– I’m going to talk about
speaking with insurance adjusters after auto accidents. I’m gonna tell you when it’s
okay to speak with them, when it’s not okay to speak with them, how it can affect a settlement and I’m going to give real examples of how speaking with
adjusters has affected personal injury settlements. Watch the entire video so
you don’t miss a thing. JZ helps, a Florida injury law firm. I’m Personal Injury
Attorney Justin Ziegler. After an auto accident, you need to understand that
there are two different types of insurance adjusters, I’m one. When I say auto accident, I’m
referring to car accident, motor vehicle accidents, all of them, motorcycle accidents, truck accidents. The two different type of
insurance adjusters are one, what we call first party
insurance adjusters. That’s generally if you own a car, your own auto insurance adjuster from your insurance company. If you’re passenger in someone’s car and let’s say you have a
resident relative you live with and you don’t own a car,
that insurance company and then we have what’s called the third party insurance adjuster who is the careless
driver’s insurance adjuster particularly when you’re making
a bodily injury liability claim against that careless driver when they did something wrong. The differences between these two different types
of adjusters is huge so first, I’m gonna first talk about what’s called the first party adjuster. Again, your own insurance adjuster or if you’re seeking first
party insurance benefits. In Florida for example, there’s what’s called Personal
Injury Protection Insurance that’s no fault insurance that pays up to 10 thousand
dollars in many cases regardless of fault in the accident even if you’re driving a
car and you’re at fault. For every type of insurance adjuster, do not mistake friendly
for paying your claim. Many adjusters, in fact, I’d
say most adjusters are nice but just because they’re nice, don’t be shocked if the facts warranted if several months into it, the adjuster denies insurance coverage, denies the claim, pays you
nothing or gives you a low offer. Back to what’s called Personal
Injury Protection insurance in Florida also known as PIP. In Florida, you are required
to give a PIP statement, a statement to the insurance
company about your injuries, how the accident happened,
who you live with, et cetera. Now, the reality is many
insurance companies, auto insurance companies don’t ask for that recorded statement or even an informal statement. All things equal, the better companies, generally the national insurance companies that write policies in every state are less likely to ask
you for your statement. That’s the good news and that’s
just one of the reasons why sometimes when you pay
more for car insurance on the front end, when it comes to claim
time, the process is easier. They require less paper
work or less statements. Some of the poorer and by poorer I mean poor at paying claims, insurance companies will
even require that you drive all the way to their office. Sometimes, it’s very inconvenient
to take your statement so that’s one of the negatives, one of the many negatives
of trying to save money on auto insurance but PIP insurance who’s generally going to
be if you have your own car and you’re trying to get
your medical bills paid or some of your lost wages paid or if you don’t own a car but you live with a relative who has a car and you’re going through
their PIP insurance or if you were just a passenger in a car and you don’t own your own car and you don’t live with
any relatives who have PIP and you’re making a PIP claim through the host vehicle that you’re in. In all those situations in Florida, you have to give a recorded statement if the insurance company asks. Now, after an accident, many times people are emotional. You’re excited for lack of a better word or you’re nervous and we tend to talk a
lot when we’re nervous and giving a lot of information
to the insurance adjuster even if they don’t ask for
it is just a waste of time but also it can later be used
against you in your claim. Only answer the questions asked. Also for PIP claims, if
the auto insurer requires that you complete a form, written form which goes over
how the accident happened, your injuries, who you
live with, et cetera, what cars you own. Unfortunately, in Florida,
you have to do it. Some of the worst insurance companies have huge long forms which
are just out of control. The better ones may not make you or are likely to not even
ask you to complete the form and if they do, it’s a very short form. The other type of first party insurance is what’s called Uninsured
Motorist insurance or Underinsured Motorist insurance. Both of these insurances cover you if the careless driver
who caused the accident doesn’t have enough insurance
to pay for your bodily injury. Bodily injury is your lost wages, your out of pocket medical
bills and pain and suffering. In Florida, you have to if they ask give a recorded statement or a statement to the
Uninsured Motorist insurer so that includes if you have
Uninsured Motorist insurance through your own car that
you own, you have to get it. If you’re a passenger in someone’s car and you’re making an Uninsured
Motorist insurance claim through their insurance, you have to give this recorded statement and the same is true for
giving them an authorization. To get all of your
medical records and bills, you have to sign an authorization. They are not entitled to
your mental health records unless you’re making a mental health claim but you have to comply with
these different things. Now, the Uninsured Motorist adjuster also is not your friend. While an Uninsured Motorist
car insurance adjuster has a duty to act in good faith, their job is to save their
insurance company money if they can so take what they tell
you with a grain of salt. If you don’t know the
answer to any question that either the PIP insurance adjuster or the Uninsured Motorist
car insurance adjuster or auto insurance adjuster
asks you, don’t guess. This isn’t the time to show
the adjuster how smart you are. Every single word that you say is either going to be recorded or the adjuster’s taking notes and these can be used
against you later on. Again, no matter how
friendly the adjuster seems. I’m going to give you an example of an auto insurance accident case where an insurer has to give a PIP and Uninsured Motorist
insurance statement. This is the car from a car crash that my client was standing
