Why do insurance companies not want you to hire an auto accident attorney?
If you have ever been in an auto accident then you know that within days after the accident you will start receiving telephone calls and mail from the other driver’s insurance company. They may want you to give a statement over the phone “just to get your side of the story”. They may even offer you a settlement to resolve all outstanding issues. You may want to jump at the offer that they make you because you really need the money to cover the repairs to your vehicle or your lost wages from the time you missed at work. What you need to realize is that the insurance company wants to get to you before you talk to a personal injury attorney. Why are they so anxious to get you to accept a settlement before you talk to a personal injury attorney? Because they know that once you retain a personal injury attorney that they will actually have to pay you what your claim is worth, not just the small fraction that they originally offered you.
Let’s face it, insurance companies are in business to make money, not spend money. While they have a legal obligation to pay money out for legitimate claims, they also have a right to try and keep the payouts to a minimum. If you accept what they offer you for your damages, then they have done what they are legally required to do under the law. This is not to say that every fender bender requires a personal injury attorney, but the vast majority of auto accident claims will benefit from the expertise of a personal injury attorney. Statistics tell us that for relatively minor claims – under $15,000 – people who represented themselves on their claims averaged a total settlement of about $3,500. For those same types of claims, people that were represented by a personal injury attorney averaged almost $7,500. That’s over twice as much in compensation for your injuries with the help of a personal injury attorney. The Insurance Research Council itself has found that the insurance claimants that were represented by attorneys represented 47% of all claimants yet received 79% of all money paid out for liability settlements. Those figures are quite telling in and of themselves. It becomes clear rather quickly that having a personal injury attorney on your side greatly increases your chances of receiving compensation as well as increases the amount of the compensation that you receive.
So what about the argument that hiring a personal injury attorney will cost more than it is worth? Again, do the math. The average personal injury attorney works on a contingency basis. They usually receive around one-third of the final settlement proceeds. If that same personal injury attorney is able to negotiate a settlement for over twice what you would be able to negotiate on your own, then you clearly come out ahead. Additionally, with a personal injury attorney working for you, you don’t have to answer those annoying telephone calls or even open the mail that the insurance company sends you – just tell them you are represented by a personal injury attorney and leave the rest to your attorney!
