In South Carolina, car and motorcycle accidents are a tragic, everyday reality. Part of that reality for innocent victims is that they are brought into the car and motorcycle accident insurance claims process- where victims realize what the insurance industry is really like. There is no charming cast of characters like Flo and friends from Progressive or Jake from State Farm. Many find they are not in “good hands” like Allstate promises. There's certainly no charming lizard like the GEICO gecko, but their response to your claim may remind you of another reptile- a snake.
Let me introduce you to the highly trained insurance professional whose job it is to get the insurance company out of your claim fast and quick: the adjuster. They will employ various schemes and shenanigans to cheat you out of a good settlement, and many people never see it coming.
If you're worried about how the adjuster will treat you, or just have some questions about the claims process, don't suffer. Get your questions answered in a free, no-pressure strategy session with a Spartanburg, SC car accident attorney. Call toll-free at 888-230-1841 or fill out a Get Help Now form.
This article walks you through how the insurance claims process works from the insurance company’s perspective, assuming there's no need for a lawsuit. That's a different process you cannot do without a lawyer. Filing a lawsuit without an experienced South Carolina car and motorcycle accident lawyer to help is like doing surgery on yourself without a doctor.
If I represent you, our firm will take control of the claims process for you, using the process I've developed over 20 years to help maximize South Carolina car and motorcycle accident settlements.
NOTE: If you've been involved in an accident with a tractor-trailer or commercial vehicle, your case presents a level of complexity you're not equipped to handle. Any time you're involved in a crash involving a professional driver or employee who's driving for work, there's often an additional level of fault that can help you access more insurance and a potentially bigger settlement. The trucking industry is heavily regulated by federal law. The industry is also defined by especially hard-nosed insurance companies, but an experienced South Carolina trucking accident attorney can create opportunities to add value to your settlement.
Here are the steps in the insurance claims process for a South Carolina car or motorcycle accident.
Step One: Establish Fault
The legal term for fault is “liability.” If the accident was your fault, you don't qualify for a settlement. But you don't lose your settlement if the accident was partly your fault. It just makes it a lot harder to get a fair settlement because the insurance company will fight you, claiming it's mostly your fault or all your fault. In that case, you need an experienced South Carolina car or motorcycle accident attorney.
I've helped clients get settlements when the investigating officer put them at fault:
- A Mother Hires Us When Her Child Is Faulted for Getting Hit on Her Bicycle by a Car
- How a Spartanburg County Tractor-Trailer Accident Victim Got a Settlement Despite Being Found at Fault by the Officer
If you're worried about being found at fault for your South Carolina car or motorcycle accident, call me toll-free at 888-230-1841 or fill out a Get Help Now form.
Establishing liability starts at the scene, where the investigating officer finds someone at fault for the crash.
Here's how you can help your claim at the scene: if you can, take pictures of the scene and the cars. Get contact information from witnesses. Make notes on what they say about the crash. If the at-fault driver admits fault, this can be pure gold for your case.
If you don't get this info at the scene because you're too hurt or too shocked to think about it, don't worry. Hopefully, it'll be in the officer’s accident report. If we represent you, we often request the entire investigative file, which can yield a ton of evidence, especially in a serious crash. Those files can include pictures and body-worn camera videos that can include witness interviews in real time.
If we're representing you, once we have all the information and evidence related to fault, we send a letter with the evidence locking down liability to shut down insurance company arguments against it.
Step 2: Your Medical Treatment Phase
South Carolina accident injury settlements are primarily based on the severity of the injury, which is often measured by how much medical treatment you need. This critical phase of the claims process often starts instantly, as you are rushed from the scene by ambulance to the hospital.
Here's the one thing you've got to remember during the medical treatment phase: be honest and thorough with your doctors. That means being honest about your pain. If you're not honest about that, the doctor can't give you an honest diagnosis. Be thorough in describing how it affects your daily life, including work and family. If you're not thorough, the doctor can't devise a thorough treatment plan to fix you.
One thing you can NEVER, EVER DO: exaggerate. This is a form of lying, and insurance companies will seize on it to make it look like you made the whole thing up. Trust me, they are very good at it, and they will try to do this even when it's false.
