Some insurance adjusters may work to get a claim dismissed or reduce it to the lowest value possible. The adjuster may poke holes in your claim to achieve this goal. Know how he or she intends to do this and prepare to defend against his or her onslaught. Here are five tips to help you do this:

Your Injuries Aren't Serious

Downplaying the seriousness of injuries is one of the oldest and common tactics applied by adjusters. The more the adjuster can minimize your injuries, the more he or she can minimize your claim. Some injuries, such as those involving soft injuries, are easier to downplay than others, such as bone fractures.

The best way to show your injuries are serious is to show your treatment records. This includes your doctor's notes, treatments applied, and medications prescribed. You can also consult and hire a physician to provide expert testimony on your behalf.

Your Injuries Were Preexisting

If you incur an injury in an accident, the negligent party isn't supposed to compensate you for the injuries you incurred before your accident. Consider an example where you sprain your leg playing basketball in your yard, and you fracture your hand in a car accident a week later. The person liable for the car accident is only supposed to compensate you for the fracture, but not the sprain. You only get compensation for old injuries if the latest accident aggravates them.

In such a situation, the insurance adjuster will try to claim that all your injuries are preexisting. It's up to you to prove otherwise, and you can use your medical records to bolster your claim.

You Caused the Accident

Another common tactic used by insurance adjusters is to claim that injury victims contributed to their accidents. For example, in the case of a slip and fall accident, the adjuster may claim you were distracted by your smartphone and failed to notice the floor was wet.

Be careful with this argument because the fact that you contributed to the accident doesn't mean that another person did not contribute to it too. If two or more parties contributed to your injury, then the principle of contributory or comparative negligence may be applied, and you may still be compensated. This means your compensation is likely to be reduced in line with your contribution to the accident.

Since adjusters are well experienced in their work, it's not easy for a layman's language to prevail against them. You need facts, evidence, and knowledge of personal injury laws in your state to succeed. This is why it's best to consult a personal injury lawyer, such as the Law Office of Leslie S. Shaw, and let him or her handle your claim.

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