- i'm going to talk aboutspeaking with insurance adjusters after auto accidents. i'm gonna tell you when it'sokay to speak with them, when it's not okay to speak with them, how it can affect a settlement and i'm going to give real examples of how speaking withadjusters has affected personal injury settlements. watch the entire video soyou don't miss a thing.
jz helps, a florida injury law firm. i'm personal injuryattorney justin ziegler. after an auto accident, you need to understand thatthere are two different types of insurance adjusters, i'm one. when i say auto accident, i'mreferring to car accident, motor vehicle accidents, all of them, motorcycle accidents, truck accidents. the two different type ofinsurance adjusters are one,
what we call first partyinsurance adjusters. that's generally if you own a car, your own auto insurance adjuster from your insurance company. if you're passenger in someone's car and let's say you have aresident relative you live with and you don't own a car,that insurance company and then we have what's called the third party insurance adjuster
who is the carelessdriver's insurance adjuster particularly when you're makinga bodily injury liability claim against that careless driver when they did something wrong. the differences between these two different typesof adjusters is huge so first, i'm gonna first talk about what's called the first party adjuster. again, your own insurance adjuster
or if you're seeking firstparty insurance benefits. in florida for example, there's what's called personalinjury protection insurance that's no fault insurance that pays up to 10 thousanddollars in many cases regardless of fault in the accident even if you're driving acar and you're at fault. for every type of insurance adjuster, do not mistake friendlyfor paying your claim.
many adjusters, in fact, i'dsay most adjusters are nice but just because they're nice, don't be shocked if the facts warranted if several months into it, the adjuster denies insurance coverage, denies the claim, pays younothing or gives you a low offer. back to what's called personalinjury protection insurance in florida also known as pip. in florida, you are requiredto give a pip statement,
a statement to the insurancecompany about your injuries, how the accident happened,who you live with, et cetera. now, the reality is manyinsurance companies, auto insurance companies don't ask for that recorded statement or even an informal statement. all things equal, the better companies, generally the national insurance companies that write policies in every state
are less likely to askyou for your statement. that's the good news and that'sjust one of the reasons why sometimes when you paymore for car insurance on the front end, when it comes to claimtime, the process is easier. they require less paperwork or less statements. some of the poorer and by poorer i mean poor at paying claims, insurance companies willeven require that you drive
all the way to their office. sometimes, it's very inconvenientto take your statement so that's one of the negatives, one of the many negativesof trying to save money on auto insurance but pip insurance who's generally going tobe if you have your own car and you're trying to getyour medical bills paid or some of your lost wages paid or if you don't own a car
but you live with a relative who has a car and you're going throughtheir pip insurance or if you were just a passenger in a car and you don't own your own car and you don't live withany relatives who have pip and you're making a pip claim through the host vehicle that you're in. in all those situations in florida, you have to give a recorded statement
if the insurance company asks. now, after an accident, many times people are emotional. you're excited for lack of a better word or you're nervous and we tend to talk alot when we're nervous and giving a lot of informationto the insurance adjuster even if they don't ask forit is just a waste of time but also it can later be usedagainst you in your claim.
only answer the questions asked. also for pip claims, ifthe auto insurer requires that you complete a form, written form which goes overhow the accident happened, your injuries, who youlive with, et cetera, what cars you own. unfortunately, in florida,you have to do it. some of the worst insurance companies have huge long forms whichare just out of control.
the better ones may not make you or are likely to not evenask you to complete the form and if they do, it's a very short form. the other type of first party insurance is what's called uninsuredmotorist insurance or underinsured motorist insurance. both of these insurances cover you if the careless driverwho caused the accident doesn't have enough insuranceto pay for your bodily injury.
bodily injury is your lost wages, your out of pocket medicalbills and pain and suffering. in florida, you have to if they ask give a recorded statement or a statement to theuninsured motorist insurer so that includes if you haveuninsured motorist insurance through your own car thatyou own, you have to get it. if you're a passenger in someone's car and you're making an uninsuredmotorist insurance claim
through their insurance, you have to give this recorded statement and the same is true forgiving them an authorization. to get all of yourmedical records and bills, you have to sign an authorization. they are not entitled toyour mental health records unless you're making a mental health claim but you have to comply withthese different things. now, the uninsured motorist adjuster
also is not your friend. while an uninsured motoristcar insurance adjuster has a duty to act in good faith, their job is to save theirinsurance company money if they can so take what they tellyou with a grain of salt. if you don't know theanswer to any question that either the pip insurance adjuster or the uninsured motoristcar insurance adjuster
or auto insurance adjusterasks you, don't guess. this isn't the time to showthe adjuster how smart you are. every single word that you say is either going to be recorded or the adjuster's taking notes and these can be usedagainst you later on. again, no matter howfriendly the adjuster seems. i'm going to give you an example of an auto insurance accident case
where an insurer has to give a pip and uninsured motoristinsurance statement. this is the car from a car crash that my client was standingoutside, another car hit him. it fractured the largelow bone in his lower leg. he ultimately had surgery. now, he was renting the car but he was from out of the country. he was renting the car
and when you rent a car in florida, it comes with pip insurance so he had to give a pip and statement. now, the pip insurer was a good one and they didn't require one. also, his medical bills were very large. he had surgery, emergency surgery done. generally, a lot oftimes when that happens, the auto insurer won't request a statement
if your medical bills are very high and surpass the 10 thousanddollar standard pip in florida. the car that hit him hada 100 thousand dollars of bodily injury liability insurance it also was a rental car and they were at fault for the accident for careless driving. the driver that hit my client was working for the united states
so there's essentiallyunlimited money to recover from if you can prove your case. my client had uninsured motorist insurance through the car that he rented. he opted for this coverage. under florida law like i said earlier, the uninsured motoristadjuster is allowed to and can force the pedestrian, my client, to give a recorded statement.
