The following are 10 ways to hurt or kill your personal injury case.
Number 1: Failing to document the accident. You can hurt or kill your case by failing to call the police, failing to take photographs of the vehicles and the accident scene, failing to get names of witnesses, failing to document the accident.
Number 2: Failing to get immediate medical treatment. If you’ve been injured in an accident and you don’t go to the hospital or to your family doctor, the insurance company for the other driver will assume that you were not injured. So it’s important to get immediate medical treatment after an accident.
Number 3: Delaying contacting an experienced personal injury attorney. If you’ve been injured in an accident, you should immediately get advice regarding your legal rights and the legal process. If you don’t, you can make mistakes that will hurt your case.
Number 4: Dealing directly with the other insurance company. It’s almost always a bad idea to have any contact with the insurance company for the other driver. The other adjustor will call you. The other adjustor will try to get you to give a recorded statement. The other adjustor may even ask that you sign a release so that you give up private information including medical records or employment information. It’s not a good idea for you to do any of these things. Instead, you shouldn’t have any contact with the other insurance company.
Number 5: Not following medical advice. If you don’t follow the advice of your doctors, you could hurt or kill your case. If they tell you to get certain medical treatments or advise you to take certain medicines to help you get better and you don’t follow that advice, the insurance company can argue that either you must not be injured or you must not care about recovering from those injuries. For that reason, it’s critical that you follow the advice from your doctors.
Number 6: Hiding prior accidents. The insurance company will do investigation, and through that investigation they can determine whether or not, prior to this accident, you were involved in any other accidents. If you try to cover up the fact that you were involved in other accidents before this one, it could hurt or kill your case. Instead, you need to be perfectly honest and upfront with your attorney and tell him or her about any prior accidents.
Number 7: Hiding prior injuries. The insurance company can also do investigation into your prior medical condition. They can subpoena medical records. They can talk to your family members or friends. Through this investigation, they can find out whether you suffered from any prior medical conditions. If you’re not upfront with your attorney about those prior medical conditions, you could hurt or kill your case.
Number 8: Exaggerating or misrepresenting your injuries or activity level. One of the best ways to hurt or kill your case is to lie or exaggerate about your injuries or the way they impact your life. The insurance company is able to hire private investigators, do surveillance, subpoena medical records, talk to family members and friends. They can do all sorts of investigation into your life, and through this investigation they can determine whether you’re lying about or exaggerating your injuries or activity level. If they’re able to do that, it could hurt or kill your case.
Number 9: Hiding subsequent accidents or injuries. After your accident, if you’re involved in another accident or sustain injuries from another event, it’s important that you tell your attorney about that. Again, the insurance company can investigate, can find these things out, and if you haven’t been upfront with your attorney about anything that has happened to you after this accident, it could hurt or kill your case.
Finally, Number 10, failing to listen to your experienced personal injury attorney. If you’ve hired an attorney, you need to trust the attorney. Your attorney is the expert on how to prepare your case and make sure that you maximize the settlement value of your case. Your attorney is also an expert on determining what cases should be settled before trial and what cases should actually go to a jury verdict. If you don’t trust and follow the advice of your attorney, you could end up hurting or killing your case.