Have you been involved in a car accident? Aside from car accident attorneys, claims adjusters are also very important. They are the ones who are usually responsible for handling the valuation of your crash claim. Adjusters will often work off of a set database that a variety of professionals have come together to build. That creates this image that the claim evaluation is reliable, but often these values are outdated or don’t directly address your situation. They estimate what your repairs should cost, and sometimes it’s accurate. Other times, it’s not.
For most people, property damage isn’t the issue. Repair shops will often work within the confines of the insurance payment or handle that issue themselves. They understand that you only expect to pay your deductible. However, medical damages are often misrepresented in insurance claims resolution, and people are left with mountains of bills.
Evaluate Your Damage Independently
When it comes to property damage, you will need to specifically look at your car’s value (before and after the crash), and the estimated cost of repairs. It can be a challenge to do this if it looks like your car will register as a total loss. However, when you’re evaluating the damage of your claim independently, you can adjust for a total loss.
When evaluating the total loss, most insurance companies will pay the “book” value at most. You will never receive more than blue book value, but you also shouldn’t expect to receive full book value without a battle. Most insurance companies will pay about 75% of book value for a vehicle.
Knowing the evaluation of your car’s value can drastically change your claim. For example, you could easily argue that if your car were pieced off that the value of the parts is worth more than the car in its whole state.
If it’s possible, have a local mechanic that is not affiliated directly with the insurance provider to provide a repairs estimate.
Understand the Differences in Costs and Charges
The costs and charges that an adjuster will estimate could vary drastically from what you have to handle at the end of the day. For many, this is shocking, but experienced adjusters will always know from the start that the costs they receive and the charges normal individuals receive are drastically different.
How this works is that you may receive a bill from a medical network for say, $8,500. That included a night in the hospital and diagnostic testing. However, the costs negotiated with an insurance company are much different. The different costs happen because medical networks and insurance companies will usually negotiate the charges to much lower levels.
Although it should be easy to get compensation for medical bills, the exact amount is hard to pin down. Additionally, there’s the challenge of not receiving bills after the claims settle for other outstanding elements of medical care.
Bring Up Your Estimates and Charges During Negotiations
As you begin to enter into settlement negotiations, you’ll want to have a clear outline of what your medical network wants to charge you. They may receive a drastically different figure, but they aren’t going to discuss that outright until you start talking about your charges. Usually, this isn’t something sorted through unless the victim starts talking dollar amounts first.
Additionally, negotiations are the time to talk about your repair estimate and the exact value of your car. One of the great opportunities that arise during negotiations is the ability to talk about value. Negotiations will likely not result in you getting everything you want, but it should definitely cover all of your damages for medical charges and the damage to your property. You can fight the use of generalized calculations that don’t include elements such as pain and suffering or emotional distress.
Discuss Resolution with Your Car Accident Attorney in Atlanta
Perhaps the absolute best tip, although one an adjuster would probably not be allowed to advise it to get an attorney. Atlanta car accident lawyers aid victims of crashes with resolutions when it comes to handling evaluations with damages and values, especially regarding medical debt. Any type of property damage and medical expenses that arise from a car crash should receive coverage.
Unfortunately, coverage of a crash and the crash claim itself can be extremely difficult. Insurance companies use appraisers and adjusters to help reduce the value of the claim while creating this veil that they’re completely honest about the value of the claim. At The Weinstein Firm, we’ve seen this all too often. These tips come from actually concerned adjusters, and you should discuss your plans to determine your own costs with a skilled, local attorney.
