How To Negotiate With The Insurance Company For Your Teen

Seth Smiley here from the Smiley Law Firm with today’s edition of the Parents of Teen Drivers Facebook Group. Today our topic is “How to negotiate with the insurance company for your teen.”

It is not something that teens encounter very often. Still, you should be aware of this in case your teen (or anyone else in your family) ever gets involved in a road accident. As a personal injury attorney, I deal with this type of thing all of the time.

Claims usually need to be settled within a year, or you won’t get your payout. We recently had a client who spent the first ten months trying to negotiate with the insurance company himself before coming to us.

It is not a perfect situation, as we need time to work everything through the proper channels. However, this client had a figure fixed in his mind, which he was determined to get. When he came to us, he was afraid our fees would eat into his settlement.

I reassured him that, based on the facts of the case, I was confident that we would get him at least that figure, plus our fees, and cover all of his medical bills.

The insurance company had been stringing him along as they do. They have a tactic that I call slow pay to low pay. They offer a low settlement and respond slowly, hoping to get to the one-year mark and not have to make a payout.

They rely on people not being experienced with negotiating with an insurance firm and will try any trick to get out of paying.

We ended up getting that client three times what he was going to get initially, plus our fee, plus all of his medical bills.

The ability to have an attorney on your side to negotiate with an insurance company is essential, and it’s because insurance companies understand that regular people don’t make claims all of the time, and are uncertain of the procedure.

You wouldn’t ask a non-hairstylist to cut your hair or someone with no experience to build your roof. It’s not what people do.

Trying to save a few dollars by negotiating directly with an insurance firm rarely turns out well. Insurance companies love that and try to exploit it every time.

What we do is, we get the facts of the case, look at the medical bills, and the legal situation, and build the case.

You should never accept the insurance company’s first offer, which is just part of the negotiations.

You can say that you have looked up the value of your car, your property, or whatever, and I think I am entitled to this much. Or you can say you want them to cover rental car coverage while they repair your car. There are many tactics during the process.

If your case is of higher dollar value or if there are injuries involved, whichever state you live in, you should get an attorney involved. They know the process and will get you a higher settlement.

If you need to hire an attorney, let me know, and I will point you in the right direction.

I hope you have learned something about “How to negotiate with the insurance company for your teen.” If you have any questions or comments, direct message me or leave a comment below and I will be happy to respond to you.