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Negotiations should start after the claimant has received the adjuster’s response to the demand letter. Yet some adjusters insist on making a low-ball offer. The claimant’s response to that should not be a simple counter offer.
Claimants that get a low-ball offer need to prepare a written response.
Before composing letter get on the phone, or send an email, and try to learn why the adjuster has proposed such a low figure. You need to consider the remarks made by the adjuster, when asked to explain the reasons for the low figure. Prepare a letter that demonstrates an effort to satisfy the adjuster’s requests, as expressed on the phone or in an email.
If more information has been requested, provide that information in the written response. Do not be afraid to mention any emotional aspect of the injury-caused accident. End by stating the counter offer.
What a claimant might change after getting a low-ball offer
If that low offer does not fall in the same range as the claimant’s minimum figure, the one that was not stated in the demand letter, then it could pay to increase the size of that minimum, as per a Personal Injury Lawyer in Barrie. If the adjuster’s explanation for the low-ball offer reveals a true weakness in the claimant’s argument, then it would seem logical to lower the size of that minimum.
How long should it take to change a low-ball offer into one that is more acceptable?
Even the most experienced lawyer could not predict exactly how long it might take. Negotiations should proceed until both sides have agreed on a single figure, one that represents a compromise. Claimants should not focus on the length of negotiations, but on the best time to start negotiating with the insurance company.
Negotiations should not get started until the claimant, or, following a car accident, any passengers in the claimant’s vehicle, have arrived at the point of maximum medical improvement (MMI). Only then would it be safe to sign the insurance company’s release form, the one used to close the negotiations.
Claimants that sign that release form should have no reason to anticipate the need for any future medical care. Ideally, each of them has spoken with a physician. By signing the release, the claimant has removed the insurance company from the need to cover the costs created by such future care.
That is what the insurance company wants. It wants to be removed from responsibility for any further symptoms, even those that are slow-to-develop. It is the lawyer’s job to fight any push for an early end to negotiations. Money that gets obtained quickly does not always qualify as a sufficient amount of money in response to a claimant’s request for a fair compensation package.