The insurance company plays a passive role in the chain of events that takes place immediately after two or more vehicles have collided. The involved drivers must exchange the name of their auto insurance companies, along with their policy numbers. Later, the same drivers must contact their own insurance company.
At that point, the company’s role switches from passive to active. The insurer assigns the case to one of the company’s adjusters. The adjuster contacts the claimant, and arranges to inspect the damaged vehicle.
Steps that might be taken by the other party’s insurance company.
Sometimes the company insuring the other driver contacts the person that filed the claim and asks him or her to provide them with a recorded statement. Accident victims should know that they are not required to furnish that same company with that desired statement. Smart victims say that their Personal Injury Lawyer in Oakville will be contacting the offices from which the request for a recorded statement has come.
Sometimes an insurer’s representative asks an injured victim to provide the representative’s boss with access to the victim’s medical records. This is another request that should not be acknowledged by a handing-over of the requested item. Instead, the insurance company should contact the victim’s lawyer, who can arrange for delivery of those medical papers that relate to the ongoing case.
Lawyers understand when it is to their client’s benefit to provide the insurer for the other party with a copy of the relevant papers. Such papers should not reach the hands of the other party’s insurance company until the lawyer’s client has reached the stage of maximum medical improvement (MMI).
What if the other driver is underinsured or uninsured?
In that case, the victim-lawyer team must work with the client’s/victim’s insurance company, in order to gather all of the relevant facts, along with any significant evidence. That includes all the facts that pertain to anyone that was in the car that felt the collision-associated impact.
Sometimes, adults might fail to consider any possible harm done to children in the vehicle, especially if each of them appears unharmed and healthy. Still, the absence of symptoms during the days right after the collision does not always mean that the symptom-free youth is also free from any trace of injury.
That is why a lawyer may need to step in, as the insurance company carries out its role. The lawyer might need to fight a request for an early settlement. An injury lawyer might realize that it makes no sense to settle until all the victims have reached the state known as maximum medical improvement. Only then can a victim feel confident that he or she will not suffer any unexpected medical complications.