Insurance Company Traps Designed To Ruin Your Car Accident Injury Case
Protect Your Rights - Learn
Upon graduating law school, and working for a prominent insurance defense law firm, I learned the tricks and traps that are designed to reduce or even eliminate paying your car accident injury claim.
Insurance Adjusters and Insurance Defense Lawyers use several methods to reduce paying injury claims.
I have shared just a few of the traps that lay in wait to ruin your car accident injury case. Be prepared so you won’t be tricked by the insurance company.
Insurance Traps That Can Destroy Your Car Accident Injury Case
#25 Insurance Company Traps to Ruin Your Car Accident Injury Case
Do Not Ever Give A Recorded Statement Ever!
#26 Insurance Company Trap Number One - Recorded Statements Can Kill Your Injury Case
Take Action Quickly To Save Valuable Case Winning Evidence Before It Goes Missing
#27 Insurance Company Trap Number Two - Time Is Not On Your Side
ER Visits Are For Serious Injury Car Accidents
#28 Insurance Company Trap Number Three - Going To The Emergency Room Or Not
#29 Insurance Company Trap Number Four - Not Selecting the Right Kind of Doctors
Gaps In Your Treatment Can Hurt The Value Of Your Car Accident Injury Case
#30 Insurance Company Trap Number Five - Not Going To Your Doctor Enough
So Many Injured People Injured And Not Enough Insurance To Go Around
#31 Insurance Company Trap Number Six - Race For The Insurance Policy Limits
Help Your Doctors Help Yourself By Giving Accurate Medical Information
#32 Insurance Company Trap Number Seven - Medical History Mistakes
Brag about Your Pre-Existing Conditions - Don't Hide Pre-Existing Conditions
#33 Insurance Company Trap Number Eight - Pre-Existing Conditions Add Value To Your Case
#25 Insurance Company Traps to Ruin Your Car Accident Injury Case
Beware of Insurance Traps
If you are reading this, you are likely trying to figure out what to do after a serious car accident. I am sorry you were injured by some distracted driver.
Hopefully your first injury claim and you are not experienced with the process of making a car accident injury claim. However, your lack of experience will be used against you by the insurance company and their highly trained claims adjusters.
And because the Insurance Industry makes big profits on handling millions of personal injury claims, they know a lot more than you do about how to ruin your car accident injury case.
The insurance industry conducts classes and training to teach their teams of adjusters how to trip you up.
How to pressure you into giving them a recorded statement, or sign a release without the help of a lawyer.
Please read this so you are aware and armed to protect your rights from the claims adjuster’s tactics.
#26 Trap Number One - Recorded Statements Can Kill Your Case
Just Say No to Recorded Statements
Recorded Statements –
Can kill your case.
When asked by anyone to give a recorded statement, you should simply say,
“Only if my lawyer is present will I give you any statement”
RECORDED STATEMENTS Just say “NO”:
What is the big deal with Recorded Statements?
Well, they can ruin your case.
They are designed to ruin your case.
They are a trap.
The insurance company for the other side will pressure you.
They may suggest they won’t fix your car, or they might pay for a rental car, but only if you give them a “recorded statement.”
Insurance adjusters are trained to ask certain questions and in a certain way to get you to make admissions or mistakes that may cost you tens of thousands of dollars.
For example, their number one favorite question is:
“What are your injuries?”
This sounds simple enough, but it is not simple at all.
This is a blatant trap.
The Insurance Company wants to pin you down early as to what your injuries are.
For example, you say, “I have a sore neck, my back is stiff and I seem to have a constant headache.”
This seems simple enough, because these parts of your body really hurt badly.
But here is the problem,
you start going to the doctor,
your headaches improve,
but it turns out that after a few weeks of treatment, you and your doctors realize that you injured your jaw (TMJ),
you have herniated discs in your low back causing radiating pain and numbness into your legs,
your knee has a torn meniscus, and
you find out that your neck pain is really in your shoulder.
