After being in a car accident and sustaining injuries, you may file a claim against the at-fault driver or their insurance to receive compensation to cover your damages and losses. One of the steps in this process may be a phone call from the insurance company of the liable party. However, receiving such a call may be nerve-racking since you have no idea what the purpose of this call may be and be afraid of saying the wrong thing and jeopardizing your chances of receiving the amount of compensation you seek. When you receive a call from the other party’s insurance company, personal injury lawyer T. Madden recommends you get advice from your personal injury attorney before giving any information to them. Read on to find out more about what you should and should not say in these cases.
Receiving a Call from The Insurance Company
When the other party’s insurance company reaches out to you, they may want to know more details about the crash and possibly get a statement from you. This strategy is for them to justify a lowball offer or to fully deny any compensation to you. No wonder you may feel apprehensive or fearful when receiving such a call.
Are you obligated to answer the insurance company’s questions?
The truth is you are under no obligation to answer the insurance company’s questions. You should not feel that answering is the polite thing to do. On the other hand, you do have a right to initiate the call and reach out to them through your attorney.
You may want your attorney to find out exactly what the other party has told their insurance company and whether they have the whole picture of the accident. You may discover that the information they have does not match up with your understanding of the crash. If so, you may want to provide them with a complete picture of the accident so you can obtain the compensation you deserve. There’s no need to put yourself in an uncomfortable or stressful position with the insurance company. Avoid risking your claim and have your attorney place the call on your behalf.
Why would they need to call?
Whenever you receive the insurance company’s call, it’s important to remember that they neither work for you nor do they have your best interests at heart. On the contrary, their goal is to get information out of you that would help them support the argument that they can only give you a low payout or they have reasons to believe you should receive no compensation at all.
One of their strategies is to ask you to allow them to record the call, and you should know that you can deny that request. Also, remember that anything you say can and will be used against you.
A simple answer to the question “How are you?” may work against you. By rote, everyone tends to answer, “Fine, thank you,” but in this case, they may use your answer to justify the fact that they believe that you are not injured since you are fine. They may also send you a letter requesting that you allow them to look at your full medical records and ask you to sign them and return them. Allowing them to do so may have them arguing that some previous injuries or conditions are what has you feeling unwell now.
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