How and Why Insurance Companies Will Delay Making a Settlement Offer
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011
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Insurance adjusters have a number of reasons they may wish to delay making a settlement offer in your Dallas personal injury case. On a personal level, the adjuster may be overloaded with more cases than he can handle and hope that by putting yours off for a while, his situation will improve.
More fundamentally, insurers know that you have financial pressures mounting, including medical bills from your injury itself and lost wages if you missed work. They feel that the longer they can delay you, the more desperate you will be for cash and the more willing you will be to accept a lowball offer. Some of the stalling techniques unscrupulous insurance adjusters may use include the following:
Making You Jump Through Unnecessary Hoops
An adjuster may claim that he didn’t receive paperwork that you sent, or he may ask you to answer fundamentally the same questions on multiple forms. Alternately, he may ask you questions a few at a time drawn out over several weeks instead of just sending you or your Dallas personal injury lawyer a request for all the information at once.
Switching Claim Adjusters
Your case may not be handled by the same claim adjuster all the way through. Because each successive adjuster will take some time to get up to speed on the facts of your case, this can introduce unnecessary delays. Adjuster switching can be a stalling tactic, or it could be a sign that the insurance company has a high adjuster turnover rate.
Needing Approval for Offers
Although there are many levels of command in an insurance company, adjusters are typically given more authority for settling a case than they let on. If you hear that your case needs to be reviewed by a claims committee or sent back to the home office for approval, this may be a delay technique.
If you feel that the insurance company is stalling your claim for injury damages, a Dallas personal injury attorney may be able to help move it along and possibly negotiate a higher settlement than you would otherwise receive. Please call Dean Malone at (214) 670-9989 for a free evaluation of your case.
- Guest Contributor
