it. There might not be any limit on what medical records they can request. In other words, when you sign one of these medical authorizations for the insurance company, they have the ability to plunder through your medical records (including medical history), just looking for a reason to deny your valid insurance claim.
How To Talk to Insurance Claims Adjusters
The best way for you to deal with the insurance adjuster is to not deal with them at all. You are going to do far better to speak with a qualified and experienced personal injury attorney at Bradley Law Group. If you have a valid case, then we will deal with the insurance adjuster. We will not be giving them recorded statements. We will not send them medical authorizations and we will definitely not let them pull a “drive by settlement”. Our job is to put the insurance adjuster in check until you can fully heal. We will open all appropriate claims and gather all necessary evidence. Once your case is ready to move forward, we will work to get you the absolute best settlement possible. We have experience, resources and leverage. The insurance companies know this. An insurance industry study once showed that injured people with attorneys recover 3.5 times what unrepresented people recover. Is it any shock that the insurance adjuster doesn’t want you to speak with us?
Call Bradley Law Group for a free consultation. Know your rights and avoid the wolf in sheep’s clothing!