What to Do When an Insurance Adjuster Calls
Direct Response
After an accident in Colorado, an insurance adjuster may contact you for information about what happened, your injuries or your claim. You may have obligations to provide certain information, particularly to your own insurance company, but that does not mean every request should be treated the same way.
Before giving a recorded statement, signing a release or accepting a settlement, understand what is being requested and how your response could affect your personal injury claim.
That First Call from Your Insurance Company
After an accident, there are a lot of things competing for your attention. You may be dealing with injuries, medical appointments, damage to your vehicle, missed work and everything else that still goes on in your life.
Then the phone rings.
It may be an insurance adjuster calling to ask about the accident, your injuries or what happened. The adjuster will probably act very friendly, and the questions will seem straightforward. It can feel like another routine step in getting the claim handled.
This conversation may feel routine to you, but that may be far from the case for the insurance company.
What you say, what you sign and the decisions you make early in an insurance claim can affect what happens later. Before responding to every request or agreeing to resolve a claim, it is important to understand what the insurance company is asking for, why it is asking and what your rights and obligations are.
The Insurance Adjuster's Role
An insurance adjuster does not have to be rude or aggressive to protect the interests of the insurance company. In fact, most adjusters are trained to be friendly and rated on their professionalism.
The adjuster will come across as a perfectly nice person. The issue is not whether the adjuster is trying to be unpleasant. The adjuster’s job is to evaluate the claim for the insurance company. The thing to remember is that the adjuster is working for the insurance company, not for you. Their loyalty is to their employer and not you and your claim. Their job is not to advocate for you or your claim. Their job is to evaluate the claim while protecting the interests of the insurance company.
In most cases, the insurance company and the injured person do not have the same goals.
An injured person wants to make sure their medical needs are addressed and that the full effect of the accident is understood before the claim is resolved. The insurance company has an interest in evaluating and resolving the claim while controlling what it pays. One thing to remember is that the insurance company may benefit from resolving a claim before the full extent of your injuries is known.
Understanding that difference can help you approach conversations with an adjuster more carefully. The adjuster's call is one part of a larger insurance claims process that can begin almost immediately after an accident.
Do You Have to Talk to the Insurance Adjuster?
There is not one answer that applies to every insurance company, every question and every claim. Your own insurance policy may require you to provide notice of an accident and cooperate with your insurance company in certain ways. The policy itself helps determine what those obligations are.
In Colorado, as elsewhere, it is important to understand those requirements rather than assume that you either must answer everything or should refuse to answer anything.
Some information an insurance company requests may need to be provided. Other information may not be.That is why advice such as “never talk to the insurance company” can be too simplistic. The better question is what information you are required to provide, to whom you are required to provide it and when.
Why Would an Adjuster Want a Recorded Statement?
One request you may receive after an accident is to provide a recorded statement. It can sound reasonable and harmless. The adjuster may explain that the insurance company wants to understand what happened and it is “just part of the process.”
The problem is that a recorded statement creates documentation of what you remember at a particular moment, often relatively soon after the accident. And after a stressful event, like an accident, your memory may not be fully accurate, or you may not be able to articulate it clearly.
Consider something as simple as the color of a traffic light. You remember entering an intersection with a green light and tell the adjuster that information in a recorded statement. A witness with a better view later says the light changed from green to yellow as you entered the intersection.
That difference may not change who had the right of way before the accident, but now there is a difference between your recorded statement and a witness's description. The insurance company may use that difference to question the accuracy of other things you have said.
The important issue is not that you were trying to provide incorrect information or even hide the truth. You were describing what you remembered. The problem is that once the statement has been recorded, those words can be examined later in ways you may not have anticipated when you answered the question.
What Happens When the Adjuster Asks About Your Injuries?
Imagine an adjuster calls a day or two after the accident and asks what injuries you have. Your neck hurts badly and it is interfering with your sleep. Right now, it is the injury that has your attention, so you tell the adjuster about your neck pain. You also injured your elbow, but compared with your neck, it does not seem particularly significant at that moment. You do not mention it.
Several days later, the elbow continues to hurt and requires further medical attention.
The insurance company now has an earlier statement in which you mentioned only your neck, not your elbow. That can lead to questions about whether the elbow injury was caused by the accident.
Nothing dishonest happened. Your understanding of your injuries changed as time passed and you had time to further understand, and even discover, what hurts. There are times that pain can take days or even weeks to surface.
