After completing her therapy with a local chiropractor, we gathered all of the medical bills and records from the hospital and the chiropractor. The total amount of the medical bills was just over $3,800. I put all of the bills and records in chronological order and put a soft demand letter together and faxed it all over to the adjuster.

One week after faxing the demand package to the adjuster I called him up to confirm that he had received everything. He confirmed that he had in fact received my fax and that he would need some time to evaluate the information. I asked when I could expect to hear from him and he said a couple of weeks.

A few weeks passed and I had not heard from the adjuster so I decided that I would follow up with him again. He informed me that he still had not evaluated my wife’s claim. (Note: This is typical from adjusters as they have lots of claims and the reason why you must be diligent on your part to keep your claim on top of their list of claims to work on.) He did mention that he would try and get me an offer in the next couple of days. Sure enough, a few days pasted and he called with the first offer.

“Let me tell you, I think this is a fair offer”, he said. “I can offer your wife $2,000 plus all of her medical bills. If you want to settle, I can have the check ready today.”

I said, “Thanks for taking the time to evaluate our claim. Let me discuss it with my wife and I will get back to you.”

Of course the adjuster thinks $2,000 is fair. Most adjusters would think $10 was a fair offer if they could get someone to sign a release. What they fail to realize is the person that went through the pain and suffering of the injury probably does not think any amount is fair. I mentioned the offer to my wife and sure enough, she was insulted. I informed her that this is typical for adjusters to offer a low amount and to not worry about it too much. Knowing what I know about the value of claims, I knew he had more money.

After helping my wife understand how claims are evaluated, we decided that we would not accept an amount less than $4,000 plus all of the medical bills. I called the adjuster and left him a voice mail indicating that we would be declining his offer and that we would be making a counteroffer of $7,000 plus the medical bills.

He called later that night in shock. “You don’t really think her claim is worth $7,000 do you?”

I said, “Well, all I know is that we are not going to accept your offer of $2,000. Why don’t you try and increase your offer and we will re-evaluate our position.”

He proceed to increase to $2,800. I decreased to $6,000. He increased to $3,500 and I decreased to $5,200. He then increased to $3,800 and I decreased to $4,500.

“$3,800 is the best I can do,” he said.

“It’s too bad we are so close yet you won’t be getting a signed release from us. I really wish we could have gotten this file off your desk, but we are looking for a specific amount and really aren’t willing to settle for anything under that amount. If you can talk to your supervisor and let her know how close we are, maybe we can reach some middle ground.”

“Let me talk to my supervisor and get back with you,” he said.

A few minutes later he called back and informed me that his supervisor would be willing to offer $4,000 plus the medical bills if we would sign the release in the morning. I talked it over with my wife and we agreed to the settlement offer. The total money offer was $7,800 ($4,000 in general damages plus $3,800 in medical bills) which is 2.05 times the medical bills.

You will note that a lot happened from start to finish on my wife’s injury claim. You can find every tactic used in my negotiations with the adjuster and information on how to evaluate your personal injury claim using our Settlement Booklet™.

We are now entering week 4 of my wife’s injury claim. At this point, I thought it would be a good opportunity to take our Free Crash Evaluator™ and find out what kind of an injury claim we are looking at. Keep in mind that her injury can still change and I will probably have to take the Crash Evaluator again after she has completed treatment if her injury gets worse of any of the variables to her personal injury case change.

As you can see, based on her current status, the Crash Evaluator™ suggests she may have a claim that she can settle on her own. However, I need to point out one word of caution. SHE IS STILL TREATING. You never want to settle your claim while you are actively treating with a medical professional. If you settle your claim and you have to go back to the doctor for injuries related to the auto accident, you will be the one paying out of pocket for any additional care.

The next step for my wife and her claim is to finish her treatment. At that point, we will begin to gather all of her medical bills and records to get ready to submit our demand package to the insurance adjuster. All of the tactics that I am using for my wife’s claim are contained in our Personal Injury Settlement Booklet™. No matter what stage you are at in your injury claim, our Personal Injury Settlement Booklet™ can help you get the most out our your injury claim.

Since the accident my wife was in happened on a Friday afternoon, we weren’t able to get in contact with the adjuster until after the weekend. On Monday morning, I called over to Progressive to set up the claim and talk with the adjuster. After giving him the details that I wanted to give him and being light on details on the ones he wanted, he asked if he could set up an appointment to meet with my wife. I said that would be fine and we scheduled an appointment for Wednesday.

Wednesday came and my wife and I were driving to meet with the adjuster. I took a few minutes in the car to give my wife some pointers so that she would be prepared for what the adjuster was going to ask her. I could have predicted the conversation any better than I did. In fact, you can call me Nostradamus because the adjuster was word for word on what I told my wife to expect. The key points of the conversation went as follows with some inserted commentary for your benefit:

Adjuster: So, tell me about your injury?

Wife: Well, right now I have some pretty severe headaches that are constant all the time. Also, my neck and back are pretty sore.

Adjuster: How bad do you think it is? (Loaded question, if you say, “oh its not that bad or I think I’ll be okay” look out because he will use this against you later on)

Wife: I don’t know how bad it is right now. I went to the ER and they said I should see some improvement by the end of the weekend. If it wasn’t getting better or if it was getting worse, they told me I should start some therapy. (Notice how she uses the doctors opinions to answer this question. Instead of giving her opinion on the injury, she deferred it to the professionals)

Adjuster: Well since you are hurt, can you sign this release of information so I can start gathering your medical records?

