Reasons You May Not Want To Speak To Your Insurance Adjuster

Almost everyone calls their own insurance company immediately after an accident to report when an injury has occurred. While it is certainly necessary and required that you inform your insurance company of the accident, very often your insurer will want to take a recorded statement from you. Whether or not you should provide a recorded statement is not as easy a question to answer as whether you should simply report the accident.

First, your insurance company can obtain all necessary information from any type of police report which may have been completed following your accident. Although your insurance company may tell you that they need to obtain a recorded statement to “document” the accident, in reality this basic information can easily be obtained from the police report.

Your insurance company may also tell you that they must take a recorded statement before they can arrange for a rental vehicle for you. If your accident was caused solely by the fault of another party, in actuality the other party’s insurance company should ultimately pay all of your damages including any reasonable costs for a rental vehicle. We have sometimes advised our clients to simply pay for the rental vehicle themselves and simply seek this money from the third party responsible for the accident. The small benefit of having your insurance company advance the cost for a rental car may not be worth the damage that you could cause to your claim by providing a lengthy recorded statement to your insurer.

Finally, a very important reason you may not want to provide a lengthy recorded statement to your insurer relates to the UM coverage you may have through your insurer. Under any UM coverage from your policy, your insurer will actually be responsible for paying all of your damages caused by a negligent third party who does not have adequate insurance to pay for your damages. Therefore, your insurer has a real incentive to minimize your damages including the significance of your injuries following your accident. Another way to think of it is to view your insurer as an adverse party under the UM provisions of your policy. Certainly your insurer knows this and will typically ask questions relating to the seriousness of your injury during the recorded statement. Your insurer will sometimes also ask questions directly relating to whether or not you were at fault for causing or contributing to the accident. These types of questions simply do not in any way advance your interests. These types of questions are geared strictly to help your insurer minimize your claim and defeat any type of UM claim which you may file at a later date. For more information regarding the relationship you have with your insurer, please see our previous article.

Many individuals as well as law firms view vehicle accident cases as simple, easy to handle claims. In reality, a serious vehicle accident claim can be very complicated. It is important for you to speak with experienced injury lawyers regarding any and all aspects of your claim including your dealings with your own insurance company. Although you may trust your insurance company, sometimes your insurance company may not be looking out for your interests when it is investigating your injury claim. Very often the insurance company has already talked to its lawyers before speaking to you. The lawyers of our office regularly advise our clients on whether or not they should deal directly with their own insurance company and very often our lawyers communicate on behalf of our clients to their insurance companies.