“he who represents himself has a fool for a client” – A. Lincoln

You have been injured in an accident in Connecticut which has been caused by the fault of another. You are a sophisticated businessperson and you are comfortable with your ability to negotiate with others. You feel confident that you will be able to represent yourself in dealing with the insurance company of the person that caused your accident and get a fair settlement for your injury claim.

Get ready for your low-ball offer

If you are going to represent yourself in your own Connecticut accident case then you can be sure of one thing and that is that the insurance company will provide you with a lowball offer. Sometimes you might get this offer as early as several days after your accident. Naturally, you will not know the nature and extent of your injuries, how long you will have to treat, what your medical bills and lost wages will be, and if you will be left with any type of permanent disability.

The insurance adjuster will want to close out your case ASAP

Insurance companies know that the longer your case goes on the more costly it will be for them to attempt to resolve it. So many times they will try and resolve your case as quickly as possible. The insurance adjuster, who might seem sympathetic to your problems, could tell you that they will pay your hospital bill, they will compensate you for the one or two days that you missed from work and on top of that, they will pay you some small amount of money to compensate you for the inconvenience that you have experienced.

Do not take the initial offer

You should never take that offer! In addition to making a very low settlement offer the insurance company has several of the tactics that they might use against you. You might be told that your claim is being denied because you are at fault for the accident. The adjuster could tell you that you are partially at fault in the accident and the value of your claim will be greatly reduced. You might be told that the adjuster only has authority up to a certain amount of money and that is the most they can pay.  The adjuster might also indicate that this is the most amount of money that you will be offered and if you want to go out and hire a lawyer then you will have to pay one-third of that amount of money to the lawyer and the insurance company will still not offer any more money.

Contact an experienced personal injury lawyer ASAP

If you have made the mistake of dealing with the insurance adjuster on your own and you have gotten to the point where you have gotten a very low settlement offer or if you have been told that you do not have a case or that your case will be reduced by your contributory negligence you should contact an experienced Connecticut personal injury lawyer at the earliest possible moment and discontinue any further conversations with the adjuster.

You won’t know what you don’t know

Unfortunately, if you do not have experience in dealing with these types of claims you will not know the ins and the outs of what you need to be doing, what you should not be doing, what money you are entitled to receive, what offsets the insurance company is entitled to take and how you go about evaluating your case.

Get a free evaluation and free advice

Our Connecticut accident attorneys will be happy to speak with you about the specifics of your case and will advise you as to what you need to be doing. If you would like us to represent you, you should know that these cases are taken on a contingency fee basis and that we advance the costs to develop your case which means you do not have to come up with any money out of your own pocket.

Do not attempt to deal with the insurance company on your own but rather first get the advice of our experienced Connecticut accident lawyers. Contact us.