Archive for February, 2012

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Your Attorney Must Verify Your Medical Expenses Before Beginning Negotiations

Monday, February 27th, 2012

In order to negotiate a settlement for your personal injury claim, your Orange County personal injury attorney will need you to keep an accurate and thorough record of all medical expenses.

It is imperative that your medical records are accurate and up-to-date before your attorney sends the letter of demand to initiate negotiations with the insurance carrier. He may ask you to compare his record of your expenses with your own and report any discrepancies. This is a chance to catch any bills that you might have forgotten to send to your attorney before they have a chance to damage your case.

In addition, your Orange County personal injury attorney will also takes steps to independently verify all of your expenses. Your attorney may begin by contacting all your healthcare providers, checking if there are any outstanding bills that are not in his records. If your attorney hears about an outstanding bill that have not been factored into your settlement demand, he will need details regarding the bill, including what it was for, its amount, and the date it was incurred.

With all of this information in place, your Orange County personal injury attorney will be able to settle your claim much faster than he would be otherwise, as incomplete medical records would raise insurance company suspicion and result in unnecessary interruption.

You can be sure that an experienced Orange County personal injury attorney will enter negotiations fully prepared. Call Samer Habbas at 888-848-5084 today for a free initial consultation.

How Claims Adjusters Handle Your Personal Injury Claim

Thursday, February 23rd, 2012

Your Orange County personal injury attorney will be invaluable when it comes to dealing with the insurance adjuster handling your injury claim. It is often very intimidating for individuals to deal with insurance adjusters, whose job is to downplay your injury and get you to sign a release of your claims for as little money as possible.

Discussion of the Case
Prior to settling your claim, it is normal for insurance adjusters to discuss their case with their colleagues and supervisors. This is especially true for more difficult and unique cases involving hard numbers. In order for you to maximize your compensation, you need to talk dollar amounts with respect to medical bills, treatments, and loss of income.

Your Orange County personal injury attorney will also provide the adjusters with minute details of your case to increase your chances of a bigger settlement. Your attorney will provide detailed documentation that the insurance adjuster needs in order to elevate the status of your claim.

Settlement
The amount of time an adjustor spends reviewing a claim during the negotiation process generally depends on the difficulty of the case. However, even the most difficult of cases cannot take up too much time.

Moreover, the insurance adjuster cannot settle a claim with authorization from either his or her supervisor or claims manager. Usually, authorization to settle a case is permitted in small dollar increments.

If you have been involved in an accident and have suffered injury, it is in your best interest to consult with an experienced Orange County personal injury attorney to adequately present the necessary evidence to the insurance adjuster to settle your case for what it is truly worth and you deserve. Call dedicated Orange County personal injury attorney Samer Habbas at 888-848-5084 today to schedule a free initial consultation.

Settlement Negotiations Will Depend on the Insurer’s Policies and Philosophy

Monday, February 20th, 2012

It may seem strange, but the process of negotiating with an insurance company for a personal injury case depends on the specifics of the insurance carrier and its policies and philosophy. Different companies take different approaches, and you may not understand exactly what kind of company you are dealing with. An Irvine personal injury attorney can help you understand the insurer you are negotiating with.

Claims adjusters in high-profile, large, national carriers tend to be very conservative and loyal to the philosophy of their company. They may seem stubborn or rigid, but you and your Irvine personal injury will not be able change their minds about being so conservative, it’s just in the company culture. Additionally, lower- and mid-tier adjusters have very limited authority, and every move they make is carefully scrutinized by supervisors and managers. So your Irvine personal injury attorney is really negotiating with their claims manager who likely has just as conservative a mindset. Such adjusters are fastidious in their work and have no problem researching a claim in depth and looking at prior medical treatments and tax returns.

Adjusters from small local companies can also be very conservative, because the companies don’t have as much revenue and only a small premium pool to use. A case of just $20,000 or $30,000 can be a very large case to these companies.

Conservative adjusters will not be swayed by documentation about pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. They only want to see hard figures and objective data.

If you have further questions about how to deal with an insurance company, contact dedicated Irvine personal injury attorney Samer Habbas at  (888) 848-5084 for a free initial consultation.

Claims Adjusters Often Juggle Heavy Personal Injury Caseloads

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

If you have been injured in an accident, you may find that dealing with your insurance company is a less-than-pleasant experience. The process of how the insurance company handles your claim and communicate with you may seem inexplicable and bureaucratic. If so, an Irvine personal injury attorney may be able to help you understand how insurance companies work and what you can expect.

When an insurance company receives a claim, the first thing that happens to the claim is that it is assigned to a claims adjuster by territory or size. Accident attorneys in small states (with a population of 2 million or less) usually get to know the adjusters for the national and local carriers around them, which can be beneficial. In larger states, however, there are so many turnovers of adjusters that your case may be handled by two or more adjusters over the course of the process.

Adjusters are busy people, and they check their files regularly in order to maintain a “diary” of their cases to try to keep them moving in a timely fashion and not keep any one waiting for too long. However, an adjuster may have as many as one hundred to two hundred files going at once, which means they may only spend a few minutes per week on a typical claim and may not return your Irvine personal injury attorney’s calls right away.

Adjusters are evaluated on the basis of: how many cases they settle within or below their authorized settlement amount; how quickly they can settle a case; and how little money is spent in the course of settling the case.

If you have further questions about how insurance adjusters work, contact experienced Irvine personal injury attorney Samer Habbas at  (888) 848-5084 for a free initial consultation.

Undergoing an Independent Medical Exam

Monday, February 13th, 2012
If you are involved in a personal injury lawsuit with an insurance company, you may be asked to undergo an “independent medical examination” by the insurer. You may wonder what the purpose of this is supposed to be and whether it will harm your case. An Irvine personal injury attorney will be able to answer your questions. 

In the past several years, IMEs have become much more common, especially in cases involving injury to the neck or back. Despite the name, they are not really “independent.” Rather, they are more like “defense” medical examinations because they are requested, used, and influenced by the insurance carrier and defendant. However, they are routinely referred to as “independent medical examinations,” which implies that they are objective and unbiased, even though they aren’t. Your Irvine personal injury attorney may make a motion requesting that the court and defense counsel be required to call it a “defense medical examination” instead so as not to make it sound more neutral than it is.

There are several things your Irvine personal injury attorney can try to do to diminish the impact that independent medical examinations have on your case. One such thing is to lower your demand in order to prevent the examination. Insurers will usually request you undergo an IME before or during settlement negotiations and before a suit has been filed, but they seldom request them early on in the case. They tend to request IMEs when they have any doubt as to the extent and nature of your injuries, or if you attorney submits a settlement demand that they think is excessive. Reducing your demand to a more reasonable figure may help you avoid an IME altogether.

If you have further questions about independent medical examinations, contact experienced Irvine personal injury attorney Samer Habbas at  (888) 848-5084 for a free initial consultation.

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