1. Always tell the truth and do not lie or try to exaggerate the crash, the accident, your injuries or your medical treatment.
2. Be careful giving recorded statements to State Farm investigators or signing paperwork State Farm sends to you.
3. Consider hiring an experienced injury attorney to fight State Farm for you. This is probably the best advice there is. The law is complicated and unless you have a lawyer who has gone to war with State Farm in the past, you will be at a big disadvantage.
4. Make sure you know and follow the rules and deadlines in personal injury cases and claims against Allstate. For example, in most car crash cases, you have 3 years to file a lawsuit. After that, it is too late.
5. Line up witnesses on your side. State Farm hates it when you are organized and you have witnesses who support your testimony regarding injuries, and how the accident happened, and your medical treatment.
6. Do not give up! Did you know that State Farm Insurance actually keeps track of the number of claims that people give up on because they meet resistance? That’s why all of the crummier insurance companies like State Farm make things hard for you as an injured person. They want you to abandon your claim and miss an important deadline. If you miss a deadline, State Farm keeps the money that should and could have been yours.
The most important thing you have to realize is that State Farm employs very experienced trial lawyers. These guys and gals can ruin even the best case. And they are not necessarily going to give you an even break or a fair chance. Their job is to terminate your case, period.
The State Farm insurance claims adjusters decide whether to offer money on a case, or whether to deny any payment. The lawyers themselves have no say in whether to make an offer or whether they can increase an offer. That is pretty crazy to me, but State Farm uses a computer program that tells them how much money to offer. Who your lawyer is, and their record against State Farm can play a role in how much of an offer you get or if you get an offer at all.
You cannot count on a Judge helping you (the Judge must remain impartial). You cannot count on State Farm or its lawyers being fair to you. All you can count on is the help of a good personal injury lawyer. Injury lawyers like me give free case evaluation, and there is no fee until we win. You should consider speaking with me right away. I may be able to give you some good advice, and I can definitely help you with a car crash case against Allstate.
Even in the most straightforward car crash cases, having an experienced injury lawyer is key. My approach to cases is built entirely on the way claims practices evaluate cases. Simply, in the claims stage, we leave no stone unturned in collecting your related medical bills and records and we present them to the insurance company in the proprietary way they require which helps you get fair value for the injuries you got in the car crash.
Then, our approach is informed by this reality: State Farm Insurance, like all insurance companies, only offers fair value on a case if they know that they have something to worry about if the case is presented before a live Jury. In other words, from ‘go’, we get the case ready for trial. We line up the witnesses, prepare trial exhibits, and make sure that the case is as scary for State Farm as possible Scary to them means a Jury will award you good compensation for the harm their insured caused.
The plain fact is this: it is very unlikely that State Farm is going to be scared of you or your case without a lawyer on the case who they know will go all the way to trial if that’s what it takes. That doesn’t mean we go to trial on every case; in fact, very few of our cases end up going to trial. But that’s because we can scare the insurance company and get our clients a fair settlement.
If you have any questions, you should contact Malman Law Firm at 303-733-7900 or ilianameza@malmanlawfirm.com.