Insurance companies and adjusters always want to convince victims not to hire counsel even with the most serious of injuries. It could be because the insurance company often faces negative exposure in cases where someone is paralyzed, suffered the loss of a limb, or sustained a devastating head injury. They hope to convince a victim to not get the help they may need.
Some comments an insurance company may make are: “You don’t need a lawyer – we can work it out”, “We accept responsibility – why would you want to pay a lawyer half”, “An attorney will take most of your money”, “There’s no reason for you to hire a lawyer”, and “We are accepting fault- you don’t need to pay a lawyer”.
These statements and more can be made by an insurance adjuster in attempt to convince the injured victim that an attorney representing the victim would not be in the victim’s best interest. It is important to note that this mainly occurs in the most complex of cases and in cases where the likelihood of significant and ongoing medical expenses or large damages is a certainty.
The unsuspecting victim who falls for this trick could be irreversibly harmed and could end up letting the insurance company off for literally pennies on the dollar.
Worse, is that often personal injury victims do not understand the consequences of settling with the negligent party’s insurance carrier – such as the impact on their workers compensation claim, reimbursements they must make to their health insurance or to other individuals who are paying the medical bills of the victim for them.
The truth of the matter is that insurance companies, particularly those that insure the other party, are not in the business of being fair, but in the business of making the most profits possible. If an insurance company can pay pennies on the dollar and obtain a release from an unsuspecting victim, they will do so in a heartbeat.
In serious cases, the insurance company does not want the victim to hire an attorney, particularly a highly rated personal injury attorney, because they wish to save significant money on the claim. There is not a regard for what this desire for profits does to the injured victim, no matter what the adjuster may promise.
On a very serious injury case, the company may be forced to pay 10 times or more of what they were originally offering the victim. The company does not want you to get an attorney for the benefit of the insurance companies, not your benefit!
Interestingly enough, the opposite is true on the smallest of personal injury claims. If the case is small, a claim made by the carrier for sake of annoyance, the adjuster will often tell the person that they need to hire a lawyer.
The general rule of thumb for personal injury cases is that the more serious the injury, the more likely that a personal injury victim will need an attorney. It is important for a personal injury victim to research the attorney they are considering to select for their case to ensure that the lawyer is experienced. An injured individual looking for representation should hire an attorney that has a track record of success and has handled similar type of cases in the past with impressive results to ensure the best outcome of their own case.
The post Why Insurance Companies Do Not Want Injured Victims to Hire Attorneys appeared first on Ward Law Group, PL.
