Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi my name is Johnny Roven I'm a Los Angeles personal injury attorney and
today I'm going to talk to you about 10 secrets that the insurance companies
don't want you to know about auto insurance claims the first secret that
insurance companies don't want you to know is that insurance adjusters are not
your friend they may act very friendly over the telephone or in person but they
have one job and one job only and that is to minimize the amount of your claim
so what they'll try and do is try and befriend you act like a long-lost friend
listen in be a great listener listen to all your problems
and then at the end of the day they're gonna try and pay you as little as
possible for your personal injury claim the second secret that insurance
companies do not want you to know is that you should not be signing a full
medical release what a full medical release does is allowed for the
insurance company to get every single bit of medical information on you
throughout your entire life so they can be discovering very irrelevant injuries
that have nothing to do with the case but can in fact hurt the case so that's
the second secret you should not be signing a full medical release the third
secret that insurance companies don't want you to know is that you should not
settle quickly what oftentimes insurance companies will do is right after an
accident they will call you and say hey we got a great offer for your case why
don't we settle this now that way we don't have to go into a lot of trouble
so what they will try and do is get you to sign papers very quickly to settle
your case for a fraction of the value of your case insurance companies will go so
far as to sending someone out to meet you at a nearby coffee shop or some
other casual location and then casually just bring some papers for you to sign
so that you can just get rid of your claim often times these settlement
offers are much much lower than the amount of the true value of your case so
wait to settle also what often happens when a person quickly settles is that if
they find out that they have more injuries than they did before
such as in whiplash cases where people don't feel the effects for many days
then that person will have no further recourse against the insurance company
they've waived their right to any further money it damages the next secret
that insurance companies don't want you to know is that you should be telling
your doctor everything that you were feeling so when you go to visit the
doctor right after an accident if you're feeling back pain then you should
mention the back pain if you're feeling pain in your hand then you shouldn't
mention the pain in your hand what might happen if you don't do that is that
let's say a person has both back in hand pain but they only mention their back
pain so that's the only type of pain that's going to be issued in a row in a
medical report so several weeks may go by but your hands not feeling better and
then you decide to report that to your doctor what likely the insurance company
will say is that you probably were not very hurt in the hand since you did not
mention it during the prior doctor visit so when you go in for a doctor visit you
should mention all the pain that you are feeling the next secret that insurance
companies don't want you to know is that they don't want you to speak to a lawyer
when you're represented by an attorney insurance companies pay more insurance
companies keep track of the attorneys that they deal with in the settlement
amounts that they pay out so that they can see what their biggest risks are so
if you hire an attorney that's used to litigating claims and filing lawsuits
then insurance companies may be willing to pay more than if you're representing
yourself or represented by an attorney that insurance companies don't know
about the next secret that insurance companies don't want you to know is that
you should not exaggerate you should simply tell the truth sometimes people
feel the inclination to say that they're a little bit more hurt than they really
are but this can be used heavily against you insurance company is know that if a
person is lying about their injury that often times a jury will punish that
person and not pay them the true value of their claim simply because the jury
feels like the person is simply exaggerating and not telling the truth
about their injuries since insurance companies know this they will try and
minimize the value that they will have to pay you in regard to those claims the
next secret that insurance companies don't want you to know is that they want
you to believe that lawsuits are frivolous they want you to believe that
just by simply bringing a lawsuit that you're probably not going to win but
that's extremely false and personal injury attorneys get large verdicts all
the time insurance companies pay a lot of money
to put this huge marketing campaign and show that plaintiffs attorneys and
plaintiffs are just frivolous simply because they're filing lawsuits but
that's not true that's absolutely false what the law provides is that a person
is entitled to compensation after they've been wrongfully injured the
insurance company's purpose for this is so that they can keep more money and not
pay out on these rightful claims the next secret that insurance companies
don't want you to know is that whatever offer they're giving to you right now
the first offer you can probably get more than what they're offering so at
first what they'll try and offer you is your medical bills but you're also
entitled to other types of damages including property damage lost wages and
everyone's favorite pain and suffering pain and suffering damages is very
difficult to calculate and that usually it falls into the skill of the personal
injury attorney to argue how much more this claim is actually worth because of
the person's pain and suffering the next secret that insurance companies don't
want you to know is the secret of uninsured and underinsured motorist
coverage this means that if the other side does not have insurance or the
don't have adequate insurance to cover your injuries then you can go after your
own insurance and get paid for your own damages people are often surprised when
they ask me what to do because the others I didn't have insurance and I
asked them did you have an uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage in your
policy so they'll send me their declarations page and they actually do
have that kind of coverage so they're able to go after their own insurance in
order to get the coverage that they would have gotten from the other side
had they had insurance the next secret that insurance companies don't want you
to know is that recorded statements can hurt you recorded statements are used
for the purpose of minimizing your claim they'll ask you certain questions in
certain ways to try and make it so that your claim is not worth very much the
insurance companies will ask you questions such as well you weren't that
hurt right where you may feel inclined to answer yes I wasn't that hurt but
later on when it's time to settle your claim you're already said that you're
not so hurt so that's gonna minimize the amount of your claim if you are going
through your own insurance then you may have a duty to cooperate with your own
insurance company and submit to the record of statements before submitting
to a record a statement from the other side's insurance company you should
speak to a personal injury lawyer to talk about the specifics of a recorded
statement whether the attorney should be present for that record a statement and
whether you should submit to that recorded statement at all I sincerely
hope you enjoyed watching this video and I hope that it was informative for you
please subscribe so that you can be on notice for next videos coming out thank
you
you