That is one reason why seemingly simple questions shortly after an accident should be handled carefully. Many of us may honestly not know the full extent of our injuries, especially early on in the claims process.
Why an Early Settlement Can Create Problems Later
Another issue that can arise early in a claim is an offer to settle. An insurance company may make an offer and give you a limited amount of time to accept it. At a point when medical bills may already be arriving and you may be missing work, getting money quickly can sound attractive. The amount of the check is not the only thing you need to consider.
Settling a personal injury claim typically involves signing a release. Once the claim is settled and the release is signed, you generally cannot come back later and negotiate further compensation because your injuries require more treatment than you originally expected. That matters because early in the process you may not know what your medical care will ultimately involve.
Before settling, you should understand what you are giving up in exchange for the settlement. How an offer is worded matters. For example, an insurance company might offer a cash settlement along with an agreement to pay a certain amount of “reasonable and necessary” medical care.
It can be easy to focus on the dollar amount and assume the insurance company has agreed to pay medical expenses up to that amount. But the phrase “reasonable and necessary” matters. Whether treatment meets that standard can become another issue after the agreement has already been signed.
You need to understand the entire agreement, not just the numbers that stand out when the offer is presented.
What Should You Say When the Adjuster Calls?
There is no single sentence, or even process, that works for every situation because what you are required to provide depends on the circumstances.
If you are considering hiring an attorney, however, you do not need to provide the insurance adjuster with unnecessary details. You can simply explain that you are working on hiring an attorney. Once you retain an attorney, the attorney can communicate with the insurance company and help make sure required notices and other parts of the claims process are handled appropriately.
The smallest details matter.
When an adjuster asks questions, it can be easy to provide more information than the question requires. You may be trying to be helpful or simply having what feels like a normal conversation.
If you are looking for an attorney, for example, you can tell the adjuster that you are working on hiring an attorney. You do not need to explain who you are talking to, when you are meeting with them or where you are in that process. This is not about withholding information you are required to provide or being misleading. It is about understanding the difference between answering a question and volunteering information that was not necessary to answer it.
You Do Not Have to Figure Out the Insurance Process Alone
Insurance companies handle claims every day. The vast majority of people injured in an accident do not.
It is possible to handle a personal injury claim on your own, but doing so means understanding your legal rights, your obligations under applicable insurance policies, what information you need to provide and what consequences may follow from the decisions you make. There can be a lot more to those decisions than appears on the surface.
Before giving a recorded statement, signing a release or accepting a settlement, it is helpful to understand your options. Understanding your role in the process can also help you make better decisions as your case moves forward.
If you have been injured in an accident in Colorado and are unsure how to respond to an insurance company, Anderson Injury Law offers free initial consultations. A consultation gives you an opportunity to ask questions and better understand the claims process before making decisions that may affect your claim.
Call Anderson Injury Law at 719-473-3040 or visit InjuryEvaluation.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Do I have to talk to an insurance adjuster after a car accident in Colorado?
A: It depends on which insurance company is contacting you and what information is being requested. Your own insurance policy may require timely notice of an accident and may create other obligations. That does not necessarily mean you are required to provide every piece of information the adjuster requests.
Q: Do I have to give an insurance company a recorded statement?
A: Do not assume that a request for a recorded statement automatically means you are required to give one. Your obligations can depend on the insurance policy, the company requesting the statement and the circumstances of the claim. A recorded statement can also be compared with information that becomes available later, so it is important to understand your obligations before providing one.
Q: Should I accept an early settlement offer from an insurance company?
A: Before accepting an early settlement, consider whether you know the full extent of your injuries and medical needs. Settling a claim generally involves signing a release, which can prevent you from seeking additional compensation if you later discover that you need more medical care than expected.
Q: What should I tell the adjuster about my injuries?
A: Be accurate but remember that shortly after an accident you may not yet understand the full extent of your injuries. An injury that seems minor initially may become more noticeable later. Early statements about your injuries may be compared with symptoms or treatment reported later in the claim.
Q: Can I tell an insurance adjuster that I am looking for an attorney?
A: Yes. If you are considering hiring an attorney, you can simply tell the adjuster that you are working on hiring one. There is generally no reason to volunteer unnecessary details about which attorneys you plan to contact or when you plan to meet with them.
Q: Can a personal injury attorney deal with the insurance company for me?
A: Once you hire an attorney, the attorney can handle communications with the insurance company and help make sure required notices and other parts of the claims process are addressed.
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