Should I Give a Recorded Statement to the Insurance Company After a Car Accident?
Insurance adjusters are not on your side after an accident; in fact, insurance companies are not even the side of their insured. the only thing they care about is making sure they are making money. Which means they will even try to get you to make a recorded statement about the accident. Should you give an insurance company a recorded statement? Our answer is always a resounding “NO!” you should not immediately give a statement to an insurance company. This is because these insurance adjusters will try to get you to say something that will indicate that you were either at fault in some way for the accident.
How To Say “No” To Insurance Adjusters
No one knows more about how unfair insurance companies are like we do. Not only do they try to bully you into accepting a settlement before you are ready, but they also do everything in their power to blame you for an accident that you were otherwise not at fault for. That is why we suggest that you don’t say anything to an insurance company after a car accident and seek the advice of our experienced injury attorneys to determine the best course of action.
A Few Things to Remember When Dealing With Insurance Companies
Something to remember, an insurance company is a business, and their business comes from making money and paying out as little as possible. Even if that means that they deny the amount of compensation you need in order to make your life whole again. Insurance companies want to protect their profits and that is why they want to speak with you and not an attorney. They try to get you to speak with them as soon as possible in the hopes that you will not seek the counsel of a lawyer. Thus trying to back you up into a corner to get you to accept compensation that is no where near what you would need to pay for your medical bills.
- You don’t need to give a recorded statement ever. Most of the time when insurance adjusters contact you, they will tell you that they are calling on a recorded line. You have the right to tell them to contact you on an unrecorded line as it is NOT mandatory for them to record your statement. If they do contact you, however, we encourage you to give them your attorneys phone number for further correspondence;
- Never settle immediately! When you have an accident lawyer at Silverthorne Attorneys working for you, you will never have to worry about us settling for an amount just because it’s their first offer. Most insurance companies will put the pressure on to settle quickly because they want to pay you as little as possible. We believe that we will never have a complete understanding of the compensation you need until you complete medical treatment. This is why we wait until after you are done with treatment to demand your case.
Curious about how insurance companies work? Here’s a 7 minute video on how insurance works and why companies are not always on your side:
[videosingle id=“2587” width=“100%” height=“400” rel=“false” /]
Ways Insurance Adjusters Try To Trick You
We did some research about the tricky ways adjusters are trained to hear for certain things and interpret them their own way. Below is a list:
- Saying “Nowhere” – If you tell an insurance adjuster that it seemed that the other car “came out of nowhere” that can take that to mean that you were not paying attention. Therefore, suggesting that you were at fault;
- “They had to have been speeding” – Never assume that someone was speeding. Again, it screams that you were not paying attention. Adjusters take detailed notes of everything you tell them and later on, these off-hand comments may come back to haunt you when it comes time for negotiations;
- “My light turned green, so I just went” – But, did you look both ways to make sure there weren’t other cars coming? Again, even if the accident is another person’s fault, anything you say can either be misconstrued or will be used against you;
You never want to say too much to an adjuster. as your accident lawyers, we always tell our clients not to speak to insurance companies. We will do that for them. If an insurance adjuster contacts one of our clients, we always tell them to have the adjuster to contact us.
If you need more information on adjusters, see our article What Does an Insurance Adjuster Do?.
If you are suffering from injuries due to an accident, contact a car accident attorney in our office as soon as possible. Not only are consultations free, but we will take the burden of the case off of your shoulders. You should not have to deal with the bullying tactics of insurance adjusters. Let Silverthorne Attorneys handle it for you!