Has an Insurance Company Offered You a Settlement for Injuries You Received in an Accident in Colorado?
Are you wondering how to negotiate an insurance settlement following an accident? This post explains the pitfalls of attempting to negotiate an insurance settlement without legal representation. If you are considering negotiating yourself, we recommend you first schedule a free consultation with a Colorado Springs personal injury attorney.
Call (719) 505-9999 to speak with a Colorado Springs accident lawyer.
Can You Negotiate an Insurance Settlement Yourself?
The answer is yes. But, if you try to negotiate an insurance settlement on your own and without a personal injury lawyer, you’ll find out pretty quickly that you are not “in good hands” with a “good neighbor” who is “on your side.”
In fact, you will be in the hands of an insurance company determined to pay you as little as possible or nothing at all for the injuries and losses you suffered in your accident. If you accept what the insurance company is offering, they are playing you for a sucker.
The liability insurance companies know that they are saving tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, because you didn’t hire a Colorado Springs accident injury lawyer to negotiate on your behalf.
Why You Should Never Negotiate an Insurance Settlement Yourself
Here are the top reasons you should never negotiate an insurance settlement yourself in Colorado.
You Are Dealing With the OTHER DRIVER’S Injury Attorneys
Understanding how accident claims and lawsuits work is the key to understanding why negotiating an insurance settlement on your own can be such a costly mistake.
For example in a car accident, the negligent driver who caused your accident and your injuries likely have car insurance just as you do as required by Colorado law. That insurance includes liability coverage designed to compensate other people for any damage caused by the insured driver.
After car accidents in Colorado, each driver will tell their own insurance company about the car accident and provide their auto insurance company with the other driver’s name, contact, and insurance information (which is why you need to get that information right after a car accident).
Expert injury lawyers working for the negligent driver’s car insurance company will represent that driver and handle all matters related to your injury claim. If you intend to seek compensation from the other driver either through negotiation or a lawsuit, any money that winds up in your pocket comes from the insurance company, not the driver.
Insurers Are In the Business of Making Money, Not Helping You
Always remember that insurance companies are in the business of making money. If you attempt to negotiate an insurance settlement yourself you are playing into their hands.
Every penny an insurance company pays out in injury claims to an accident injury victim is a penny that reduces their profits. That’s why the insurance company wants to pay you as little as possible. And they will do everything they can to make that happen. This includes taking advantage of the difficult financial situation you may find yourself in following an accident when you are recovering from injuries and possibly not able to work.
After your accident, the negligent party’s insurance company will want to try to settle your case quickly by making you an offer far lower than what you deserve or what you could get at trial.
The Insurance Company Knows a Few Things About You
The insurance company knows that you:
- Are not an expert on Colorado personal injury laws.
- Have bills you need to pay, and wages you aren’t earning as you recover from your injuries.
- Need the money and they know that any offer of quick cash can be very tempting.
- May not have a full understanding of your rights or may trust them to do the right thing.
They’ll use this knowledge to manipulate you and convince you that you either don’t have a valid injury claim or that your claim is worth pennies.
The insurance company may try to get you to make a statement or admission which could hurt any personal injury lawsuit you may want to file.
The insurer may question the legitimacy of your injuries and even try to get you to hand them your medical records so they can go through them to find any prior incidents or conditions they can blame for your injuries.
They know that all of these things mean that they have a good chance of getting out on the cheap. That’s because insurance companies negotiate insurance settlements every day. Injured accident victims do not.
Insurers Pay More to Injury Victims Who Have a Personal Injury Attorney
But when an insurance company knows that an aggressive personal injury attorney is on the other end of the phone or the other side of the courtroom, their tactics become far less effective, if not useless.
That is because the best personal injury lawyers in Colorado know how to negotiate effectively. Injury lawyers know how insurance companies work and the ways they try to skirt their obligations.
A personal injury lawyer knows more than just how to negotiate an insurance settlement. Accident lawyers know how to gather and preserve the necessary evidence and present the strongest possible case to counter the insurance company’s efforts to avoid liability for their party’s negligence.
Quite simply, people who hire an accident attorney to pursue their claims and negotiate insurance settlements collect significantly more in compensation on average than do individuals who negotiate without a lawyer.
The statistics bear out this truth:
According to the Insurance Research Council (IRC), auto accident settlements for injury victims who had an attorney were 40 percent higher than the settlements negotiated by the victims themselves. In a separate study, the IRC found that people represented by an attorney receive 85% of all settlement money paid out by auto insurance companies for claims.
You could be costing yourself thousands of dollars by not hiring an experienced Colorado Springs personal injury attorney to negotiate an insurance settlement on your behalf. Your attorney won’t let the insurance company nickel-and-dime you and will work to ensure that you receive the maximum amount of compensation available for your losses.
Consultations with an Accident Injury Attorney are Free
The good news is that, if you want a consultation from a personal injury lawyer, you’ll pay nothing in fees until you get compensation. This is called a contingency fee, and you will only pay the contingency fee from the money received from the at-fault party in the personal injury lawsuit. This is a normal pay structure for Colorado personal injury lawyers.
King & Beaty specializes in personal injury lawsuits in Colorado Springs. Contact us to schedule your free personal injury consultation in Colorado Springs to determine if you have a case.
Call (719) 505-9999
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