The insurance company is not your friend, no matter how much their TV ads may insist that they are. Not even your own insurance company. Instead, the insurance company is a business that was designed for one purpose – to make a profit. And insurance companies don’t profit by paying claims. Consequently, you can expect them to look for excuses to either deny your claim or minimize it. Below are just a few examples of some of the tricks they like to play:

• Monitoring your social network accounts. If the value of your claim is substantial, you can expect the insurance company to monitor your social network accounts, looking for evidence that your injuries aren’t so severe after all (you at a party, for example). At the very least, set your profile to private and don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.
• “Lowballing” you with a quick but inadequate settlement offer. When you are injured and bills are mounting, you may need money fast. Don’t let them pressure you into accepting a grossly inadequate offer in exchange for writing a check at your bedside. We can help you resist the pressure and distinguish between a serious offer and a lowball offer.
• “Singing you a lullaby”: In most cases, you only have one year after the accident to file a lawsuit. After that, your claim will be barred. The strategy here is to lull you to sleep with constant bureaucratic delays, hoping that you don’t realize how little time you have.
• Having you sing away your rights. Don’t sign anything you don’t fully understand – in fact, it is probably the best policy to sign only a well-negotiated settlement agreement. One of their favorite tricks is to have to you sign a form granting them unlimited access to your medical records. They will then go on a fishing expedition in your files, looking for a “pre-existing injury” that they can use against you.
• Asking you trick questions: ”How are you today?” “I’m fine.” “But didn’t you say you were in constant pain?” Or, even more craftily, “We need to know the time of the accident, down to the exact minute.” “OK. OK, it happened at exactly 2:26 pm.” “Well, if you know the time down to the exact minute, then you must have been looking at your phone instead of watching the road. That must be what caused the accident.” Watch out!

The foregoing represents only a short introduction to the insurance company’s playbook, because this article is just too short to include everything.

We Won’t Fall for Their Tricks and They Know It.

At Glenn Martin Hammond Law Office, PLLC we see it as our job to fight for injured victims who are not in a position to fight for themselves. Call us at (866) 448-7777, or contact us online, so that we can set up a free initial consultation with you. Remember – you don’t pay us unless you win. That’s our policy. We serve clients throughout Lexington, Kentucky including Beaumont Park, Bryan Station, Kenwick, Zandale and elsewhere.