It is a surreal experience when you survive an accident or home fall, however, having to seek compensation for the injury sustained during the accident from your insurer or that of the at-fault party could be another unpleasant experience for survivors.
A personal injury claim can be exhaustive for claimants and can take a turn for the worse when insurance companies deny liability for the injury and refuse to compensate you.
Why would insurance companies deny liability in a personal injury claim? This article gives you a rundown of some common mistakes that can lead to this.
Incomplete Assessment of Injury
Note that when you are filing for a personal injury claim, your Claim Notification Form (CNF) requires you to give details of your injury and its value. Many claimants cannot assess their injuries and do not know the estimated cost of the damages, general or special.
Usually, the major culprits are claimants who don’t have an attorney and have failed to research personal injury cases, worth of damages, and ongoing treatment expenditures for long-term injuries. When you have it all wrong in your assessment, insurance adjusters are quick to use it as a basis to reject your compensation claim.
Skipping Medical Treatment
There is nothing like a minor injury when it comes to accidents, ensure that you seek medical attention and be checked by a doctor who will give a diagnosis and treatment instructions for healing. Not only that, be religious when it comes to following up with treatment, never miss an appointment with the doctor.
All these will make up the report and testimony that the doctor which is quite crucial to your claim will issue. When the insurance company begins its investigation to determine if your claim has merits, your medical treatment could be your undoing if discrepancies are noticed in your treatment.
Not Hiring An Attorney
The most common mistake that claimants make is doing it alone, forgetting that a personal injury claim takes a long process and you will need a lawyer to help you navigate the whole deal. Insurance companies pick on claimants that do not have legal representation and refuse to investigate their claims.
Many personal injury claims settled are because of the lawyers handling the case. This is why the professionals behind www.dsslaw.com recommend that you need to hire a law firm that has vast experience in handling varieties of injury claims. Doing so will make sure that your file gets the attention of the insurance company.
Failure To Keep Evidence And Records
This is a common mistake made by claimants, they cannot add vital evidence to their CNF and it could end up affecting their compensation claim. For instance, claimants file personal injury claims without a medical report which hurts their case as it is impossible to estimate the true worth of your case without a report that gives a detailed analysis of your injuries, treatment, and recovery.
Not only providing medical reports but other crucial evidence or receipts like payment for x-ray scans, physiotherapist invoices, reconstructive surgeries, and other evidence that support your claim for damages. Insurance companies are quick to dismiss claims that are not rich in evidence or use delay tactics to frustrate the case.
Time Frame Mistakes
The statute of limitation on filing claims within two years from the time of the injury could put you at a disadvantage. It is quite understandable that you have to receive treatments, keep to your doctor’s appointments, and recover from an injury sustained in an accident, so it may affect you from filing your claim early or losing vital evidence. However, this should not stop you from filing your claim before it lapses.
Also, many claimants are fearful that their claims won’t be processed after the two years mark but that should not stop you from filing your claim. This is more reason you need to hire an attorney to advise you on steps to take on a personal injury.
Incomplete Accident Investigation
An accident claim has many moving puzzles, and an incomplete investigation could hurt your claim in multiple ways. When you are involved in an accident, the police have to investigate to determine the at-fault party which will be contained in the police report which will be filed by the investigating officer.
In some cases, your injury lawyer also investigates to gather evidence relating to your crash and injuries which will be used to fill your CNF. Also, when the insurance companies get your CNF filing, they assign it to an investigator that will prove that the accident happened as claimed and accept liability for your damages. When it is discovered that there are discrepancies in the accident report, cause of the crash, and the at-fault party, this would affect your compensation claim as insurance companies are usually looking out for such mistakes or errors to make them deny liability for damages.
Not Asking Questions or Making Full Disclosures
Asking questions will encourage you to know more about how insurance claims work, how your lawyer may help or hurt your compensation claim, so demand to know what is happening every step of the way to avoid being blindsided by things you should have known from the beginning.
Not just that, make full disclosure of your accident and injuries to your lawyer, let him or her know the physical and mental impact of the incident, this will make your attorney know how to file your claim, the kind of compensation to seek that will not be declined by the insurer and settled in no time.
These common mistakes are things that personal injury claimants make daily that hurts your compensation. However, a common misconception by claimants is that your case cannot be settled until it gets to court, which is quite wrong, you need to have the right incentive that will force insurance companies to want to settle out of court and pay your compensation. These incentives revolve around having the appropriate evidence, reports, and the perfect personal injury lawyer.