Me: No. Instead of letting you gather her records, we will gather them for you and submit them to you as we get them. (If you sign their release of information, you lose control over what they see. You want to submit what you want them to see and not let them have unbridled access to your medical history)

Adjuster: Ok, that’s fine. Let me tell you what we can do for you. I can offer you $750 today to have you sign a release. We at Progressive don’t have to offer you anything, but we are willing to give you something to show you we are all about customer service.  We at Progressive just want you to have the best experience possible during these stressful times. (This offer is NOT about customer service. This offer is intended to get the file off of the adjusters desk. It is also Progressive trying to limit the amount they have to pay out on this claim to line their pockets with bigger profits. This offer goes out to every single person. If someone accepts this offer this early in their claim, the insurance company wins. The longer your claim is open, the larger the likelihood you will have increased medical bills. That means the larger the amount that Progressive or any insurance company will be required to pay out on any given claim eating into their posh profits)

Me: I appreciate your offer, but we are in no hurry to settle. We want to make sure that we fully explore my wife’s injury to make sure she doesn’t have anything too serious wrong with her. Once she is done with treatment, we can discuss settlement at that time. (The only time you should consider accepting any offer from the insurance company is after you have finished your treatment. Once you accept the offer from the insurance company and your case is closed, you can’t re-open it. That means any additional medical bills you incur after you accept the offer will be your responsibility to pay)

We left our meeting with that and told him that we would keep him updated along the way. Next time, my wife takes our Crash Evaluator and the results will be published.

By the time I had showed up to the accident scene ten minutes after my wife first called me, she was already complaining of instant neck pains and a severe headache. Anytime you have head trauma, it is wise to be seen by a doctor right away. I first took her to an InstaCare, but they wanted us to pay up front for the visit. They would not bill my insurance. Because I didn’t have any cash on me, I drove her to the nearest ER.

While sitting in the ER, the adjuster from the at-fault driver called my wife. This was less than 1 hour post accident. One of the first questions he asked was, “what are your injuries?” This question only has one intention this soon after the accident. The adjuster is trying to get you to say that you are feeling fine. Most whiplash symptoms will not show up for a few hours or even days after the accident. The adrenaline is pumping so high that you probably don’t feel much pain, if anything at all, especially within the first hour of the accident and you certainly won’t know the full extent of your injury for a few weeks or even months. If you tell the adjuster that you are feeling fine, he will hold it against you for the rest of your claim. I whispered to her to tell him that she did not know the extent of her injuries and that we would call him back Monday after being seen by the ER.

The ER was painfully slow. (If the Obama Health Care Plan doesn’t fix this problem or makes it worse, I hope it doesn’t pass) She received some x-rays that came back negative for fractures and was diagnosed with a cervical strain sprain (fancy way for saying whiplash in the neck). They prescribed lortab for pain, soma to relax the muscles and Ibuprofen 800 for the swelling. They warned her that the pain would get worse for the next couple of days, but she should start seeing relief by day 3. If she did not see relief by day 3, she could consider therapy to help with the healing.

Our anniversary was the next day and we had planned a weekend getaway. Needless to say that we were unable to fully enjoy our planned getaway. I mention this because it will fall into pain and suffering later on when we start negotiating the value of the claim with the adjuster after she has completed all of her treatment.

By day 3, she was feeling a little bit worse and a few symptoms started showing up that were not originally there. Her headaches have been constant and the pain in her neck had now increased into her shoulders. Additionally, sitting for long periods caused discomfort in her lower back which was not something she was having problems with prior to the accident. Now you can understand why the adjuster called us so soon after the accident and why you don’t want to tell the adjuster you are feeling fine.

We decided by day 3 with the advice from the ER doctor that if she wasn’t feeling better that we could start therapy. We called a local chiropractor and she has started a 4 week program with an additional 4 weeks if needed.

It is now one week post accident and  her pain levels are roughly the same and she needs the muscle relaxer to sleep at night. The next post will discuss the first meeting with the adjuster and his $750 offer to settle the claim right then and there.

Luckily for you, I will be documenting the whole ordeal on CarCrashAssist.com to show you that the information contained on this site and in our Settlement Booklet™ can help you navigate the waters of insurance claims and help you get the most value out of your personal injury settlement.

I recently posted an article on the importance of taking pictures of the accident scene, especially the property damage and injuries. Right now my wife doesn’t have any bruising, so we didn’t need to photograph any injuries, but I did get some pictures of the property damage. Here is the reason you need to take pictures whenever you are involved in a car accident:

Notice that it looks like very little damage has happened to the rear of our car. We drive a 2008 Toyota Camry. Newer cars are designed to take most of the damage underneath the bumpers and it makes it appear that this was a low impact accident. However, when you see the car that hit her, it tells a completely different story.

Notice the amount of damage to his bumper. Additionally you will see that his hood sustained damage. This accident all the sudden looks more severe than if you only saw pictures of our car. Granted, this is not a high speed accident, it probably happened under 15 mph, but medical documents will show that you can sustain a severe whiplash at just 5 mph and this is clearly above that speed.

You wouldn’t get the whole story without seeing the other vehicle. If I hadn’t took pictures myself, I can guarantee that the insurance company would have mysteriously lost their pictures if we end up having to go to court. Now I don’t have to worry about that because I took pictures myself.

By the time that I showed up to the accident (I work less than 10 mins away), my wife had an immediate onset of neck and back pains and headaches. Wanting to have her evaluated by a doctor, I took her to the nearest ER. Next time I will cover the ER visit and our first call with the insurance companies.