It’s a situation we see all the time, you, or your family member,
get hurt in a car crash and the insurance company for the at-fault driver calls
you and wants you to give a recorded statement. They seem nice, and you want to
speed the process along so you can get your car fixed. What should you do?
The safest bet is to talk with an experienced personal
injury attorney before giving a recorded statement to the at-fault insurance
company. The reason for this is because the goal of the insurance company is to
pay you as little as possible for damages that are caused by the wrongful
actions of their insured driver. It’s simple economics, the less money the
insurance company pays out in claims, the bigger their profits are at the end
of the year.
With that in mind, the insurance adjuster will often try to sound
friendly and reasonable when they first speak to you on the phone. After all, the
more comfortable you feel talking with them, the more likely you are to let
your guard down. You should always remember that regardless of how friendly they
appear to be, their goal is to find a reason to deny your claim or reduce the
amount they pay for your damages.
A common tactic insurance adjusters use in recorded statements,
is that they will try and manipulate you into saying things that can hurt your
case. There are many ways that this can happen. Sometimes they will ask a question
that is worded in a specific way that is pre-designed to encourage an answer
that can be used against you. Other times, they may ask you a loaded question
for which there simply isn’t a good answer. Another problem area is bad guesses.
If they ask a question and you are not sure about the answer, it’s better to
say that. If you’re not sure about the answer to a question and you give a bad “guesstimate”
as your answer to that question, you can hurt your case. Also, If your answer
to a question is vaguely worded, they may try to twist your words and misrepresent
what you said.
