Hopefully you will end up with one of the “good” insurance adjusters who will offer assistance and will go out of his or her way to make your experience as positive as possible. You have already been through an ordeal with your accident, and if you should end up with an insurance adjuster who appears to being giving you trouble at every turn, you may feel frustration and anger. Supposing you get an adjuster who seems hard-nosed and doesn’t appear to be listening to anything you have to say—what then?
Dealing With the Adjuster Yourself
If you’ve decided to go it alone regarding your insurance settlement, first and foremost you will have to grow a tough skin and remind yourself over and over that while this accident and the subsequent injuries and expenses are highly personal to you, to the insurance adjuster it is just another day on the job. The job of the insurance adjuster is to get their company off for the least amount of money possible in order to increase the bottom line at the end of the year. Although insurance companies are perfectly happy to accept your insurance premiums month after month, year after year, they are banking on the odds that you will not have an auto accident. If you do have an accident, their goal is to pay you only the amount they absolutely must pay. When you fully realize this, then you understand that the insurance adjuster is simply doing what he has been told to do, and that even if he seems hard-nosed and inflexible, it really isn’t personal.
On the flip side, while you are not trying to hit the lottery, you do want all of your medical bills and lost wages fully covered. Especially if the accident wasn’t your fault, it can seem awfully unfair to be stuck with piles of bills that you simply don’t deserve. The insurance adjuster may not believe your injuries are severe enough to warrant a settlement, or he may not even believe your injuries are related to the accident but were injuries you had prior to the accident. Keep in mind that the first settlement offer is likely to be extremely low. Insurance companies count on you wanting to get the settlement over and done so you can get on with your life. They also know that many times you will be absolutely unaware of the future medical bills you will be stuck with, so if they catch you early on, they can minimize their payout.
Your goal is to be patient and immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar. Determine the lowest amount you will accept after running the numbers. Make sure your bottom line number will completely cover the repairs to your vehicle, your medical bills past, present and future, any rehabilitation which could be involved, prescriptions, and money for all lost wages to date and any future lost wages you can anticipate. Once you’ve reached that figure, don’t budge. Politely tell the adjuster that this amount is what you will accept, and don’t be persuaded by anything they say to lower the amount. If the insurance adjuster also refuses to budge, it is time to contact a personal injury attorney.
Hiring an Attorney to Deal with the Difficult Adjuster
If you’ve exhausted your stores of patience and are becoming frustrated with the difficult adjuster, hiring a personal injury attorney can get the ball rolling in the right direction. Often all it will take is a call from your new attorney to get a much better settlement offer. Once your attorney reiterates your refusal to accept an unreasonable offer, your adjuster may become much less difficult. Besides—insurance adjusters do not want their company being sued. It looks bad to their boss or supervisor if every case they handle goes into litigation, and the truth is the adjuster wants to settle just as badly as you do, they simply don’t want to settle for a fair amount. Often all it takes is for your attorney to draft a complaint and send it over to the adjuster for his or her attitude to change dramatically and a reasonable settlement offer to be sent right back. Your attorney will look at your initial estimation of damages and let you know if it’s reasonable, or even too low, then the two of you can go from there. Your attorney will be much better equipped to deal with the difficult insurance adjuster—after all, that’s what they do every day.