If you are injured at work or as a result of someone else’s actions or negligence, you may consider pursuing an injury claim to collect compensation to help offset some expenses and hardships you’re facing. Odds are you don’t have much experience with the injury compensation system, so it can be overwhelming trying to collect evidence and put together an injury claim. Even if you do it to the best of your ability, you may not know if that settlement offer you receive from the insurance company is fair.
Other times, it’s fairly obvious that you’ve been handed a low settlement offer, but what should you do if you feel like the insurance company is trying to get you to agree to an unfair settlement offer? In today’s blog, we explain what you should do if you have received a lowball offer from the insurance company, or you believe that your injury claim is worth more than what’s being offered.
When The Lowball Offer Comes In
When the lowball settlement offer comes in, the first thing you’ll want to do is read everything over carefully. You’ll want to understand why the offer is what it is, and if there are any factors that are being overlooked or underplayed that played a role in this low offer. Perhaps the insurance company doesn’t agree with the extent of your injuries or what’s required in your care, and that may be reflected in their settlement offer.
Once you think you have a good baseline for why the settlement offer is what it is, your next move should be to contact a workers’ compensation lawyer like Dean Margolis. Dean and the team at Margolis Law Firm have been helping clients get every penny they deserve after an injury, and we’d be happy to add your name to our growing list.
We’ll review your claim and the offer from the insurance company, and we’ll dive into every single aspect that is being overlooked or under-reported. For example, an insurance company isn’t going to automatically pay you out for every compensable aspect of your claim unless you directly ask for it. That means if you only file for compensation for lost wages and medical expenses, that’s all that will be included in your settlement offer. This means you could be leaving things like mileage reimbursement, costs of injury-related services, home modifications, overtime pay or loss of consortium payments on the table because you didn’t specifically include them in your claim.
If you feel that your injuries are being underplayed, our team of lawyers can set you up with an independent physician who can provide a medical exam to reassess your injuries. Having documented medical proof of the true extent of your injuries will require the insurance company to take your injuries seriously, and they can’t wiggle out of a doctor’s injury report. This is also why it’s so important to seek out a provider of your choosing shortly after the incident in question to have a medical record of your injuries created and put on file.
And finally, even if you think the settlement offer is fair or you’re considering accepting the offer, never sign anything until you run it by your lawyer. A $50,000 settlement may seem like a lot, but if you don’t adequately account for the long-term financial and medical consequences of your injury, you could be leaving thousands of dollars on the table. You’ll regret accepting that $50,000 offer if your lawyer could have got you a quarter of a million dollars simply by countering with clear and convincing evidence.
Never give into the pressure and sign a settlement offer that you are not 100 percent confident in. We’d be happy to provide some advice about the fairness of your settlement offer, you just need to pick up the phone and ask. For help with your settlement offer or to outsource your entire injury case to our team, pick up the phone and call Dean and the team at Margolis Law Firm today at (952) 230-2700.
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