In a personal injury claim, your opponent the at-fault party, their insurance adjuster or their attorney may tell you that you’re liable for the accident under the law. Most of the time, however, they are wrong. Adjusters work on behalf of insurance companies; they have a general understanding of the law, but rarely know it in detail like an Accident Lawyer in West Bend. Below, Action Law Offices will show you how to respond when you’re approached by the opposing side in an accident case.
Ask for Proof
If an insurance adjuster or lawyer for the opposition claims that the law is on their side, ask for proof of their position. Ask them to send you a copy of the rule, regulation or statute that they claim applies to the situation; if documentation is not provided, tell the party that you cannot give consideration to an undocumented claim. If you are sent proof, verify that it is a copy of an actual law and not a memo from a lawyer, insurance company or other unofficial paperwork.
If the document you receive is a copy of a law, read it thoroughly. In many cases, what you receive is a general statement that can be applied in different ways across a variety of situations, and does not assess fault in your case. For instance, traffic laws may state that the driver on the right has right-of-way at a four way intersection, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
The Police Report
A police report can be of great help during an injury claim, but it shouldn’t be used to tell the entire story or to assign liability. In accident cases, insurance adjusters sometimes say that the police report does not confirm your version of events. You can point out that it doesn’t contradict your version, either and that the accident wasn’t actually witnessed by the reporting officer.
Questioning a police report’s legal value may not get the other side’s insurance adjuster to stop relying upon it during negotiations, but it should tell them that you know the report won’t be much help if the case ends up in court. An adjuster who knows that you won’t give up easily because of a police report will be more willing to negotiate, but you may have to lower your settlement demand somewhat. Your Accident Lawyer in West Bend can help you work with the other party’s insurance company to reach a settlement.
