If you’ve been in any sort of incident that has caused you injury, you may be entitled to compensation for your losses. However, securing this compensation is sometimes made more difficult by insurance adjusters. Scaring insurance adjusters exercise extensive control over the compensation process. They often engage in hardline and sometimes bad-faith tactics to compel or even scare claimants so that they accept less compensation than they deserve.
The good news is that insurance company adjusters are not all-powerful, even though they act as if they are. They have weaknesses and fears, but they conceal them from claimants to maintain a strong position.
Knowing these weaknesses and fears will help you encourage insurance adjusters to operate in good faith when handling your claim for compensation.
How to Scare Insurance Adjuster
If you are wondering how to scare insurance adjuster, you are on the right track to getting the compensation you deserve.
Insurance adjusters may act as if they have complete control over the purse strings of compensation. And the truth is that they do indeed exercise a fair bit of control over claim values. However, their control is not absolute, and they have many points of weakness that you can watch out for.
Once you understand a few key points about how to scare insurance adjuster and how the compensation process works, you can make choices that will strengthen your position and potentially make insurance adjusters quake in their boots.
Know the Role of the Adjuster
The first step in learning how to scare insurance adjuster is gaining an understanding of the adjuster’s role during compensation.
In a nutshell, insurance adjusters are responsible for evaluating personal injury or property damage in light of a specific insurance policy to determine how much — if any — money the insurance company should pay.
To achieve this end, insurance adjusters can:
- Receive and review compensation claims
- Communicate extensively and regularly with claimants
- Review and assess physical injuries and property damage
- Conduct interviews of witnesses, claimants, and experts
- Investigate the incident(s) that caused the injury or property damage
- Review pertinent evidence relating to the damaging incident
- Negotiate payouts for claimants
In the process of these tasks, the insurance company adjuster will be doing everything they can to minimize the insurance company’s exposure. In other words, they will employ various tactics to limit the amount of money the insurance company must ultimately pay to a claimant.
Insurance adjusters also seek to settle claims as quickly as possible. For this reason, it is not uncommon to see adjusters dangling fast, easy payments in front of injury victims.
The problem with these quick, hassle-free payments is that they are usually far below what claimants deserve. But because they are offered so quickly to claimants, many claimants take them to get the relief they need.
Understand Insurance Adjuster Tactics
Adjusters employ various tactics to reduce or deny valid insurance claims. Knowing these tactics will help you avoid losing out on compensation. Some of them include:
- Refusing to answer your calls
- Delaying taking action on your claim
- Unreasonably requesting more details and information from you
- Offering a lowball compensation value
- Threatening or intimidating you
- Advising you to skip hiring a lawyer
Each of these actions is evidence of bad-faith insurance dealings and should serve as a major red flag that you are not being treated fairly.
Take Your Time to Review the Offer
It’s vital to remember that the first settlement offer is not a final offer. In fact, insurance company adjusters typically start out with offers that are below what claimants deserve.
Many claimants believe that they must take whatever the adjuster offers. But this is not the case. As a claimant, you have the right to reject offers that are not worthy of your losses.
So, you should take your time and review every aspect of the offer — but not alone. Unless you are an accident or injury professional, you should review the offer with a personal injury attorney. A personal injury attorney will know how to properly evaluate the adjuster’s offer in light of the details of your case.
Keep in mind that many adjusters are used to uninformed injury victims who quickly accept their settlement offers. By not accepting the offer immediately, you may cause the adjuster to start worrying, which may lead to a much better offer.
Reject the Offer in Writing
When you get a lowball offer, make sure to reject it in writing. Sending a written rejection lets insurance company adjusters know that you mean business and are willing to fight for a proper settlement amount.
And if you really want to know how to scare insurance adjuster, you will accompany the written rejection letter with a counteroffer.
Complete Your Medical Treatment Before Accepting a Settlement
Medical treatment is expensive. Hence, injury victims need all the money they can get to cover their medical bills. But sometimes, insurance adjusters try to settle quickly and before the final costs of treatment have been established. Doing so allows them to save significant sums of money.
However, if you wait until after you have recovered, you will have a clearer picture of the precise amount of damage you deserve. You will also signal to the adjuster that you intend to get every penny you deserve.
Hire an Attorney
Nothing inspires fear in an adjuster more than a personal injury attorney. Once an adjuster knows you are represented by competent counsel, they will change their tune. They know that seasoned attorneys understand the process and fight hard to prevent their clients from losing out on compensation.
The Joel Bieber Firm Knows How to Handle Insurance Adjusters
Don’t let insurance adjusters get away with their tactics. Reach out for legal help to make them pay what they owe. The Joel Bieber Firm can deal with these adjusters on your behalf to get you the money you deserve.
Contact us for a free consultation and case review today.
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