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New York Personal Injury Claims Face Hardball Tactics from NY Insurance Companies

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Hardball isn’t a very fun game if you suffer any personal injury in the New York City area–and your insurance company isn’t reacting like you expected.

You pay your insurance premiums faithfully for your vehicle–and have an expectation that when you have an accident, they will cover the bill–that they will take care of you, a valued customer.

This is not always what happens! And it all about MONEY! Sadly, after an accident, some people have been talked into signing too early, while others were made to say the wrong thing on the phone. The insurance company is all about minimizing their liability to pay out as often as they can. Those we hope to be able to trust, like the insurance adjuster, may be just the person we need to distrust most.

Relative to personal injury claims, many insurers have taken a tough stance on paying so-called “soft tissue” claims–those claims where the injury doesn’t show up on X-rays such as whiplash.

YOUR insurance company may be taking this tough stand because of MONEY. For every dollar not paid out in claims, the insurer makes another dollar in profit. The fact that its insured gets dragged into court on a relatively minor claim does not seem to bother the insurance company, nor does the fact that an injured person goes uncompensated.

You deserve to receive fair compensation for personal injury in car accident–and other loss. You deserve to be treated right under the letter of the law.

A scary fact: Insurers are paying less and less in claims, but continue to increase premiums. Why?

− Insurers have done a good job of convincing people that “liars and cheats who make false or inflated claims are actually costing them millions of dollars a year.”

− This is also part of their strategy: Make the victims look as though they are trying to defraud the insurers, and make the lawyers who represent the victims look greedy.

(And sometimes you are forced to purchase policies because of where you live–like flood insurance. Read the fine print and never assume that just because you have a policy, you are covered for disasters.)

Did you know that a bad credit report increases your premiums? This is reasonably new, but insurance companies use your credit report to calculate your premiums. So it pays to keep an eye on your credit score, always pay your bills on time and borrow only as much as you can afford.

It’s a sad truth of the matter that as long as people let insurers get away with this strategy, insurance companies will continue to use it.

Around our law office, this action by insurance companies to personal injury is known as the 3 Ds:

1. Deny the claim.

2. Delay the settlement.

3. Defend in court.

The only hope is that when enough of us have been treated unfairly, we won’t put up with it anymore. Stephen Bilkis & Associates are here with many years of expertise in personal injury. Fair treatment for an honest claim is important, and that’s what we do for you.

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