If you’ve been injured and have an injury claim on your hands, you are already dealing with the physical and emotional damage that comes from getting hurt. The last thing you want to deal with is financial fallout when the insurance company responsible finds a way to not pay for all of your medical coverage. Insurance companies regularly use delay tactics and other tactics to minimize the damages they have to pay for an injury claim.
If you’ve been injured, it’s best to educate yourself on how an insurance company will try to undercut your injury claim so that you can take legal action if necessary to get the damages you deserve. Learn the tricks and strategies insurance companies do to undercut your injury claim and avoid payouts, and how an injury attorney can help.
Limiting or Denying Liability
It’s essential, in order to support your case, that you prove you got hurt as the result of negligence by another person. This generally involves the idea that the defendant owed you a “duty of care,” which will likely be one of the first things the insurance will argue against. A duty of care means that we all have a responsibility to not put others in danger or to provide reasonably safe environments when they come to our homes or businesses.
The insurance company could try a number of tactics to prove that the defendant in no way violated this responsibility. They may, for example, try to argue that you were knowingly engaging in risky behavior at the time of your accident, and therefore you assumed the risk of being injured. You will not be able to collect damage if the insurer can prove an assumption of risk on your part, such as if you were injured in a skiing accident.
A Lack of Evidence
The insurance company may also try to prove that there is no evidence of the defendant’s negligence, that you don’t have medical records, police reports or other evidence of an accident that establishes blame. They will do this in order to limit liability on behalf of the defendant, which will reduce the percentage of damages you’ll be able to receive.
Your Own Insurance Policy
These instances discussed above apply to the insurance company of the party at fault, but remember to be aggressive with your own insurance company to get the coverage you deserve. They will likely look to the language of your policy to find as many ways as possible to limit what they owe you in regards to your accident.
Don’t back down in these cases. Just because your insurance company claims an exclusion applies to your case, that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Insurance companies may act like they have your best interest at heart, but it is in their best interest to pay as little as possible in damages for an injury claim.
Find a Personal Injury Attorney
There are many other ways that insurance companies will try to undercut your insurance claim, such as downplaying the extent of your injury or claiming there’s a lack of evidence that this happened because of the negligence of the defendant.
A qualified personal injury attorney has seen it all—we know the tactics that insurers use, as well as how to combat them. If you’ve been injured in or near Odessa, TX and need a lawyer on your side, give Robert White Attorney at Law a call today.