What does an insurance company think about when a car accident happens?
Really, only one thing, its exposure.
The insurance company’s insured has done some act. In the case of a car accident, its driver may have driven too fast, failed to yield the right of way, or may have done some other kind of negligent driving. In other kinds of cases, such as an injury at a construction site, a general contractor may have failed to provide a safe job site.
What does exposure mean?
One common way to understand the term exposure is the measure of vulnerability to a loss. In a car accident case, the insurance company’s exposure is the value of your injuries, medical treatment and other damages.
Now, you might be thinking, isn’t the reason that the law requires that we all have insurance, so that when I get hurt in an accident, there is a way for me to be compensated? Whatever the right answer is to this question, the insurance company’s answer to that question is, “no.”
Take Allstate. Allstate is the largest publicly traded home and auto insurer. In an article from July 31, 2012, The Wall Street Journal reports that Allstate “spent 86.3 cents on claims and expenses for every dollar it collected in premiums across its property-casualty segment.” The goal of Allstate, and every other insurance company, is to drive down that 86.3 cent figure as low as possible, in order to maximize profits.
How do insurance companies reduce their exposure?
Anderson Cooper reports, “it’s the three Ds: delay, deny and defend.” I will discuss these insurance company tactics in later entries, but for now, you should understand that reducing exposure is bad for you and good for the massive corporate bureaucracy.
How Does a Personal Injury Attorney Help My Claim?
The list of things that a good personal injury attorney can do for you includes at least: (a) conducting a thorough investigation of your case; (b) finding and preserving all of the important evidence for proving your case; (c) getting the medical bills paid (d) helping you understand the real value of your case; (e) knowing, understanding and applying the law to your advantage; and (f) everything else that falls under the big umbrella of proving your case in court. The bottom line for you in answering the question of whether you need an attorney to settle your personal injury case, is that what you really should be asking is whether you need a good, personal injury attorney to get a fair deal.
The answer to that, the better question is an emphatic yes, you need a good, personal injury attorney to be treated fairly, and to obtain fair compensation for your personal injury claim. So, give us a call to schedule a free consultation with one of our personal injury attorneys.