At Peoria Car Accident Attorney Law Firm, we would like to share with you five negotiating secrets auto insurance adjusters don’t want you to know. Here are five negotiation tips and secrets typically will increase your personal injury settlements that auto insurance adjusters don’t want you to know. Insurance adjusters have a reputation to be hard-hitting negotiators. They take classes on how to hedge their bets to get you to personally accept the lowest possible settlement and that is how they make tons of money. By following these tips, you too will be able to defend your rights.
Number one, know what you are willing to accept as a minimum settlement amount and jot that figure down and stick to it. Be aware this minimum amount is not only for you, but it needs to cover all medical bills, chiropractic bills, EMT Bills, ambulance bills, hospital bills as well as the amount of damage to your personal property. Never reveal it to the claims adjuster. Knowing your bottom-line figure stops you from making an instant decision. Be prepared to get a take or leave low-ball offer and don’t let your emotions get the best of you if you’re given a take it or leave it option. You don’t want to make a rush decision that you regret later. Of course you don’t have to settle for your minimum amount. A good strategy is to wait to see the first offer from the claims adjuster.
Hey, we are only at Tip and secret #1 and I hope you can already see how difficult it is to negotiate with a seasoned insurance adjuster. The insurance adjuster is required to take several educational and persuasion courses to get you to the lowest possible settlement and they do it all day long every week Monday thru Friday and you do it 1 or twice in a lifetime. We are proud to offer these tips and secrets but hiring a Peoria Car Accident lawyer is really the smartest choice because we do it all week-long Monday thru Friday and they know we know all their tricks.
Give us a call at (602) 497-0991 we will get you the highest settlement allowed by law.
If the adjuster offers a settlement amount close to your minimum figure, you know they have more money to negotiate with. At this point, raise your minimum settlement amount and now you have moved forward. This brings us to the second rule of negotiating.
Number two, never accept the first injury settlement offer. It is a popular practice that insurance adjusters will intentionally provide a low ball as the first offer. They want to see if you really know what your claim deserves and how desperate you are to settle your claim quickly. Be aware the claims adjuster always has more money to negotiate with after his first offer. Each adjuster is licensed to settle their case within an authorized price range. This settlement range depends upon the claims adjusters experience with closing personal injury claims. So, a rookie adjuster might have a settlement range from 8K to 11.5 K whereas a veteran adjuster would be up to 25 to 30K.
If you get low but fair offer, you should immediately counteroffer slightly higher than what you initially asked. On all low ball offers your next step is to ask for a written description explaining the offer where the adjuster will need to validate his offer. Remember these guys and gals want to test your mettle to see if you will settle just to be done with it. This is how they make money for their employer and they are typically really good at this back and forth game. They have nothing to lose and you have your bills as well as pain and suffering that you are negotiating for. Did you know that the insurance companies all have insurance software that the insurance adjuster is required to enter the facts of your case and it spits out a range that the insurance adjuster is allowed to award you? The lawyers at Peoria Car accident attorneys is vehemently aware of this software and know how to get the insurance adjuster to load the correct information to yield the highest possible settlement allowed by the law. Are car accident negotiations difficult? Yes, so much so we advise you to hire an experienced attorney. Give us a call (602) 497-0991
OK let get back to the tips and secrets. Take notes of these explanations because you will need to analyze each point and will need to write a response letter refuting the adjuster’s liability statements to lower your claim.
Maintain your original settlement demand in your response letter. Address each point that the adjusted specifically made as being valid or invalid. Then restate your settlement demand. Once you send in your response letter. Don’t change your figure again, wait until after you and the insurance adjuster have discussed your counterpoints in the response letter. Don’t forget to send this by certified mail.
Negotiating Tip number four, never reduce your settlement demand more than once during negotiations. The insurance adjuster will push you to lower your settlement amount. Don’t do it… wait for the claims adjuster to respond with their settlement offer. Never lower your figure more than once until the other party increases their original offer. If you keep lowering your settlement amount while the insurance adjuster maintains their initial offer, your claim appears week. This shows that you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. The adjuster, we’ll just keep pushing your claim further down until you give up and accept a low injury settlement, so hold out until the adjuster raises their settlement figure.
It is our goal that any Peoria accident injury victim ever deal with the financial stress of affording excellent legal services. We offer 100% free case evaluations, and why you don’t pay until we get you a favorable settlement, judgment, or verdict.
