Settling a Los Angeles Personal Injury Claim With an Insurance Company

Dirty Tricks That Insurance Companies Like To Play on Unrepresented Claimants

Insurance adjusters are savvy negotiators with a thousand different tricks up their sleeves. Here are some examples of common tricks they use.

• Pretending to be your friend: Watch insurance company TV ads for examples of this tactic. They will try it in person too.
• Offering to settle your claim quickly, but for an inadequate sum. Desperation could get the best of you if you are having trouble paying your bills.
• Setting an arbitrary deadline for you to respond to their (paltry) settlement offer. The only absolute deadline that binds you is the California statute of limitations deadline (usually two years after the accident).
• Denying your claim for no good reason. This is a dangerous tactic for an insurance company, but some adjusters still try it on claimants who represent themselves.
• Using numerous minor delays to lull you into missing the statute of limitations deadline.
• Asking you to give a recorded statement and then asking you questions designed to get you to “admit” to something damaging, like not being sure exactly how fast you were driving before a car accident.
• Asking you to consent to a general medical records release. This request is usually in preparation for a “fishing expedition” designed to find a pre-existing injury they can use to blame for your injuries.
• Over-interpreting policy language to your disadvantage. They won’t even try this on claimants who hire experienced lawyers representing them.
• Spying on your social network accounts. It’s best to stay off social media while your case is pending. In any case, don’t accept friend requests from strangers.
• Questioning the validity of your medical treatment  They would like you to forget that insurance adjusters are not doctors and therefore are not qualified to assess your need for this or that medical treatment.
• Blaming you for the accident. Under California’s “pure comparative negligence” scheme, an insurance company can reduce the value of your claim if they can blame you for a small percentage of fault.
• Offering you a “partial” settlement check that turns out to be final. Under certain circumstances, cashing a “partial” settlement check can be interpreted as acceptance of the amount of the check as a full settlement.
• Nickel and diming you to death. Insurance companies have countless ways of reducing the amount of your claim by just a little bit, time after time. It adds up after a while.
• Minimizing or denying noneconomic damages, especially pain and suffering. Compensation for intangible losses is inherently subjective, and insurance companies skillfully exploit this subjectivity. With an experienced lawyer, pain and suffering damages might amount to more than half the total amount of your claim.
• Demanding a library of information from you so they can process your claim. They are trying to wear you down, and this strategy often works.
• Smooth-talking you into representing yourself instead of hiring a lawyer. This can be your worst mistake of all, at least if your claim is sizable. However, you might not know your claim’s actual value until after you consult with a lawyer.

These tricks add up to only a tiny fraction of the arsenal of tricks you might face in a settlement negotiation.