The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution reads in part. “no person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…”
The Fifth Amendment was written to protect the peoples’ freedom: literally to protect them from being thrown behind bars simply for what they said or what they refused to say.
However, in the realm of civil law, what citizens, legislators and lawyers too often fail to recognize is the awesome power of corporations, especially insurance corporations, to compel statements from seriously injured people. These victims often speak with opposing insurers without understanding the often devastating consequences of their own naïve, uninformed and unsuspecting cooperation.
Insurance companies exist to hedge against risk. Specifically, automobile insurers insure their negligent, inattentive and law-breaking customers against their own stupidity.
When insurance company customers cause accidents, entire platoons, euphemistically called “claims departments”, mobilize with a singular mission; to the limit the price tag of their negligent, inattentive, law-breaking customers’ stupidity. With that mission in mind, auto insurers train specific employees in how to mimic compassion and courtesy. Those specially trained employees are deployed to speak with the seriously injured person as quickly as possible in order to extract statements that the company will use later in order to try to block the person’s lawsuit.
It’s all about money and profit.
The more that the claims representative can extract, the greater their employer’s hope that money will be saved. AND, the greater the hope that the severely pained, or broken-boned, or post-concussion, or highly medicated victim won’t retain an attorney.
In fact, as soon as the seriously injured accident victim tells the claims representative trained in compassion and courtesy that they’ve retained counsel, the case is transferred to an entirely different platoon of insurance adjusters; these are the ones who are trained not in courtesy and compassion, but in tactics of delay and attrition.
Because the other calculation for insurance companies is the time-value of money. Once an attorney steps between the seriously injured accident victim and the insurer, then the insurer estimates the value of the case, places a “reserve” amount of money aside and invests that money at an interest rate that earns money for the insurer.
Insurance Company Delay = Company and Stockholder Revenue.
- Now that you can see the battlefield with greater clarity, if you’re seriously injured in an accident, what should you do? The first thing that you do should be completely obvious; you seek expert, experienced medical care.
- The second thing that you do is be quiet. Don’t make any statements of any kind to the defendant’s insurance company and don’t answer any questions.
- And the next thing that you do is retain an experienced trial law firm.
That’s who we are, [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-3″]. We don’t play the insurance company game. We put our cases in suit sooner than many other attorneys for the simple reason that we know that we have to bring the fight to the insurance companies through litigation and in court. Waiting outside of court delays justice and compensation to our clients. We absolutely relish the fight. If you’ve been seriously injured in an automobile accident, call [nap_names id=”FIRM-NAME-3″] where our mission is to relentlessly protect, advocate and defend.