So, six months later, when it comes time to try and settle your case, the insurance company says,
“Hey, wait a minute, we are not paying for the jaw, knee, shoulder and herniated disc because when we asked you about your injuries just a day or two after the cash you never mentioned these injuries. Therefore you must be either exaggerating your injuries, or you got them from something other than the accident.”
Here is the Second way a Recorded Statement can kill your case.
The sophisticated trained insurance adjuster whose only job is to reduce paying claims asks you:
“What happened?”
But they ask you in a way that makes it sound like you don’t know much. For example, they ask
“Where did the other car come from?”
“How fast was the other car going?”
“What lane was the other car in before the collision?”
“How far apart were the vehicles when you first saw them?
“How many seconds elapsed between the moment you saw the other vehicle and the collision occurred?
If and when you don’t know the answer to any one of these questions,
you will either:
Guess,
and possibly guess wrong, (which means you are lying)
or you will say:
You don’t know. (which means they can concoct a version to hurt your case).
Either way, either answer, the insurance company will use your own words against you later.
The insurance company may say
“You made up stuff about the crash and should not be believed at all.”
Or,
They will attack your version of the car crash by saying,
“Well, you don’t know anything, so therefore we are going to believe our insured’s version that we coached them into saying, and now we don’t have to pay you for anything because you can’t prove it is our insured’s fault.”
#27 Insurance Company Trap Number Two - Time Is Not On Your Side
Take Action Quickly To Save Valuable Case Winning Evidence Before It Goes Missing
Trap Number Two – TIME IS NOT ON YOUR SIDE
Don’t Wait
Letting Time get away from you.
Why is time so important to protect the value of your case?
I can’t state this too often or too many times.
As time goes by, your case loses value.
Evidence is disappearing.
Witnesses are moving away,
forgetting important details, or
becoming less interested in helping you.
The longer you delay in bringing your claim, the harder it will be to get you full and fair value.
There are also time limits. For example, you have to receive treatment in the first 14 days after the crash if you want to use your PIP no fault insurance benefits. If you don’t go to the doctor in time, well, you still have a case, but your doctors won’t be paid by your PIP (no fault) insurance for their care and treatment of you. They will have to bill your health insurance, bill you, or wait to be paid out of the case settlement.
Time is never on your side – Do Not Wait another day!
- Time limits you need to know about your car accident case
- 14 Days to see a doctor or lose your PIP insurance benefits
- 2 Year Statute of Limitations for suing or settling a Wrongful Death Claim stemming from a car crash
- 4 Year Statute of Limitations for suing or settling your car accident injury or property damage claim
- 5 Year Statute of Limitations for suing your Uninsured Motorist Insurance Company
Every day, most car accident injury cases lose value due to the passage of time.
Evidence is getting lost, memories of what happened is fading, the case is losing value.
Taking action sooner rather than later is always a good idea.
And even more importantly, there are time limits to bring all claims.
A car crash has a four year time limit, an uninsured motorist has a 5 year time limit.
If the case has a wrongful death, then the time is only two years.
Never wait.
Take action immediately.
The trap of “I HOPE I FEEL BETTER TOMORROW”
The poor car accident victim who hopes they will feel better tomorrow falls into the trap of hurting their case with the best of intentions.
The injured person does not want to be injured.
They don’t want to have to go to a doctor.
The police officer asked them are you hurt? And they said “No, I will be fine.”
They turned down the Ambulance Ride at the scene of the crash.
They were told to go get checked out at the Emergency Department, but said, “No, I think I will be okay.”
They truly hope their injuries will get better and go away on their own.
They have no intention of making any sort of claim.
But, when they don’t feel better,
all the time they waited to go get checked out by their doctor
will be used against them.
The insurance company will blame the car accident victim and say,
“You were not hurt too badly, because you did not go to a doctor right away.”
“You waited almost 3 days before you got checked out.”
#28 Insurance Company Trap Number Three - Going To The Emergency Room Or Not
ER Is A Must For Any Serious Motor Vehicle Accident Injuries
Trap Number Two – GOING TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM OR NOT
- Going to the Emergency Room – Yes or No?
Should you go to the ER?