outside, another car hit him. It fractured the large
low bone in his lower leg. He ultimately had surgery. Now, he was renting the car but he was from out of the country. He was renting the car and when you rent a car in Florida, it comes with PIP insurance so he had to give a PIP and statement. Now, the PIP insurer was a good one and they didn’t require one. Also, his medical bills were very large. He had surgery, emergency surgery done. Generally, a lot of
times when that happens, the auto insurer won’t request a statement if your medical bills are very high and surpass the 10 thousand
dollar standard PIP in Florida. The car that hit him had
a 100 thousand dollars of Bodily Injury Liability insurance It also was a rental car and they were at fault for the accident for careless driving. The driver that hit my client was working for the United States so there’s essentially
unlimited money to recover from if you can prove your case. My client had Uninsured Motorist insurance through the car that he rented. He opted for this coverage. Under Florida law like I said earlier, the Uninsured Motorist
adjuster is allowed to and can force the pedestrian, my client, to give a recorded statement. Now, it happened to be one
of the better auto insurers. It was Ace American Auto Insurance. They did not require that
my client give a statement but they could have. In this case, we settled the entire case for 325 thousand dollars. The Uninsured Motorist insurance company that my client had purchased
Uninsured Motorist insurance through with on the rental car paid 100 thousand of that 325
thousand dollar settlement but you got to be very careful speaking with these Uninsured
Motorist insurance adjusters. They do this for a living, 40 hours a week if not more. They’re very seasoned after
handling thousands of claims or hundreds of claims. They know exactly what questions to ask and one wrong answer can blow a case. Earlier on, I talked about the two different types
of insurance adjusters. We’re gonna talk about third
part insurance adjusters. These are the insurance
adjusters also know as Bodily Injury Liability
insurance adjusters for the careless driver or the owner of the car that the careless driver was driving. They insure it. Oftentimes, after an accident, many people do not want to go through their own auto insurance. They want to make a claim through the other driver’s auto insurance or if they’re injured and they don’t have Uninsured Motorist insurance, they directly make a claim
against the other driver’s Bodily Injury Liability insurance. It is very common, I see it often where people who are injured give a statement to the third party
driver’s insurance company. You do not have to give this statement. Unlike first party insurance coverage, you have zero obligation
to give a statement. I believe it only hurts your case. Many people want to give this statement because they think they’re
gonna get a rental car sooner and sometimes it may result in that but oftentimes, the third party insurer particularly in a rear end accident, if their insurer admits fault to them, they have enough to know that they are able to pay your case, your rental car if you need one to get your car fixed, et cetera. Some people think that you
have to give a statement to a third party adjuster
in order for them to pay your property
damage to your vehicle. They cannot force you
legally to give a statement. You do not have a duty
unlike first part insurance and first party insurance like PIP or Uninsured Motorist that I mentioned. If you fail to give a statement, they can argue that
you failed to cooperate and that can blow the coverage and you can lose out on a lot of money. Third party, you can’t blow coverage by failing to give a statement. There’s a chance it delays your claim if you don’t give a
statement and they need one but oftentimes, you don’t
have to give a statement. Injured auto accident victims also think that giving a quick statement to the third party insurance adjuster is going to get them to quickly pay your out of pocket medical bills, your lost wages and pain and suffering. The reality is in Florida in most cases, the third party Bodily
Injury Liability adjuster pays one check to settle your case. I’ve had one case out of all the cases that I can remember where the third party
careless driver’s insurance advanced some money to pay
for my client’s lost wages but it rarely happens so I advise my clients
or most of the time to we do not give a recorded statement to the third party’s insurance company and we rarely give a third party even an unrecorded
statement we rarely give. This is a truck that hit a motorcyclist who was riding on the street. The motorcyclist was riding straight. The truck made a left
hand turn in front of him. He ultimately had surgery
to the top of his big bone beneath the knee known
as the tibial plateau. He fractured it. He also fractured his
finger and had surgery. In that case, the truck
driver’s insurance company wanted to take my client’s
statement and I told them no. I wouldn’t give them a recorded statement or an unrecorded statement. That case ultimately settled
for 445 thousand dollars but the moral of that story is we received a fair settlement,
445 thousand dollars, and my client did not
have to give a statement to the truck driver’s insurer. Before giving a statement to the third party
careless driver’s insurer, I suggest knowing which cars are insured and the limits of each insurance coverage. You need to know who your
target defendants will be, who ultimately you would
like to pay the case so you can build your
strategy up against them and some people get injured in an accident particularly where there’s
multiple vehicles involved and they start placing
blame on certain vehicles. There’s a chance that
one of those vehicles has no Bodily Injury insurance cause it’s not required in Florida and most personal private cars or has very little Bodily Injury insurance and then all blame is placed on one driver who only has 10 thousand dollars of Bodily Injury Liability
insurance or zero when in fact the driver
who was mostly at fault even though you don’t think so has let’s say 100 thousand dollar policy and you’re badly injured. I hope you enjoyed the video. Please let me know if
you have any comments about speaking with
auto insurance adjusters after an accident. Subscribe to our channel, like the video. Have a beautiful day. I’m Attorney Justin Ziegler with my office in Miami serving Florida. (light music)