After an accident where you suffered injuries and damages, you likely will want to file a claim with your insurance company to get coverage for your costs. If someone else was at fault, you’ll use their insurance policy to cover the bills for the damages that you suffered. You might think that this will be straightforward, and they’ll give you exactly what you’re owed, but that might not be the case.
More often than not, insurance companies will fight to protect their bottom lines, which means shorting you in the compensation that you should receive. Let’s take a look at the ways insurance companies will try to reduce your compensation for your claim.
Insurance Company Tactics
When you’ve been in a collision that caused you harm and other damages, your main focus is healing at that time. When you go to file a claim with your insurance or the other party’s insurance, you probably aren’t paying too much attention to the details because you’re in pain and just want to get the claim settled so you have one less thing to worry about.
This can make you a perfect target for the insurance company to try to reduce how much compensation you get for your claim. They’ll see that you prefer a shorter process and just want to settle, so they’ll use their tactics to try to lower your compensation as much as possible without you noticing. Since you’re going through this alone and didn’t hire a lawyer, you won’t be able to tell when they’re shorting you.
That’s why you need a lawyer on your side throughout the process. We’ll be able to protect you from insurance company tactics like the following:
- Offering a settlement that is less than you deserve for your damages and is in a lump sum
- Reducing how much you get monthly if you choose those payments for your settlement
- Pressuring you into taking these reduced settlements
- Convincing you that you don’t need an attorney
- Lying about your policy and saying your damages aren’t covered
- Delaying a case so that the statute of limitations expires
- Using insurance claim adjusters to try to minimize your injuries and other damages
- Taking your statements out of context to make it seem like you’re not as hurt as you say
All of these actions can lead to you getting less than you deserve in your settlement, which isn’t fair. You have an insurance policy for a reason, and they should uphold their contract to paying you what you’re owed for your damages. When they try to reduce your compensation, you should have a lawyer on your side so that you don’t get shorted.
What Can You Recover in Damages?
Even though your insurance company, or the other party’s insurance company, might try to reduce how much you get in compensation, you can keep that from happening by not accepting their offer when it’s less than you’re owed. You can determine what you’re owed with the help of a personal injury attorney, and they’ll use the evidence of what happened to calculate a proper amount.
For example, if you were in a car wreck and suffered injuries and damages, and you weren’t the party at fault, then you could recover compensation from the other party’s insurance company. There are primarily two types of damages that you can recover in a car accident claim: economic and noneconomic.
One of the types of damages that you can recover is economic damages. These are the physical costs that you suffer that come with a firm price tag. Your attorney will use your medical bills, repair bills, lost wages, future costs of care, future lost wages, and other bills that you acquire to calculate exactly what you’re owed in these damages.
Noneconomic damages are more abstract, which means they don’t have a price attached to them, but your lawyer will work to assign them with a cost. Aspects like pain and suffering, loss of enjoyment of life, and if there’s death involved, loss of consortium will all factor in to what you can recover in noneconomic damages.
Hiring a lawyer is the best way to combat an insurance company that doesn’t want you to get the full settlement you deserve and ensure you’re paid what you’re owed.
DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC Will Work for You
When you’ve been in an accident in West Virginia that resulted in injuries and other damages that cost you money, you will likely file an insurance claim to get compensation for those costs. When the wreck wasn’t your fault and you have insurance to cover you in situations like this, then you shouldn’t have to worry about your insurance company giving you less than you deserve for your damages.
That’s where DiPiero Simmons McGinley & Bastress, PLLC comes in. Our car accident lawyer in Charleston is here to defend your rights and ensure your settlement is fair. Contact us today so we can represent you against unfair insurance companies.