Yes, by going to the emergency room immediately after a car crash, is proof of the seriousness of your injuries.
Going to the ER right away lets trained medical doctors give you an evaluation to rule out life altering injuries.
Going to an Urgent Care center:
Urgent care centers are also a good second choice to visiting a hospital.
Sometimes Urgent Care centers are less expensive and faster.
Who pays for your medical bills?
Your PIP “no fault” insurance pays the first $10,000.00 of your medical bills.
#29 Insurance Company Trap Number Four - Not Selecting the Right Kind of Doctors
See A Medical Specialist
TRAP NUMBER FOUR – NOT SELECTING THE RIGHT DOCTORS
Finding the right kind of Doctor for your automobile accident injuries:
How can you find good medical specialists for your care and treatment?
MattLaw,™ over the course of many years has been fortunate to work with many great doctors who are excellent at providing quality care, getting great results for their patients, and also know what types of tests and documentation it takes to fully document ALL of your injuries.
Selecting the right doctors can have a big impact on the value of your case. Unfortunately many primary care physicians are good doctors,
but they just don’t document enough in your records to help fully explain your injuries.
Your records need to clearly explain how the crash caused or aggravated your injuries.
The medical records need to say what your future medical care needs will be.
Your medical records need to consider all of your injuries and how they will affect your ability to work and live your life.
Not Selecting the Right Medical Specialists –
Selecting the right doctors to treat your car accident injuries is very important.
Specialists are experts in performing the right kinds of tests to diagnose and document your injuries.
They have specialized training and use the most up to date testing and treatment modalities.
They know how to document your medical records, and if needed, are able to testify in court and explain the mechanism of injury that caused your problems, how and why your injuries are permanent, and how your injuries will affect the rest of your life.
#30 Insurance Company Trap Number Five - Not Going To Your Doctor Enough
Gaps In Your Treatment Can Hurt The Value Of Your Car Accident Injury Case
Gaps in your treatment –
If you don’t keep up with your doctor’s treatments, well, the insurance company will blame you and say your injuries are your fault because you did not follow your doctor’s advice.
#31 Insurance Company Trap Number Six - Race For The Insurance Policy Limits
So Many Injured People Injured And Not Enough Insurance To Go Around
TRAP NUMBER SIX – THE RACE FOR THE INSURANCE POLICY LIMITS
Not knowing you are in a Race for the Insurance Policy Limits.
You might not realize that your delay in hiring a lawyer may cause you to recover NOTHING.
Yes, sadly, if 3 or more people make an injury claim and there is not enough insurance to go around,
You may be late, and get paid nothing.
Oftentimes in an accident, there may be 3 or 4, or maybe 10 people making a claim for limited policy limits such as a 10/20 bodily injury policy. This means there is a maximum amount the insurance company will pay.
$10,000 is the maximum the policy will pay to any one person
And
$20,000 is the maximum the insurance policy will pay to all the people who make a claim.
When there are more injured people than insurance can cover.
So, what happens is the insurance company may pay out all of the policy limits before you make a claim, and you are out of luck.
There might not be any insurance money left from the at fault driver and or car owner.
Remember, time is not on your side.
#32 Insurance Company Trap Number Seven - Medical History Mistakes
Help Your Doctors Help Yourself By Giving Accurate Medical Information
TRAP NUMBER SEVEN – MEDIAL HISTORY MISTAKES
MEDICAL HISTORY MISTAKES:
Not understanding the Importance of your Medical History is critical to maintain your credibility. It is also the roadmap to your damages. As far as the insurance company is concerned, if an injury, or aggravation, or exacerbation is not in your medical records, it did not happen.
And if there is something in your prior medical records, and you forget to tell some doctor, or the insurance defense lawyer, they will suggest you are hiding prior injuries, in order to get more settlement money.
Some people hurt their case, by making simple mistakes, and forgetting prior injuries, treatments, accidents, and health conditions.
Or, some people just underestimate the importance of some past conditions or events that affected their health.
My advice is to write out a list of names of every doctor you have seen in your life. Make a list of every urgent care visit you have made. Make a list of every emergency room visit you have ever made.
