All adjusters hope to convince each claimant that he or she should accept a low payout. Some seek that goal by using some underhanded tactics.
One popular trick: Suggest that a different party has demonstrated the greatest number of examples of faulty behavior.
That suggestion represents an effort to steer a claimant towards a different group, from among all of the responsible parties. Smart claimants have prepared a response to such a suggestion. Each of them has learned that until someone has been designated as the at-fault party, an injured victim has the right to sue any of the named responsible parties.
Another common trick: Telling potential claimants that their claim has been filed too late. That statement implies their failure to meet an established deadline.
Adjusters expect claimants to have heard that a personal injury lawsuit must be filed before a given deadline. Acting on that expectation, an adjuster might allege that a personal injury claim must also be filed within a given time period.
Actually, that is not the case at all. There is no limit on the amount of time that should pass before an injured victim has the right to file a 3rd party claim. A policyholder should file a first party claim before the passage of time has prejudiced an investigation by the insurance company.
A different trick, one that could work with some claimants: Underscoring the fact that the claimant has already received some funds from a collateral source.
That approach might work, if a claimant has received money from a person or an agency, such as a health insurance provider. Adjusters that try using such a trick hope that the approached victim/claimant has not learned all of the laws that concern the existence of a collateral source.
Adjusters’ rules forbid the consideration of any claimant’s source of collateral funds. The legal system does not want to forgive negligence when a victim has secured a means for addressing his or her loss. That means that the insurance company of a negligent policyholder has to compensate that policyholder’s victim as per Personal Injury Lawyer in Halifax.
In other words, the adjuster must work towards getting the victim to agree to a low payout. What amount could be lower than zero, the value of a payout that does not have to be made? Obviously, no amount would be lower than that one.
That is why adjusters’ tricks focus on removing the need to offer a payout. Each such trick represents an effort to get away with cheating. The adjuster wants to cheat the claimant of the money that he or she deserves. The cheater (adjuster) tries to make it look like it was the claimant that has tried to cheat the insurance company.
