If you’ve just been in a car accident in Orlando – whether on I-4, Colonial Drive, or any of our busy local roads – you need to know something critical: don’t talk to any insurance company before speaking with an Orlando personal injury attorney. As someone who has represented Orlando accident victims for over a decade, I’ve seen countless cases where early insurance company contact hurt the victim’s case.
First, I want to be completely transparent: as an Orlando car accident attorney, I am ethically bound to be honest. I take that obligation very seriously. I cannot stand sales pitches, so I have only ever given my clients and potential clients truthful, well-intended advice. So please believe me when I tell you:
After an Orlando Car Accident, You Really Need To Call an Attorney Before Your Insurance Company
Any experienced Orlando car & truck accident lawyer would give you this same advice. However, insurance company websites try to counter with their message that your first and only important job after any accident should be contacting them. They even have very well-designed apps to make the process of giving you far less money as easy as possible! They claim they will treat and pay you fairly. After all, you’re in good hands with Allstate, and State Farm is like a good neighbor, right?
The Ugly Truth About Insurance Companies After Orlando Car Accidents
But industry experts and former auto insurance company employees have revealed the ugly truth about high profit-making strategies embraced by all insurance companies – something that the best Orlando car accident lawyers have known for years. Insurance companies are businesses who must answer to their shareholders regarding their profits. Put simply, they profit more when they pay you less.
This Is Not The Good Old Days
In the days of old, like when my Grandparents used to buy auto insurance, these companies believed that they would get more customers if they paid claims promptly and fairly. They believed good customer service would drive more people back to them and therefore raise their profits. After handling countless Orlando accident cases, I can tell you from first-hand experience their mindset is the exact opposite now. Paying you as little as possible is their highest shareholder profit strategy.
How Insurance Companies Underpay Orlando Accident Claims
Around the mid-1990s, according to this Huffington Post article, consulting giant McKinsey & Company convinced Allstate and other major insurance companies that they had a better way. They encouraged and ultimately convinced leading insurance companies to rely more heavily on computers which, unlike human adjusters using their own judgment and general human compassion, would produce “purposefully low offers to claimants.” If accident victims didn’t accept these ridiculous, low-ball offers, they were intentionally subjected to varying delay and frustration tactics.
How Insurance Companies Use Computers to Lowball Orlando Accident Victims
This lowball insurance strategy is so well-entrenched that insurance companies have computers doing the work that human adjusters used to do. The system is called Colossus – a software program used by most major insurance companies to calculate the value of your accident claim. The human adjuster’s only role is to input data, which Colossus then uses to generate an extremely low settlement offer.
But here’s what every Orlando car accident victim needs to understand: Colossus is not the law. It’s simply a computerized TOOL of the insurance industry to avoid paying claims and reap substantial profits. Colossus completely ignores unique factors that might significantly increase the value of your case.
Telling your compelling story about how your injury affected your life is your lawyer’s job. The true value of your case, if settled before trial, should only be determined by you, in careful consultation with your lawyer, the defense lawyer, the defendant, and the mediator. If you go to trial, then a jury decides, after hearing extensive evidence about how the accident actually happened and how your injuries have affected your life. These are all absolutely essential HUMAN factors that Colossus never considers – factors that can make a dramatic difference in the outcome of your Orlando accident case.
“From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves”
One former Allstate agent said that the goal was to make the claims process so expensive and time-consuming that even lawyers would stop taking cases. These policies only came to light during a lawsuit and ultimately led another trial lawyer to write a book called “From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves: The Dark Side of Insurance.” And Allstate has undeniably reaped impressive profit rewards, to the tune of $4.6 billion in 2007, which doubled their earnings from the 90s, as a result of driving down payment on claims to an average of 30% below actual market costs. Their incredible rise in profits led most of the industry to adopt the same approach.
A Real Orlando Car Accident Case Example
Just last week, when speaking with a claims adjuster from a major insurance company about an I-4 accident case, he offered to pay my car accident client literally half of the private party blue book value on a vehicle claim. He referenced his “computer model” as his justification for being completely unreasonable. That same adjuster had regularly delayed returning my client’s and my own phone calls, providing all sorts of excuses for his unconscionable (yet money-saving) delay. Before I became involved, he offered my client less than 1/3 of the final settlement amount that I ultimately negotiated on the property damage claim. This was the tactic used by my client’s OWN insurance company.
What Should You Do After an Orlando Car Accident?
The obvious takeaway is that if you’ve been involved in a car accident anywhere in Orlando – from Downtown to MetroWest, from Winter Park to Lake Nona – contact an Orlando car accident attorney before any insurance company. We provide free & efficient consultations. We do everything within our power to either take new client calls immediately or return calls at our earliest possible opportunity. And you can call us anytime.
First Things First: Your Doctor, Then Your Orlando Accident Lawyer
Hopefully I’ve convinced you to call an Orlando accident attorney before talking to any insurance company. Now let me give you a few more specifics for Orlando accident victims:
- Get immediate medical evaluation and treatment, even if your injuries don’t seem serious. Orlando has excellent trauma centers and emergency rooms, including Orlando Regional Medical Center, Florida Hospital, and AdventHealth Orlando.
- Report the accident to the Orlando Police Department or Florida Highway Patrol.
- Collect insurance, vehicle identification, and contact information from the other driver. We can order police reports if the officer doesn’t give you a copy.
- Get names of ANY witnesses (might be critical for your case).
- Take photos of your injuries, all vehicles, and the accident scene.
- Save and don’t wash or repair your clothing and any other evidence showing damage.
Dealing With Your Own Insurance Company
Some insurance policies require you to report any accident to your own carrier within a fairly short time period (exact time depends on policy, but 30 days is common in Florida). If you don’t, you could lose available coverage. While you must cooperate with your own insurance company, you should speak with an Orlando accident attorney first if possible. Your insurance adjuster may claim your case isn’t serious enough for an attorney. Don’t believe them without getting a second opinion from an actual attorney.
Dealing With The Other Driver’s Insurance Company
Most of the time, you have no obligation to speak with the other driver’s insurance company. The ONLY goal of a recorded statement is to get you to say things that can later be used to deny or greatly reduce your claim. In my years of Orlando accident cases, I have NEVER seen an insurance company use a recorded statement in court for any other purpose. Ever. Not ever.
Protect Your Rights After an Orlando Car Accident
If you hire an Orlando car accident lawyer, insurance companies must deal directly with your attorney. Once you hire an attorney, we can guide whether and when you give a recorded statement, and to whom. The answer depends on the policy and the nature of the claims against you and isn’t always the same.
Be smart, and call us. Every attorney in our small firm is exceptional, and would be honored to serve as your Orlando car accident attorney. We always strive to make sure our clients are paid the absolute maximum potential value on their accident claims. Although our offices are located in Orlando & Winter Garden, we accept injury and accident cases throughout Florida, including Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville, Tallahassee, and all points above and below. We give all clients the same level of highly personalized service designed to maximize the value of their accident claims.
Don’t let insurance companies minimize your Orlando car accident claim. Call (407) 803-2139 for a free consultation with an experienced Orlando car accident attorney.
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This post is really helpful since I have been having problems with my insurance company. I would really like to be able to get it figured out and be able to get the money to cover some damages from an accident. However, it sounds like this might be difficult to do on my own. Before I start trying to get the money, I would really like to get an attorney to help me through the process. Thanks for the great post!