Then write down a simple summary that you can print, and or make copies of and give to any of your doctors.
Your Medical Summary I suggest can be like this example:
| Approximate
Date |
Doctor or facility | Reason |
| 2001 | First Care Urgent Center | Stepped on a nail and injured my foot |
| January 2003 | Springfield ER | Car Accident |
| March 2003 | First Care Urgent Center | Fall at work, hurt my back |
| April 2003 | Specialty Care Physical therapy
Dr. Bones, D.C |
Chiropractic care and physical therapy for my back |
| 2006 | Dr. Smith | Primary care doctor check up |
| 2007 | Dr. Smile, DDS | Wisdom teeth extraction |
| 2008 | Dr. Smith | High Blood pressure and blood sugar |
| November 2008 | Dr. Smith | Medication for High Blood pressure and Diabetes |
| 2010 | Urgent Care Center | Flu |
| 2014 | Springfield Hospital | Gall bladder |
| 2015 | Springfield ER | Car accident |
| 2015 | MRI Center | MRI of my low back |
| 2015 | Dr. Bones | Back Pain |
| 2017 | Springfield ER | Trip and fall |
| 2018 | Dr. Smith, M.D. | Mediation changes |
| 2020 | Springfield Hospital | Chest Pain |
| 2021 | Dr. Bones | Back Pain |
| 2022 | Dr. Bones | Back Pain |
| 2023 | Dr. Bones | Back Pain |
By having a simple summary of your past medical treatments, and by giving a copy to your doctors, helps your doctors quickly have an overview of your medical history and conditions.
This also eliminates any doubt that you failed to tell your doctors about something in your medical history.
The biggest mistake people make is they assume that little things in their medical past won’t matter.
This is a huge mistake that you can easily avoid.
The insurance defense lawyers, and their doctors will make a mountain out of any misstatement they can find.
They will suggest that you are lying to your doctors, to your attorney, to a jury about your past medical history. Even when you are doing your best to be honest, upfront and forthright.
The bottom line is make it easy for you and your doctors to document your prior medical history by providing a simple written summary to anyone who asks.
#33 Insurance Company Trap Number Eight - Pre-Existing Conditions Add Value To Your Case
Brag about Your Pre-Existing Conditions - Don't Hide Pre-Existing Conditions
TRAP NUMBER EIGHT – PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS ADD VALUE TO YOUR CASE
Prior Injuries and Health Conditions make your case worth More Not Less.
How and Why pre-existing conditions make your case worth More, not Less!
The short answer is that anyone with any pre-existing condition is “Easier to Hurt, and Harder to Fix.”
What I have seen after 30 plus years as a serious injury personal injury attorney is that people want to deny they have any problems.
And this make sense, because they think by admitting to having prior injuries, accidents or conditions will hurt their case, when the opposite is true.
What works best is to admit and put up front and center,
any and all prior:
accidents,
injuries,
health conditions
you might have.
Because, if you try to deny, downplay or outright say you were in perfect health before this car accident, then you can make yourself look like you are lying, even though you are not.
We all want to think the best about ourselves.
We all want to think we are in great health.
We don’t want to admit that we have had prior accidents that caused some injury, no matter how minor.
And your denial, or lack of memory will hurt you.
Instead of denying prior injuries, accidents, and treatment, you should embrace them all.
Because anyone with any pre-existing medical condition makes them:
Easier to Hurt
And
Harder to Fix
Here is the problem, if you deny, minimize, or disagree that you have pre-existing conditions, then you will be made to look like you are lying.
You did not intend to lie when you denied that you had any pre-existing conditions.
You just underestimated how important your prior medical treatments and prior accidents are to establish your credibility.
Here are the traps that lay in wait for you.
You will be asked about prior accidents and injuries at least 5 times:
- A recorded statement: Do you have any prior accidents or injuries?
- Your Doctors: Do you have any prior accidents or injuries?
- MattLaw™: Please list:
- all prior accidents you have had where you sought any medical treatment?
