The Role Of The Insurance Adjuster In Your Personal Injury Case
If you are injured in an accident, your injury attorney usually won’t just file your lawsuit in court. There may be a period where your injury attorney is negotiating with the other side—often, with the other side’s insurance company.
At this point in your case, before any actual lawsuit has ever been filed, the defendant often won’t have an attorney—it’s the insurance company that will be speaking on behalf of the defendant, and it is the insurance company’s adjuster that will be speaking on behalf of the insurance company.
The Role of the Adjuster
Adjusters aren’t unique to personal injury cases. Almost every kind of insurance company uses adjusters. Adjusters look at a case, gather evidence, and then work with the insurance company to come up with what would be a reasonable amount to settle your case. Put another way, the adjuster is the human being that acts for and on behalf of the insurance company.
The adjuster will ask for information about your case in order to help the insurance company come up with an offer to settle the case. You or your attorney don’t have to provide anything to the adjuster—but it often is a good idea to at least see if your case can be resolved quicker, without having to file a lawsuit.
Adjuster Training and Investigation
Adjusters are not attorneys, but they often are well trained in injury law (or whatever kind of insurance industry they work in). They may even be assisted by in-house attorneys who will answer legal questions, or evaluate specific cases for the adjuster.
The adjuster will send out contractors to do research—for example, in a car accident the adjuster may send out an investigator to look at and take pictures of cars that were involved in the accident. The adjusters may even hire experts to do a preliminary investigation of your case to see if your case even merits making any offer at all to settle the case.
The adjuster uses data gathered by the insurance company, and years of experience in personal injury claims and trials, to see whether to make a monetary offer to you, and if so, how much to offer. The adjuster may have a dollar value range that he or she is authorized to offer to you. If you want more than the authority the adjuster has been given by the insurance company,, you may have to file a lawsuit.
The Adjuster Sticks Around
Adjusters will often remain with your case, even if you do opt to file a lawsuit. Once a lawsuit is filed, the defendant will have an attorney, and the attorney’s client will often be the adjuster, who speaks on behalf of the insurance company. The adjuster will attend all the hearings or other events that happen in your case, once the lawsuit is filed.
Call the Knoxville personal injury lawyers at Fox Farley Willis & Burnette, PLLC, today for help with every aspect of your injury case.
