The negotiations that take place prior to the settlement of a dispute provides lawyers with repeated times for communicating with one or more insurance adjusters. Each of those 2 groups, the lawyers and the adjusters have their own ideas and motivations. Those ideas and motivations serve as a backdrop to their communications.
Comparing what motivates lawyers with what motivates adjusters
• A good personal injury lawyer in Fort Erie wants to help his or her client.
• A good personal injury attorney wants that client to obtain a fair compensation.
• An adjuster wants to pay any given claimant as little as possible.
• An adjuster’s actions reflect the fact that insurance companies do not want to risk the chance that a specific claimant might target a given insurance company in a lawsuit.
The information that becomes the focus of both lawyers’ tasks and adjusters’ tasks
• The size of the numbers on a claimant’s medical bills, along with the number of bills that were received
• The degree to which a given claimant underwent pain and suffering
• The value for a claimant’s lost income
• Other ways that an accident has had a negative effect on a claimant/client
• The apparent strength of a given claimant’s case
Comparing lawyers’ special considerations with adjusters’ special considerations
A personal injury attorney makes note of how the facts manage to make clear which party is at-fault. In addition, a personal injury attorney spends time studying information on the nature and extent of a given client’s injuries. An insurance adjuster must discover the limits on the policy that was purchased by the target of a specific accident victim’s personal injury claim.
A lawyer’s first communication with an adjuster could take the form of a demand letter.
Lawyers can help their clients to compose such a letter. The lawyer’s experience should aid the creation of a more persuasive piece of correspondence. Of course, not all claimants hire a lawyer before composing a demand letter.
Sometimes the letter’s arrival at the adjuster’s office does not lead to the issuing of a response. In that case, the letter’s author should contact the adjuster’s supervisor, and learn when a response should be available. Then the claimant must wait for the response.
If no form of communication has come from the insurance company by the date that was given, then a lawyer’s assistance could prove useful. That assistance could take the form of contact made with the adjuster, or with the adjuster’s supervisor. A lawyer’s experience could be used to determine whether or not to file a personal injury lawsuit. Lawyers, or course, understand just how much adjusters fear the suggestion that a claimant might file such a lawsuit. The mere suggestion has the ability to restore any blocked communications.