Should I Accept The First Offer From My Insurance Company For Car Accidents?
Why Consult Top Rated Personal Injury Attorneys In Los Angeles Before Agreeing To An Insurance Payout Offer
You can get compensation straight from insurance companies without the help of a Personal Injury Lawyer in California. However, there's a reason why you're often advised to get one anyway, and it has a lot to do with how insurance companies decide on payouts.
So, let's talk about insurance, companies, first offers, and what the top personal Injury Lawyers in California can do for you.
Should I Settle With The Insurance Company?
The first thing you need to understand is that insurance companies are running a business. Therefore, it is in their best interest to give you the lowest possible payout for your injuries.
This means that they often engage in underhanded tactics to reduce the compensation you'll get for your injuries. They might try:
Trivializing your injuries to reduce your total damages
Not consider future losses like lost income capacity, future medical and recovery expenses, etc.
Disregard pain and suffering
Reduce non-economic damages like emotional distress, psychological trauma, etc.
That said, car accidents are expensive. You need compensation for your medical bills, medication, rehab fees, lost income, and other losses incurred due to someone else's negligence. The goal of insurance is to make sure you can get back to a state before you've gotten into an accident, which means calculating all the invoices and out-of-pocket expenses you incur.
In addition, grave physical injuries, property damage, or emotional distress often get miscalculated (willfully or accidentally), ultimately affecting the compensation you might get from them.
To ensure you don't leave a stone unturned, consult with a California Attorney for Personal Injury. A lawyer will represent you in the negotiations, so you don't have to fall for law-balled first offers.
Do Insurance Companies Pay Pain And Suffering?
Pain and suffering are considered non-economic damages. These often refer to the emotional distress and difficulties an individual experiences after getting injured in a car accident.
For example, even after paying off hospital bills, individuals might feel immeasurable pain while trying to recover. This pain and suffering can affect them emotionally, impacting themselves, their families, the people around them, and their job.
That said, you can negotiate for pain and suffering with insurance companies. However, pain and suffering aren't compensations they offer you outright, which is why it's crucial that you don't immediately accept their first offer.
Additionally, it's challenging to get an insurance company to give you pain and suffering damages in the first place. This is because pain and suffering are so hard to quantify, and you often need a solid set of evidence and reasoning for requesting them.
What Can A California Attorney for Personal Injury Do For You?
Considering how complex the compensation process is, a Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer might be able to help you do the following essential steps:
Represent Your Interests In Negotiations. Let your Los Angeles Car Accident Lawyer speak and negotiate with the insurance company so that you don't accidentally accept low-balled and unfair offers.
Collect Evidence And Conduct Investigations. When asking for better compensation, you need to collect as much proof as possible to build a solid case. Top rated personal injury attorneys in Los Angeles will conduct their own investigations to strengthen their client's case. They can also find experts and other witnesses to prove trickier non-economic and future damages.
Discuss Options And Strategies With You. Your lawyer can find alternative routes to get you the best results. You don't have to sue, even—most attorneys can handle negotiations so well that insurance companies settle before things get taken to court.
Find A California Attorney for Personal Injury After A Car Crash
1000Attorneys.com is a California Bar Association Certified agency for Lawyer Referral Services. We can refer you to a prescreened personal injury attorney that's fit to handle your unique case.
You may contact us via our 24/7 live chat (or fulfill our case submission form) for a free initial consultation.