Insurance companies aren’t the enemy, exactly. They’re a business, and their business model depends on paying out as little as possible, as slowly as possible.
September 30 marked my 10th year as a practicing attorney, and after a decade of practice, you start to pick up the insurance company’s playbook. To be clear, I have never worked for an insurance company as an attorney. I spent my law school summers clerking at a firm that had insurance company clients, but my employment was very limited.
Since being sworn in to the Missouri Bar in 2016, I have exclusively represented injured people, including many hurt in St. Louis car accidents. Here are the tactics I see most often. I’ve covered some of this on my firm’s page about dealing with insurance companies after an accident, but it bears repeating.
1. The Quick Settlement Offer
When there really isn’t a good defense on fault, the insurance company (usually the other driver’s) will make a seemingly “generous” settlement offer, sometimes on the same day as the crash.
The offer will look something like this: “We’ll give you $1,000 now and pay up to $10,000 in medical expenses over the next six months. All you need to do is sign a release, and we’ll send you the money.”
This is a problem for two reasons. First, there is no way you can fully understand the extent of your injuries in the hours and days after a crash. Second, once you sign that release, the case is over. There’s no coming back later when the money runs out.
This tactic exists because, somewhere in the C-suite, the accounting and actuarial executives figured out that quick settlements cut claim payouts by a meaningful percentage every year. That means more money for shareholders.
Simply put, if the insurance company is offering you money now, that offer isn’t going anywhere, no matter how urgent the adjuster makes it sound.
2. The Recorded Statement Request
Insurance adjusters (the people who handle and review the claim) love to frame a recorded statement as “part of the process” or “routine.” It’s a thinly veiled attempt to find something that can hurt you.
Adjusters are trained to ask questions like “Are you feeling okay?” or “You’re not hurt too bad, are you?” Your answers can, and often do, come back to bite you. If you later report more serious injuries, they’ll point to the statement you gave hours after the collision as proof you weren’t hurt.
I recently heard recorded statements called “depositions with a smile,” and I like that. The adjuster knows the claim is adversarial. They’ll just never tell you that.
That’s why it’s important to get an experienced lawyer involved before you give a statement. A lawyer will tell you whether you even need to give one, prepare you if you do, limit the topics, and be with you on the call. For more on the first few days after a crash, see what to do immediately after a car accident in Missouri.
3. The Delay Game
If the insurance company has something that could reasonably explain a delay, like a potential coverage dispute, questions about liability, or “needing to speak with their insured,” it may slow-walk the claim.
Most injured people are stressed. They’re in pain, their car is busted, and they may not be able to work. The insurance company knows that, and it will lowball offers or drag out the claim to use that stress, or even desperation, against them. Stressed and desperate people rarely make their best decisions, and they may settle for less than the case is worth.
My last post covered the injury claim process generally, and I’ve also written about how long a personal injury case takes in Missouri.
4. Disputing Medical Necessity
Another fun game insurers love to play is disputing whether your medical treatment was necessary. They question the imaging, the consults, and the bills. You may owe your doctor $2,500 for the care you received, but the insurance company will argue that treatment “should have” cost $1,500.
To fight back, you need complete, consistent medical treatment. Comprehensive care brings multiple providers onto your “team.” It’s not impossible, but it becomes much harder for the insurance company (read: their lawyers) to argue that treatment was unrelated or unnecessary when several different medical professionals were involved.
Here’s more reading on what evidence you need for a personal injury claim.
5. Shifting Blame (Comparative Fault Games)
Most states, including Missouri and Illinois (where I practice), use “comparative fault.” Comparative fault lets a defendant put the injured person’s own conduct at issue to reduce what they owe.
For example, if a jury finds the plaintiff was 20% at fault for a crash, the defendant only has to pay 80% of the total damages. Missouri is a pure comparative fault state, so you can recover even if you’re mostly at fault. In Illinois, you’re barred from recovering if you’re found more than 50% at fault. We can discuss state-to-state differences in a future post.
When adjusters take recorded statements, they’re often fishing for an “admission” that justifies a comparative fault argument. For example, if you say something like “I am not sure where I was looking” or “I might have been speeding,” the adjuster will absolutely use that to apply comparative fault, which in turn saves the insurance company money.
Here’s a longer write-up on how comparative fault works in Missouri.
6. Social Media Surveillance
Social media has changed the game. Nearly every American has some combination of social media accounts, and insurance companies check your public posts for anything that undercuts your injury claim. And I want to stress anything.
After an injury, the smart move is to lock down your privacy settings and stop posting updates about yourself, period. Don’t delete old posts, either, because that can create a whole new problem. If you post it, I promise the insurance company will find it. Better to just leave it out.
7. The Medical Authorization Trap
Sometimes adjusters will ask you to sign broad medical authorization forms that give the insurer access to your entire medical history, not just accident-related records. The problem is that they’ll use completely unrelated medical conditions against you.
At my firm, clients don’t sign authorizations for the insurance company unless a court requires it. Having an attorney lets you control the flow of information to the adjuster and keeps the insurance company from getting records it shouldn’t have.
The Bottom Line
Most of these tactics are perfectly legal. But they were developed by organizations with tremendous resources, designed to use an inherent power imbalance to their advantage. Having an experienced legal team on your side levels the playing field.
If you want to talk through an issue you’re having with an insurance company, get in touch here.
New here and want to know more about me? Here’s my bio.
This post is general commentary based on my own experience and isn’t legal advice. Every case is different, and how yours plays out will depend on its own facts. For actual injury questions: hurtinstl.com.
Cheers,
