DeSimone Law Office has been involved in numerous cases where another negligent driver’s vehicle has failed to yield right of way from a stop sign, parking lot or at a red light. Many insurance companies for the negligent driver will try to either deny one of these claims or attempt to reduce their insured’s responsibility for the accident.
Texas is a comparative negligence state. This means if the insurance company can put less than one hundred percent of an accident on their insured driver, they will save themselves money by denying benefits rightly belonging to the victim of the negligent driver’s failure to yield.
How do insurance companies accomplish this objective?
The first thing insurance companies try to do is procure a statement about the accident from the victim of the accident before they hire a lawyer. Often they will confuse the victim of the traffic accident with questions about times and distance.
For example, they will ask confusing questions about how long before the accident was it when the victim first saw their negligent insured’s vehicle? How far away was the other vehicle before the victim saw it? Also, what did you (the victim) do to try to avoid the accident?
When an accident happens in a split second there is no way to really know the answers to these questions. But, the insurance company is hoping for an answer that they can use to prove the victim was not paying attention, did not hit their brakes in time or took some other faulty evasive action. If a victim starts giving times and distances (even though these estimates are likely to be way off) the insurance company can use these statements against the victim to either deny the claim or put some negligence on the victim.
If the insurance company can put just ten percent negligence through their trick questions on every victim, imagine the money they save on each claim. When you have an accident and the other person’s insurance company calls, they are not calling to help you. Their goal is to minimize the amount of money that they have to pay for the car accident. Taking statements from naive accident victims who do not have an attorney is one of their methods.
If you have been in a car accident, do not allow the insurance company to call you and take a statement reducing the value of any injury and property claim you have. Call an experienced car accident attorney, they know what to do to make sure all of your rights are protected and that you receive the full compensation that you deserve.
