This is another question I recently received.
A person was injured in a car wreck, they submitted a demand letter, and tried to negotiate, but the insurance company was stonewalling them. What are they supposed to do?
There isn’t a good answer for someone in this situation. Insurance companies may engage in stonewalling tactics that are designed to get you to accept less than the full value of your claim.
When you hire us, and this happens, our response is to file suit. That’s the alternative and the hammer you can use to get a new adjuster, get a new perspective to the insurance company from a lawyer and to prove that you can enforce the claim.
But if you’re trying to represent yourself, you don’t have that option. As a result, the insurance company, knowing that you don’t have a real alternative, doesn’t have an incentive to pay the full value of your claim.
This type of conduct is one of the reasons that insurance company studies find that claimants who are represented by lawyers do substantially better overall than those who try to represent themselves.
I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news to people in this situation.