Finally, negotiating tip number five. Gradually decrease your bottom line if presented with solid circumstances that logically would lower your final settlement. Never blindly lower your injury settlement by a random amount. Decrease your bottom line by small amounts because the opposing adjuster is going to decline your offer and you would have to offer even more. Remember decreasing your claim between ten to twenty percent is a good range. This is just a good roll of the dice. Also, a 20% reduction shows the adjuster that you will negotiate If you originally want a 100K personal injury settlement.
At the end of the day, you will have to decide what is a fair injury settlement amount. Just remember to not let the insurance adjuster bully you around following these five negotiation tactics will help you get more money from your accident claims. Also, your settlement is not all yours, it is for all of your bills related to your car accident.
Did you know that if you hire an attorney to represent you against the insurance company the settlements are typically 2 to 3 times what they originally offer? Give us a call (602) 497-0991 and we will defend your rights and get you the highest amount allowed by the laws of Arizona
1.) What are the insurance limits in the case?
They don’t want you to ask this question because it shows that you may be trying to get the insurance limits and that you’re savvier than your just average layman and smarter than them. If insurance companies can do so, they want to avoid paying out the limits and pay as little as possible.
2.) How much check writing authority do they have, you’re essentially asking them how much they can write a check for without having to get supervisor approval.
They may not want to answer that question because you may think the value of your cases above their check writing authority and if that was the case, you’d need a new adjuster assigned and they want to keep their file.
3.) What is the settlement reserve?
The reserve is an amount of money that an insurance company and insurance adjusters set aside to pay your case. They don’t want to be asked that because then you have a better idea of how much they think your case may be worth.
As you can see getting to a fair and equitable settlement is a daunting task and we are only at question 3. If you or a loved one have been in a Peoria Arizona car accident give us a call 602-497-0991. Car accident law is all we do and there is never any cost to you.
4.) How much have they paid for the exact injury that you’ve had in the past for other claimants for their pain and suffering.
Insurance companies keep very specific files that show how much they’ve paid for pain and suffering for certain injuries. These settlement awards are not public knowledge and insurance companies do everything possible to keep such information as protected as possible. If you ask the insurance adjuster how much he’s paying in the past for pain and suffering for your same injury, he’s not going to tell you. And if he does tell you, rest assured that settlement number he gives you is going to be much lower than what he’s actually paid because they rarely like to show their hand. Plus, he wants you to then request that settlement amount.
5.) Mr. Adjuster, how many cases have you made an offer to a claimant like me and then a jury has awarded higher settlement than your offer?
Rest assured that there’s not an insurance company in Arizona that has had a case where they haven’t made an offer and that at personal injury claim went to trial and got a verdict in judgment for higher than that amount.
6.) How many times has your supervisor awarded a claimant and paid a claim for an amount higher than your last final offer was?
He might reply speaking with my supervisor is not going to do any good. But it is always worth a try as there will be times where the supervisor who has more settlement authority and he may just want to get the file closed and he may award a higher settlement. There’s never a guarantee, but this line of questioning works more often than not.
7.) What are the detrimental facts in my case that allows you to offer such a low-ball settlement?
Many facts go into a personal injury case which effect the value of your case. There’s a chance the insurance company knows about a witness that’s horrible for their defense, which is good for you and bad for them. However, on the flip side of things they may have a witness that is bad for your case.
8.) Does your insurance company typically increase the offer when a lawsuit is filed?
They may say no. Did you know the insurance adjustors do not have to be honest in their answers to you? They may not be telling you the truth, but the reality is in many cases when you file a lawsuit, the case gets transferred to a different adjuster who has more authority to settle your case for more money. This doesn’t always happen, but it happens frequently enough to follow up with this line of questioning.
9.) How much is your insured at fault?
You want to ask the insurance adjuster, what percentage of negligence are you placing on your client who wrongly injured me? Their stock answer will be I’m not going to do that. That is privileged information, but sometimes they will tell you and then you know where your next move will be either to settle or ask for more. WE always strive to ask for more.
10.) How much blame are they assigning to you the accident victim?
Just like in number nine. Sometimes they will tell you and sometimes they won’t. But you must follow through with this line of questioning and the police report is not the final say in determining who is at fault.