Proceed with Caution: 3 Rules to Follow when Dealing with your Personal Injury Case

When you’ve been injured, clearly the first concern you have – as you should – is ensuring that you treat the injuries. If you sustained a back injury, get yourself to a back specialist. If you received a foot injury, get yourself to a podiatrist. If you experienced psychological trauma, make sure to see a psychiatrist and/or a psychologist. Unfortunately, though, the injuries sustained during the actual personal injury incident may not be the only ones you endure. In this blog, we are going to outline a few rules to follow when dealing with your personal injury case; these rules will help protect you against further, avoidable, damage.

First, and most immediately, if you’ve experienced a personal injury incident (you’ve slipped on a wet floor, you’ve been hit by another driver, you’ve been the recipient of a botched surgery, etc.,) don’t immediately judge the degree to which you are experiencing pain. This means that, when prompted by somebody taking a report of the incident (including the individual who caused the occurrence) to disclose whether you are injured, do not try and “take the high road” and claim you are fine. Do not do yourself a disservice by either trying to protect the negligent party or get out of what you think might be a long and stressful process. If you’ve sustained injury due to the actions of another, you have a right – a legal right – to be compensated for those injuries. However, if you go on record as saying that you are not injured, that will come back to bite you. Furthermore, it can take days, weeks, even months for some long-lasting injuries to surface. If you dismiss the notion that you might have experienced injury on the day of the accident, and then two weeks later wake up in terrible pain due to back injury from the accident, you may be out of luck; the negligent party and the insurance company will point to your statement on the day of the crash and use it against you.

Secondly, part of the benefits of retaining an attorney is that they deal with the insurance companies and their attorneys on your behalf. Not only does this mean that you will not have the nuisance of having to do so, but more importantly, your attorney knows the tricks that the insurance companies and their attorneys employ in efforts to cheat you of what might be rightfully yours. So, let your attorney handle the insurance companies. If you receive a call from an attorney representing either the negligent party of their insurance company (or your insurance company), direct the call to your attorney, whose job it is to protect you and your rights. If you do end up dealing with the insurance companies yourself, they may bully you into signing a settlement quickly; this seems like a quick resolution, but in reality it will be a relatively small valued settlement and will more often than not bar you from initiating litigation against the company, thereby depriving you of your rights and boxing you into a hole.

Third, make sure you keep records of all of your doctor visits, pharmacy pick-ups, chiropractic appointments, etc. If you have to pay for these types of visits due to the injuries you sustained that were caused by the negligence of another, you have a right to be compensated for your out-of-pocket loss, in addition to the physical loss you experienced. That said, no insurance company is going to take your word that you spend X amount of money here or Y amount of money there. It is absolutely critical that you maintain records of all money you spend in this regard (including receipts, ledgers, invoices, etc.,) so that you can prove how much you have had to spend in efforts to recuperate.

These simple rules, while vital to a favorable resolution of your case, do not constitute an extensive list of all rules you should follow while dealing with your personal injury case. An experienced and knowledgeable attorney, therefore, is critical to the successful execution of your personal injury claim. If you have any questions about these suggestions, or any other personal injury matters, do not hesitate to reach out to us for a free consultation at 561-266-9191 or daronberg@aronberg.law.com.

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