As treatment progresses, many victims begin to wonder if they need an attorney. Here's a good rule of thumb: you owe it to yourself and your family to consult with a professional to keep you from being cheated by the insurance company if you are:
- Hospitalized
- Break a bone
- Require an operation
- Get referred to a specialist
In those cases, your case is high stakes and medically complex, which gives a highly trained insurance professional fertile ground to cheat you out of a proper settlement.
When you hire us, we monitor your medical care and the costs associated with it to determine the fastest way to get you a settlement if costs approach or exceed insurance coverage. If your medical bills are more than the insurance coverage, we help negotiate a settlement that gets you compensated, not just the doctors.
To prove your medical condition, you've got to send your medical records and bills to the insurance adjuster. But just doing that is never enough. Adjusters are overburdened by mounds of claims, and it's your job to make their job easy because that gets your settlement paid faster.
You've got to be able to summarize major points in your care to prove injury severity. That's where an experienced South Carolina car accident and motorcycle attorney can also help. We know how to go through hundreds or even thousands of pages of medical records to find the key evidence, which is often stated in complex, foreign medical terms.
If you've had a prior injury, brace yourself for the adjuster to refuse to pay for it, saying, “You were already hurt,” or “This would have happened anyway.” An experienced South Carolina personal injury attorney knows how to use medical evidence to defeat this claim. Often, this requires us to meet with your doctors to get a simple questionnaire filled out to establish this critical fact.
Step 3: Settlement Negotiations
This is where things can get truly shocking for victims. Adjusters will delay responding to offers, then answer with wild, even nonexistent defenses to frustrate or discourage you from insisting on a fair settlement. It's all designed to get the insurance company out cheap. An experienced South Carolina car and motorcycle accident attorney knows how to shut down the delays and shut off the fraudulent defenses.
The key element of this phase is the demand letter. It summarizes liability and all your medical treatment with every provider, lists your medical bills, presents admissible evidence of lost income and future medical care, and details your pain and suffering, which I call human loss.
I call it human loss because there's way more to it than just pain and suffering. First, you've got to know the law listing all the potential elements of it. Next, you've got to be able to paint a vivid picture of your human loss. It's the real story of your case. If you've been seriously hurt, there's a real art to telling the story of human loss. That's what a talented South Carolina car or motorcycle accident lawyer is: a storyteller who tells your story to maximize your settlement.
More importantly, the experienced South Carolina car and motorcycle accident attorney knows the heart of the claims process: how to evaluate how much your case is worth. Remember, there is no such thing as a South Carolina car or motorcycle accident settlement or pain and suffering calculator!
Assuming you reach an agreement with the adjuster, your claims process is still not done. You've got to end it with the settlement document and the check.
Step 4: The Settlement Phase
If a settlement agreement is reached, you won't get paid until you sign a settlement document. You've got to be extremely careful with the document. If the liability adjuster sends you a “release,” you automatically prevent yourself from access to more insurance from a bigger settlement, which you might have on your own policy. It's called underinsurance. One of the most important jobs I do is to determine if my seriously injured clients have this coverage. If so, we go after that for a bigger settlement.
There are more negotiations that may come with it because you've got to repay health insurance and medical providers. That's a whole different set of negotiations that a seriously injured victim can benefit from the help of an experienced attorney. The better you are at negotiating a reduction in repayment to these providers, the more money you get from your settlement.
Finally, after all is said and done, you get your settlement check. And yes, it's tax free!
It's a Lot - Don't Drift Into the Jaws of the Insurance Company
When you're hurt, the last thing you need is another inconvenience. I know asking for help is the hardest thing an adult can do. I also know most adults would probably rather go to the dentist than an attorney. This is how many innocent victims get cheated by the insurance company. The insurance company takes advantage of victims choosing the path of least resistance, drawing them in like the tractor beam on the Death Star.
That's why we work so hard to create a welcoming environment at our firm. We are here for you, to answer your questions for FREE with no pressure to hire, in an encouraging environment. I'll be honest and sincere with you, and if you really don't need a lawyer to handle your claim, I'll tell you and give you free advice to help you along the way.
The truth is, sometimes you just need professional help. Don't waste your one chance to do your case right by not asking for help from an experienced South Carolina car and motorcycle accident attorney. One email or call could prevent a lifetime of regret for you and your family.
