This is part of our continued coverage on my wife’s injury claim with Progressive

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.

Tags: wife's claim