When you suffer an injury, you expect your insurance company to provide the payments you need. After all, that’s why you faithfully made your payments every month. It can be devastating when an insurance company denies or devalues your claim. Even if you bring a lawsuit and win, it can take months to receive a recovery. There are a few common tactics for denying or devaluing claims that you can be on the lookout for.
Settling a claim immediately
Sometimes, if you have suffered an injury or have a disease, the complete range of symptoms can take time to manifest. Some problems aren’t immediately apparent, but get worse as time goes on.
If you are desperate for money to cover your immediate expenses, it might be tempting to accept the initial offer given by your insurance company – especially if they call you the very same day of your accident. But there are reasons why it’s often best to wait until your doctor has given you a full evaluation.
If your insurance company tries to rush a settlement based on your immediate symptoms, it might not include all of the issues that will arise later as a direct result of your initial injury. You don’t want to be pressured into accepting a payment, only to find that your medical expenses far exceed what the company offered you.
Asking you to sign a medical authorization form
The insurance company might ask you to sign a form which gives them permission to access your private medical records. They might say that this is necessary so that they can more accurately discern how much they have to pay you.
Often, an insurance company will then use this authorization to look through your medical history in search of anything they can use to claim that your injuries were pre-existing. They then can deny your claim based on the assertion that you didn’t suffer an injury during the accident in question, but beforehand.
The weeks and months following an accident or diagnosis is when you most need the insurance coverage that you contracted for. Don’t allow your insurance company to deprive you of the payments that you are entitled to.