Insurance Companies Try To Take Advantage Of The Injured In Oklahoma County
Feel like the insurance company that should be paying for your injury is trying to walk all over you? Contact Oklahoma County personal injury lawyers at the Legal Advantage Group for help standing up for your rights and recovery.
Getting injured is bad enough without insurance companies adding a heaping helping of insult by holding back the crucial funds you need to recover. And yet, every year in Oklahoma State, County, and City, thousands of everyday folks get injured, sometimes in horrible ways, only to be trampled, tricked or deprived by insurance companies that care more about profits than people.
Worse, many Oklahomans let them get away with it. Mostly this is because they don’t know any better. Some might trust in the authority of the company and the smiles of their adjusters, while others may just not be up for the fight or too desperate for some compensation. Insurance companies know this, they count on it, and they are not at all reluctant to take every advantage of you in the process.
You do not have to let them walk all over you, however. You can stand up for the financial compensation you need and deserve. With the help of a skilled Oklahoma personal injury lawyer, you can make sure that any insurance company takes into consideration the full extent and costs of your injuries through a personal injury claim.
Who Can Be Empowered With A Personal Injury Claim?
Most injuries that occur in Oklahoma County will be covered by some form of insurance, but not all will require a personal injury claim to obtain payment from the insurer. If you are injured in the workplace, you might need a workplace injury lawyer; if you hurt yourself, your medical insurance will have to foot the bill. A personal injury claim is made when you are hurt by someone else.
Specifically, your injury must have come about because of someone else’s negligence. This could be a reckless driver, a careless government agency, an irresponsible trucking company, a lazy store owner, or even a negligent doctor. As long as they failed to show you the responsible minimal level of care, and you suffered an injury, personal injury laws make it clear that it is their insurance that should foot the bill.
Additionally, personal injury claims are not limited to hospital bills and medical costs. While these are included, you can also demand financial compensation for other harms and losses, including:
- Income lost due to the time you spent injured and unable to work.
- Future lost wages if the injury causes a long-term or permanent disability.
- Pain and suffering endured because of the injury.
- Long-term emotional harm or trauma.
- Any loss in the quality of your day-to-day life because of the injury.
As a result, personal injury claims can end up costing insurers quite a bit, so they have developed extensive tactics to delay, deny, and reduce the amounts they end up paying out.
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Three Insurance Company Tactics To Look Out For
Insurers are, for the most part, large companies with decades of experience carefully working their way around federal and Oklahoma state insurance laws and requirements. You are unlikely to be able to go toe to toe with them without the help of an Oklahoma County personal injury lawyer, but it is possible to avoid falling for the most obvious and dangerous of their tricks and tactics.
- Immediate Offers
Many insurers, or the clients they represent, will offer you a quick payout when they have caused you an injury. Whether you tripped in the produce aisle at a store or were run off the road by one of their trucks, they rush to help, waving seemingly generous checks for several thousand dollars and asking you only to sign a few forms to access those funds right away.
This is almost always a trap. These amounts are tiny compared to what your injury might end up costing you, and therefore what they might have to pay up in a personal injury claim. And those papers they ask you to sign generally waive your rights to further claims or compensation from them, meaning you won't be able to ask for what you need later if it turns out your injury is more severe.
They are basically buying you off for a fraction of what you need, just because they know many ordinary folks are too naive, good-natured, desperate, or inexperienced to know better. Now you do so, you will not fall for that trap.
- Targeting inconsistencies
Insurance companies love to use the rules when it is to their advantage. If your doctor has ordered you to do four months of physical therapy, and you skip the last two sessions because you were feeling better, or if you wait too long to go see a doctor or to follow their instructions, the insurance comapny will claim you must not have been as injured as you claimed. They will even watch your social media accounts and sometimes even hire an investigator to follow you and check, looking for anything they can use.
They will jump on any gap in treatment or failure to follow orders, and will even try to tap you into admitting such things on the phone. They might call to ask helpful or seemingly friendly questions about how you are doing, knowing how Oklahomans tend to downplay their pain and discomfort in conversations. They are counting on you to say “it's fine” or “I get by” and will not hesitate to replay their recordings of those calls to use your words against you to claim your injury cannot have been too severe.
To avoid these traps, make sure you follow every instruction and hire a personal injury lawyer to handle communications with insurance companies.
- Denying Responsibility
Once it becomes clear that you are not going to fall for these traps, insurers will threaten to pay you nothing or significantly less than you asked for. This is a scare tactic. They might claim that their client was not truly responsible for your injuries, that they were not negligent, or that your injuries are only due to previous accidents.
They might try to blame you for the accident that caused your injury, entirely or in part, and might use your guilt to pressure you into an early lowball settlement, as if they are doing you a favor. If you don't want to be the kind of injury victim who rolls over and takes that, you may need to take them to court to prove your claim with the help of a personal injury lawyer. Most of the time, however, just knowing you are ready to fight and have an experienced attorney to help you do so effectively will be enough to get the insurance company to finally offer a reasonable settlement amount.
Call For A Free Consultation | (405) 449-5777
Don’t Be A Victim - Stand Up To Insurance Companies
Legal Advantage Group | Be prepared for life, and fight to get yours back.
No one wants to be injured, and there is no justice in who ends up in an accident on Oklahoma County’s roads and highways. That lack of control can lead to you feeling helpless or feeling lost, a feeling that only gets worse when it becomes clear the insurance company you were supposed to trust is only looking out for their bottom line.
But you do not have to be a victim of their tactics, just because you were the victim of an accident. You can stand up to them, demand what is rightfully yours, and obtain the compensation you need to not be a burden on your loved ones and family.
And we, as your personal injury lawyers, will be proud to help. Our guidance has empowered countless injured Oklahomans to stand up for themselves, and we look forward to doing so for you, too. Just call (405) 449-5777 or reach out to our team online to schedule a consultation.
