Simple, Avoidable, Auto Injury Claim Mistakes

Insurance adjusters are like trained assassins. The multimillion (or even billion) dollar insurance company has spent millions of dollars training insurance adjusters to kill your claim. They have scripts to follow, computer programs to run, and tricks up their sleeve for every occasion. The adjusters rely upon this power imbalance to help minimize the claims on their desk to save their employer thousands of dollars on every personal injury claim. Understanding this disparity is the first step to taking back the claim’s process.

Much of the time in your daily life, verbiage doesn’t matter. Misspeaking every now and then, exaggerating, or even undervaluing your feelings will likely have little impact on your present or future. Unfortunately, this is just not the case during your personal injury claim. Whether they record your conversation or just take notes, the adjuster is always paying attention to your foibles. Using the correct language and thinking before you speak is imperative to a successful auto accident claim.

The insurance company is always on the lookout for admissions that are against your interest. Remember, you are not an expert medical provider or accident reconstructionist. You don’t know everything, and that’s okay! Sometimes, it’s better to defer or use vague language to combat the adjuster’s pointed questions and remarks.

Here are a few examples to avoid:

• I’m feeling fine – Don’t lie or minimize your pain or emotional trauma to the adjuster or your medical provider. Your injury is your claim. Denying or diminishing your injury might be the nail in your proverbial coffin.
• I didn’t see or I wasn’t paying attention – If you weren’t at fault in a collision, be sure to hold that opinion steady. Admitting that you weren’t paying attention at the scene gives the other driver an opening to claim the collision was your fault.
• I did [insert strenuous activity] after the collision – The adjuster is looking for any information to suggest you weren’t injured in the relevant accident. Admitting that you took part in some other strenuous activity allows the other driver to argue that your injuries are unrelated. Even if the activity caused you extreme amounts of pain, the jury will only hear the part about you riding your bike or painting your house, etc.

Generally, it’s best to avoid emotional responses when dealing with the insurance companies, as well. Most insurance adjusters are humans, but their jobs depend on them treating each injured person like an emotionless robot. They have a script to follow and rules that must be applied, and they’re not about to break them (and perhaps sacrifice their job) just because you’re sad or angry. Excess emotion plays into the power imbalance where you are begging the adjuster to help, and the insurance company has the power to say no.

Working with an attorney is one way to help restore that power inequality. Qualified and experienced personal injury lawyers know the game the adjusters like to play. Knowing the law and the process prevents the insurance adjuster from further manipulating the situation in their favor. At Magnuson Lowell, PS, our experienced team of professional attorneys will ensure you’re claim is heard fairly and efficiently.

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If you’ve been injured in a motor vehicle collision, you know just how limiting the pain can truly be. You may spend weeks, months, or even years seeking treatment from your primary care physician or even an expert neurosurgeon just to provide some semblance of relief. While you’re certainly entitled to reimbursement of your medical bills, wage loss, and out-of-pocket expenses, a major portion of your personal injury claim will stem from your non-economic damages – also known as your pain and suffering.

Pain and suffering damages are any general damages that are not calculable with a specific, recognized dollar amount. Medical expenses are a known quantity. Therefore, they fall under the tab of proven economic damages. Non-economic damages are the unknown and vague damages that you have suffered as a result of an injury. They are not quantifiable with a preset number; rather, they’re up for determination based upon what the judge or jury feels about the case.

Specifically, RCW 4.56.250 attempts to define economic damages as

“subjective, nonmonetary losses, including but not limited to pain, suffering, inconvenience, mental anguish, disability or disfigurement, emotional distress, loss of society and companionship, loss of consortium, injury to reputation and humiliation, and destruction of the parent-child relationship.”

The question then becomes, how does one define these terms. That’s the hard part, and that’s what makes pain and suffering damages so difficult to calculate. The subjective nature of the claim means that every jury will come to a different conclusion regarding what the total amount of non-economic damages total for the same injured party. You could have 100 different juries hear the same exact story and they would likely give you 100 different answers because each jury has a different subjective understanding of the damages claimed by the injured person.

If it’s impossible to truly define non-economic damages, how do you prove it to the jury. The answer is easy in theory but very difficult in practice – through stories. Tell the judge, the jury, or even the insurance adjuster a story about how the collision and injury have affected your life. Lawyers are one-part logic and organization and another part creative storyteller. They need to weave interesting tidbits about their client’s life in with medical jargon from a highly decorated medical expert. Proving non-economic damages is all about showing the jury just how bad the injury was and how the client suffered the ideas described in the statute for a life-altering amount of time.

Speaking with an attorney is a great way to help better understand the insurance claim and litigation process. An experienced litigator will help you prepare your case so that your story shines through and the jury empathizes with the plight you’ve suffered since the collision.

At Magnuson Lowell, PS, we pride ourselves on working cooperatively with our clients to illustrate each story. Call today for a free consultation.

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