Car Accident Insurance Questions You Should Know
To be in a position to answer car accident insurance questions, without knowing how to handle the situation, can work against your interests. Lots would depend on how you answer some of the car accident insurance questions that are simple on the face of it, though the answers can make all the difference. Most often, the insurance company personnel may encourage you to be open and honest with all your statements. Nevertheless, if you are looking for what you think is the right kind of settlement, you should be careful with what you are telling the insurance people.
Insurance companies have designed a number of car accident insurance questions that are tailored to pay you as little as possible when a claim is filed. The following are among some of the important car accident insurance questions you should acquaint yourself with.
1. Any way this accident could have been avoided?
This is a very simple and matter of fact question. But, look at the tenor and the intent that seeks to somehow suggest that you were in some ways responsible for the accident. If your answer even remotely suggests that you "could" have avoided the accident, the insurer can scrape off a large chunk from your claim. The simple but firm reply should only be "I had no way to avoid this since the other driver crashed in" and use the minimum words possible.
2. Car accident insurance questions about injuries
Your insurance adjustor or surveyor is not being compassionate when he seeks information on your previous injuries. It is a ploy to attribute the present injury, or most of it to a past injury and therefore downsize your claim on that count. Avoid any discussion on injury and simply tell the insurer that you can discuss this only after speaking to your doctor. Never even throw a hint that you did have previous injuries, assuming you had one or more.
3. Witnesses
Seeking information about witnesses is among the most casual car accident insurance questions. The adjusters will anyway contact some witnesses independently. However, you are under no obligation to provide contact information about any witness even when you may happen to know them. Most witnesses are likely to create more confusion than make any helpful statements. Witnesses you identify, and their statements, stand on a different footing compared to the independent witnesses that the adjusters find. Therefore, your answer to car accident insurance questions about witnesses is only that you have no immediate details available and can get back to them after collecting relevant information.
With some of us, the trouble is that once we start talking, there is no stopping at all. Insurance adjusters like this because they can extract all convenient answers to the car accident insurance questions they have. But, this would make us poorer by several hundred dollars when the claim is settled. Keeping the conversation brief and acquainting yourself with the state law on insurance can be of immense help to get the best out of your insurance.
