Hire a lawyer.
It’s insurance ethics – once the insurance company hears from your lawyer, they have to stop trying to talk to you. They have to stop contacting you directly, and can only make offers through your lawyer. They can only get information from you through your lawyer.
This is a good deal. Without a lawyer, the insurance company can find out too much about you by talking to you directly. They get you to sign a medical authorization that lets them pay your doctor to talk to them.
They get you to give them recorded statements, and ask you trick questions that, as a practical matter, will only hurt you. They make you offers that you don’t know how to evaluate, and then they insist on an answer.
If you hire a lawyer, he can make the insurance company give you a copy of the recorded statement you gave. He can make the insurance company stop communicating with your doctor.
Your lawyer can start the negotiations with a number that you and he agree on, after taking into account your medical bills, your lost wages and how bad you’re hurt.
He can keep the insurance company from bugging you. He and you can control the pace of negotiations – on your own time.
As fast or as slow as you want. You don’t have to work on the insurance company’s timetable.
And – if you are worried that you gave away too much ground by asking the insurance company for too little – the lawyer can tell them that he has evaluated the case, that it is worth a lot more than you were asking, and give them a new number.
This works more often than you think it would.
I have been a lawyer over 30 years. The first thing I do after being hired is send a letter to the insurance company asking for copies of your statement, of medical records they got with your authorization, and telling them to stop asking for records from your doctors. If you’ve been injured in an accident, talk with an experienced Cincinnati Injury Lawyer about the case. Call me, William Strubbe, at 513-621-4775.
Because all situations are different, and because there may be other facts pertaining to your case that I don’t know about, you should not rely on this answer for legal advice. I am not your attorney, and no lawyer client relationship has been formed.
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