Accepting insurance settlement can be a very intimidating process.  When you accept an insurance settlement, you are forfeiting your ability to sue in opposing party in a court of law for any additional damages.  If you’ve just been though a tough negotiation process this is the last hurdle that ou have to clear before you are awarded the money that you deserve in a settlement.  Before you accept the settlement, make sure you do your research and if necessary, hire an attorney to look over the settlement offer.  Before you finalize your auto accident settlement, make sure you know what you are agreeing to.

If you’re thinking about accepting the insurance company settlement offer, be a layout that you are under no obligation to accept the offer.  If you want to, you can get your own valuations from different sources and try to negotiate a higher price.  This can be useful in cases such as if your car’s been totaled at the insurance company wants to pay out less than what’s owed on the car or they won’t cover the entire cost of your medical bills.  Any settlement that you agree to its final so you shouldn’t automatically agree to a settlement, no matter what the price.

If you don’t agree with the settlement of the insurance company has offered you speak to your attorney or tell the insurance company that you will not settle for less than a certain amount.  When you state this number, make sure that’s higher than your actual bottom-line.  This will give you some breathing room in any negotiations that you have to do later.  If you plan on playing hardball with the insurance companies, make sure that you have a strong case that you can bring to court.  This will make them more likely to agree to an amount closer to your ideal settlement.

Once you have decided to choose the accepting the insurance settlement, you should write a short letter to the adjuster or whoever is handling your case.  This letter should include the amount that should agree upon.  How long it will take for you to receive and sign any pertaining documents, and the damages that covers.  Having a record of this post in your house and at the insurance company will make sure that the adjuster doesn’t go back on his word.  After this, the insurance company will mail you papers, which you sign setback and you’ll receive your check the check we usually clear within five days and you’ll have your money.

Before you accept the insurance company’s final offer, make sure that you read through the papers that they sent you and you know everything that is contained in the document.  Never feel under any pressure to accept a settlement that you feel is less than the amount that you are owed.  If you need your money now, make sure you negotiate to get your money immediately rather than in a structured annuity as well. However, if you do get in an bind and need to accept an annuity, there are many companies that will purchase structured settlements. If settlements aren’t successful, you still have the option to enter into arbitration or mediation before you are forced to hire an attorney and go to trial.  Just as you need to be careful about the insurance settlement, you also need to be careful before you bring a case to trial because any attorney will take as much as one-third of the settlement amount, leaving with sometimes with a bigger total reward, but less money than it you would have settled out of court.

If you are planning on trying to come to a settlement with an insurance company on your own, you need to be aware that every auto accident insurance settlement is essentially a negotiation. You and the insurance adjuster working on your case are essentially deciding on the price of your lawsuit. A successful conclusion to negotiations is favorable to both parties. You stay out of court and get you money and peace of mind sooner and the insurance company avoids paying legal costs to defend itself in court. Unfortunately, however, insurance adjusters haggle auto accident settlement cases for a living, where you most likely have another occupation. Luckily there are several things that you can do to tilt the bargaining scenario more in your favor.

Be Prepared

First, make sure that you are prepared before you ever meet with the insurance adjuster. Have pictures of the accident, copies of your medical bills, pay stubs proving lost pay, the names and numbers of doctors and witnesses and anything else you think might be relevant. If you are in doubt, bring it. The more thorough you are with your documentation, the better.   This will make filing your car accident claim much easier.  Next, total the amount of your medical bills, property damage, and the pain and suffering from any injury claims resulting from the accident you would like to collect (if any) and come up with a range of numbers that you will be willing to accept from the insurance company for your accident.

Negotiating Your Auto Accident Insurance Settlement

When you are actually in the room with the insurance adjuster for accident insurance negotiations, your goal is to get the adjuster to offer you more money to than he wants to. You do this in theory by making the adjuster think he’s still winning when he offers you the amount of money that you want. There are many different methods that you can use to achieve this that are used in all kinds of negotiations, from those between management and labor in companies to those used between countries. If you have experience in these kinds of deals, you will have a leg up in negotiations. If not, here are a few tactics that you can use.

The first method that you can use to aid you in bargaining is using the time tested diplomatic tool of brinksmanship. In this, you threaten to go to trial and clean out the insurance company. If the adjuster believes that this is an option, then he may be prepared to offer you more in a settlement. But, for this to work you must convince the adjuster that the threat of a lawsuit is real. Be creative and think of ways you can do this – perhaps by putting a lawyer on retainer or by acting a little bit crazy and not listening to reason about the case possibly costing more money than you would make – think Khrushchev pounding his shoe at the United Nations.

Another negotiation tactic that you can use is tying your hands so that it is impossible for you to accept any deal below a certain dollar amount. This can be done with the use of a lawyer, who you send to the negotiation with strict instructions not to accept any dollar amount below your minimum. A lawyer is not necessary however, you can financially tie your hands, saying that any amount of money below a certain level will drive you broke so you will not accept it as a settlement. Be careful when using this method though, if the insurance adjuster tries to tie his hands as well, you may very well end up at an impasse you will be unable to break.

These are just a few of the tactics that you can use to help you out to get the auto accident insurance settlement you deserve. While these will help, nothing will make up for proper preparation. With proper preparation you will have everything documented, insuring an airtight case that the insurance adjuster won’t be able to poke holes into. This will make sure that you get the most amount of money in a settlement more than anything else.