Biggest Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Personal Injury Claim

If you’ve been injured, pursuing a personal injury claim can help compensate you for medical bills, lost wages, and more. However, certain mistakes can seriously weaken your claim or even cause it to be denied. Knowing what to avoid is just as important as knowing what to do.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes that can hurt your personal injury claim and how to protect yourself from them. 

Not Preserving Evidence

Losing or neglecting to collect evidence of fault or the cause and nature of your injury can weaken your case. Some claims can be denied entirely if you have not preserved evidence properly. Photos, vehicle data recorder information, surveillance video, police reports, weather conditions, clothing preserved in current condition, oral admissions of parties, and statements from witnesses are all valuable pieces of evidence for personal injury claims. Some of this evidence can be absolutely essential to your case. An experienced personal injury attorney knows how to preserve evidence or can at least provide you guidance.

Delaying Medical Treatment

Even if you feel okay right after a crash or fall, some injuries don’t show symptoms immediately. In addition, human nature can make us believe that we will get better if we just give our bodies a little more time. Having a doctor tell you to wait a week longer is one thing, but waiting too long before you even see a doctor allows an insurance company to create doubts about whether your injuries were caused by the incident. Early medical documentation is crucial to establish a clear link between the incident and the injuries. Make sure to keep track of your symptoms as time goes on, and make sure you follow the instructions of your doctor.

Giving a Recorded Statement to Insurance

Many words in the English language have more than one meaning. Even when words have only one common meaning, placing these words in different contexts create different impressions and connotations. Insurance companies make profits by taking in much more money selling policies than they do paying money out for claims. Insurance adjusters are insurance lawyers are trained make your own words weaken your own claim. They are trained to identify the context advantageous to the insurance company. Additionally, adjusters and lawyers might ask leading or ambiguous questions and then exploit any appearance of a contradiction. When you did not cause the injury, you naturally want to tell others what happened. When the adjuster shows sympathy toward you and maybe even admits fault, you want to tell your story even more. However, giving a statement to an insurance company before you speak to an injury attorney yourself can fundamentally change the way your claim is valued by the insurance company.

Settling Too Quickly

Insurance companies are experts in handling risk. They want to eliminate risk to their bottom line as quickly and cheaply as possible. Insurance companies are also experts in human psychology. They know how to make you feel like you can trust the adjuster, especially when the adjuster is with your own insurance company. They know how to make you think hiring an injury lawyer would cost you money and negotiating on your own is in your own best interest. After setting the stage to make you think you will get the best result on your own, adjusters often offer quick settlements that are much lower than what your claim is worth. Accepting an offer without fully understanding your injuries, long-term impacts on your health and income, medical expenses, hospital or health insurance liens that you must pay back, arguments you have to reduce liens, and arguments you have to increase the compensation owed by the insurance company, can leave you with a low settlement that does not treat you fairly. You could be missing out on thousands of dollars or more without even knowing. Thinking you are protected because you have not signed yet can be dangerous. Some cases in Indiana law enforce an oral agreement between a claimant and an insurance company before anyone has formally signed any documents. In addition, once you agree to a settlement, only rarely do you have a legal argument to negate the agreement and obtain more in compensation.

Posting About the Injury on Social Media

What you share on social media can be monitored and used by insurance companies to challenge your claim. The insurance companies often use the same strategy here that they use with recorded statements. Avoid posting photos, videos, or any updates directly relating to your injury or recovery until your claim is fully resolved. Even for posts that aren’t directly linked to the injury or recovery, please think about what you’re posting before doing it. A classic example we use to explain the problem to our clients is a case where an injured woman kept vacation plans in place after an injury and took her grandchildren to an amusement park. She did not ride anything, but she posted a family photo taken next to the park sign. The insurance company saw the photo and made an extensive effort to try to prove the injured woman surely must have done more that day than watch live shows and eat funnel cake. Insurance companies will not bypass an opportunity to create doubt about your injuries. Even when they fail, they can still cause confusion and make the case take longer to resolve. We tell our clients to ask themselves a simple question: Could this image or sentence lead to a misunderstanding or imply something false about my injuries or activities? If yes, do not not post the image or words.

Overlooking Other Potential Claims and Parties

Personal injury law can appear simple in some ways but be so complex and difficult in others that the confusion itself is invisible. Sometimes an issue (such as being capped by the insurance policy limit) might appear clear and unchangeable when you actually do have a path around it for additional fair compensation. Property damage, lost income, lost earning potential, future medical care, pain and suffering, and the true overall impact on your life are all valid parts of a personal injury claim that must be explored in full to know how much compensation you deserve. On top of that, you may not be aware that other insurance policies and other possible defendants are obligated under the law to increase your total compensation. If you do not speak to an experienced personal injury lawyer who practices exclusively in the area of injury law, you are likely not doing all you can do to ensure you are not accidentally waiving the full compensation you deserve under the law. If you research the issue, you will find circumstances where lawyers who did some injury cases but practiced largely in other areas have sometimes overlooked additional parties, claims, policies, and remedies that would have gotten their clients more in compensation than the automobile policy limit they mistakenly thought was the maximum compensation possible.

Avoiding these common mistakes can help you find the truth, build a stronger personal injury claim, and increase your chances of fair compensation. If you’ve been injured due to the negligence of someone else, take advantage of a no-risk, free consultation and find out if hiring a lawyer can make a difference for your claim.