- all doctors you have seen in the past 10 years
- all medications you were taking at the time of your car accident
- all hospitals you have been to in the past 10 years
- Once a suit is filed you will answer under oath
- all prior accidents
- all doctors you have seen in the past 10 years
- every workers compensation claim
- You will be deposed which means the insurance defense lawyer will ask you to answer questions under oath
- “tell me all prior car accidents”
- “tell me about any other accident”
- “tell me about any treatment you have had”
- “tell me about any doctors you have seen”
- “tell me about all work related injuries”
- “tell me about any insurance claims”
- “were you on any medication at the time of the car crash”
- “who were you health insurance companies going back 10 years”
The insurance companies have access to all of your prior claims and some of your medical records.
The insurance company will know every time you have ever made any sort of insurance claim, including health insurance.
You know they will get all of your prior medical records and comb through them to find anything they can use against you.
HOWEVER:
By admitting “Yes, I do have pre-existing conditions,” you take away one of the biggest insurance company defenses.
The Insurance Lawyer hopes you will:
Deny having any pre-existing injuries
Deny having any prior accidents
Deny having made any prior claims
Not tell your specialized treating doctors about any prior injuries
Not tell your specialists about prior accidents
Not tell your attorney about prior accidents
Not tell your attorney about your pre-existing conditions
It is understandable why you might not want to tell your doctors, or your attorney about prior accidents, or prior injuries, or your pre-existing conditions, because you mistakenly think that having pre-existing conditions will reduce the value of your case.
But the law is the opposite.
Florida Law says that people with pre-existing conditions are entitled to MORE MONEY NOT LESS because THEY ARE EASIER TO HURT AND HARDER TO FIX.
If you fall into the trap of hiding your pre-existing conditions,
You will not get a fair offer to settle your case.
You will have to file suit.
You will be deposed and asked Under Oath “do you have any pre-existing conditions?
And when you say “no, I don’t have any pre-existing conditions.”
They will ask you: “so, nothing was ever wrong with you before this accident?”
And when you say “no, I was perfectly fine.”
Then the defense lawyer knows you can’t win your case at trial, because they can say to a jury:
Mr. X lied to his treating doctors
Mr. X lied to his lawyers
Mr. X lied to me when I asked him under oath if he had any pre-existing injuries.
And now folks, Mr. X is lying to you, the jury, because I have Mr. X’s prior medical records, and it lists a whole lot of pre-existing injuries.
I wonder why he lied to all of us?
Oh, I know why he lied, he lied for money!
And jury, do not give Mr. X a cent, because he is a big liar!
The bottom line is your pre-existing conditions and prior accidents will increase the value of your case, so long as you tell everyone who asks.
Please tell all of your doctors, and my office.
Insurance Traps That Will Ruin Your Car Accident Injury Case
The bottom line is the insurance industry knows how to set traps for the uninformed and unwary that will ruin your car accident injury case.
By reading this definitive guide, you can protect yourself and your family from making costly mistakes.
- Never give a recorded statement without the help of a lawyer
- Don’t wait to collect evidence after a car accident
- After a serious car accident, go get checked out at the Emergency Department. Don’t guess, let a doctor examine you.
- After the car accident seek out medical specialists who can fully document your injuries and who can order the right tests
- Don’t skip doctors appointments and create gaps in your treatment because the insurance defense lawyer will say you must not be hurt
- If there are several people injured in the same car accident, you better hurry and hire MattLaw before all of the insurance policy limits are given to other injured people.
- Create a written list or outline of your prior medical treatments going back at least 10 years, so you always give an accurate medical history to everyone
- Brag about your pre-existing conditions, don’t hide them, because pre-existing conditions give your car accident case more value
You can avoid most of these insurance company traps.
Don’t wait to call me, Matt Powell for a free confidential consultation about your car accident injury case.
I have over 30 years of experience helping my clients get through the gauntlet put down by the insurance companies to reduce or deny fair payment. Please don’t wait to call my office at 813-222-2222 before you make a costly mistake.
Sincerely,
Matt Powell, Esq.
Board Certified Civil Trial Lawyer by the Florida Bar