LawCall: Insurance Adjusters

Attorneys Michael Timberlake and Heath Brooks discuss dealing with insurance adjusters, and how to best benefit your case.

Some of the email questions and answer them.

And we have some tonight.

First off we have michael timberlake from siniard, timberlake & league.

Good to have you here.

>> michael timberlake: good evening.

>> sharon doviet: and you brought a special guest with you, social distancing from home.

>> michael timberlake: yeah, on my phone here, heath brooks is here with us to answer questions, so we can stay, you know, equal distance apart and answer everybody's questions tonight.

>> heath brooks: good to be here.

>> sharon doviet: good to have you here.

We're going to get started talking about insurance adjusters with michael.

Tj said, if you're dealing with a car wreck and the insurance adjuster calls you, what should you do?

Do you have to talk to them?

You guys do personal injury all the time.

>> michael timberlake: yeah, this is a common occurrence for what we deal with and basically we deal with people that are involved in wrecks and insurance companies will get an adjuster that will get out and -- they want to get out in front of it.

If it's somebody -- their insured caused the wreck, they want to get out and get as much information from somebody that is injured, you know, as soon as possible.

You don't have to talk to them and we advise you not to talk to them.

You know, you need to understand what your rights are.

You need to understand what the law is.

You need to understand what you should say and shouldn't say to them.

So we say, you know, make your first call to an attorney in that situation.

Talk to a lawyer about the situation.

Either on the phone or we do zoom or we can, you know, meet in person if we need to, socially spaced distancely.

And we can talk to you about what you need to know about a car wreck situation.

You don't necessarily have to hire a lawyer before you go talk to the insurance company, but you want to know what your rights are.

You want to know what the law is, what they're looking for.

Because insurance adjusters are trained because they are representing the insurance company.

Their job is to pay as little on claims as they can, and your job is try to get as much as you can out of your claim for your injuries.

So that is one of those things that you have to deal with.

If it is your own insurance company and adjuster calls, likewise you have the right to talk to a lawyer before you talk to that insurance adjuster, but you have an obligation to talk to that insurance adjuster at some point.

If it's a liability claim and the other person's insurance adjuster calls you, you don't have to talk to them if you don't want to.

If it's your own insurance company, at some point you have to sit down and talk to that insurance adjuster.

We do it all the time with clients.

We have meetings.

We do phone conferences.

We get the clients in, tell them what to expect.

And then they're able to give the insurance company the information they need >> sharon doviet: so let's pull heath into this.

Heath, what does the insurance trying to get you to say that you need to go talk to lawyer first to understand?

>> heath brooks: here is what i say, insurance adjusters, they put pants legs on one at a time like we all do, but i don't trust them as far as i can throw my bed and neither should folks who try to talk to insurance adjusters.

Their whole job is get a case resolved as cheaply and as quickly as they can so that folks don't go and talk to a lawyer, because when folks do go and talk to a lawyer and they're armed with the information they need to talk to an insurance adjuster in an intelligent manner, then it makes the world of an insurance adjuster a whole bunch more difficult.

And remember, insurance adjusters and people who work for insurance companies, they don't move up in a company by settling claims for more than what they're worth.

They move up in a company by settling a claim very cheaply and really -- like i said, insurance adjusters are people too but don't trust them as far as you can throw your car.

>> sharon doviet: what are they trying to get you to say?

What can i is a that can hurt my case if i tell the truth?

>> michael timberlake: in an automobile situation you get in a situation where people deal with times or distances.

You know, those can be all difficult types of situations.

You know, alabama is a contributory negligence state.

So if you say, well, i may have been able to see that driver, but i didn't, and then i hit him, well, the insurance company is going to jump all over that and then they're going to say, hey, it's your fault.

And in alabama if you contribute or cause to a wreck in any way, then you cannot recover at all.

So it's going to -- it's really you need to be skilled in terms of -- you need to be schooled in terms of what you need to say, what the law is.

You know, you're not trying to hide the facts or not tell the truth, but there is a way to say what happened