now, it happened to be oneof the better auto insurers. it was ace american auto insurance. they did not require thatmy client give a statement but they could have. in this case, we settled the entire case for 325 thousand dollars. the uninsured motorist insurance company that my client had purchaseduninsured motorist insurance through with on the rental car
paid 100 thousand of that 325thousand dollar settlement but you got to be very careful speaking with these uninsuredmotorist insurance adjusters. they do this for a living, 40 hours a week if not more. they're very seasoned afterhandling thousands of claims or hundreds of claims. they know exactly what questions to ask and one wrong answer can blow a case.
earlier on, i talked about the two different typesof insurance adjusters. we're gonna talk about thirdpart insurance adjusters. these are the insuranceadjusters also know as bodily injury liabilityinsurance adjusters for the careless driver or the owner of the car that the careless driver was driving. they insure it.
oftentimes, after an accident, many people do not want to go through their own auto insurance. they want to make a claim through the other driver's auto insurance or if they're injured and they don't have uninsured motorist insurance, they directly make a claimagainst the other driver's bodily injury liability insurance.
it is very common, i see it often where people who are injured give a statement to the third partydriver's insurance company. you do not have to give this statement. unlike first party insurance coverage, you have zero obligationto give a statement. i believe it only hurts your case. many people want to give this statement because they think they'regonna get a rental car sooner
and sometimes it may result in that but oftentimes, the third party insurer particularly in a rear end accident, if their insurer admits fault to them, they have enough to know that they are able to pay your case, your rental car if you need one to get your car fixed, et cetera. some people think that youhave to give a statement
to a third party adjusterin order for them to pay your propertydamage to your vehicle. they cannot force youlegally to give a statement. you do not have a dutyunlike first part insurance and first party insurance like pip or uninsured motorist that i mentioned. if you fail to give a statement, they can argue thatyou failed to cooperate and that can blow the coverage
and you can lose out on a lot of money. third party, you can't blow coverage by failing to give a statement. there's a chance it delays your claim if you don't give astatement and they need one but oftentimes, you don'thave to give a statement. injured auto accident victims also think that giving a quick statement to the third party insurance adjuster
is going to get them to quickly pay your out of pocket medical bills, your lost wages and pain and suffering. the reality is in florida in most cases, the third party bodilyinjury liability adjuster pays one check to settle your case. i've had one case out of all the cases that i can remember where the third partycareless driver's insurance
advanced some money to payfor my client's lost wages but it rarely happens so i advise my clientsor most of the time to we do not give a recorded statement to the third party's insurance company and we rarely give a third party even an unrecordedstatement we rarely give. this is a truck that hit a motorcyclist who was riding on the street.
the motorcyclist was riding straight. the truck made a lefthand turn in front of him. he ultimately had surgeryto the top of his big bone beneath the knee knownas the tibial plateau. he fractured it. he also fractured hisfinger and had surgery. in that case, the truckdriver's insurance company wanted to take my client'sstatement and i told them no. i wouldn't give them a recorded statement
or an unrecorded statement. that case ultimately settledfor 445 thousand dollars but the moral of that story is we received a fair settlement,445 thousand dollars, and my client did nothave to give a statement to the truck driver's insurer. before giving a statement to the third partycareless driver's insurer, i suggest knowing which cars are insured
and the limits of each insurance coverage. you need to know who yourtarget defendants will be, who ultimately you wouldlike to pay the case so you can build yourstrategy up against them and some people get injured in an accident particularly where there'smultiple vehicles involved and they start placingblame on certain vehicles. there's a chance thatone of those vehicles has no bodily injury insurance
cause it's not required in florida and most personal private cars or has very little bodily injury insurance and then all blame is placed on one driver who only has 10 thousand dollars of bodily injury liabilityinsurance or zero when in fact the driverwho was mostly at fault even though you don't think so has let's say 100 thousand dollar policy
and you're badly injured. i hope you enjoyed the video. please let me know ifyou have any comments about speaking withauto insurance adjusters after an accident. subscribe to our channel, like the video. have a beautiful day. i'm attorney justin ziegler with my office in miami serving florida.
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