Why You Should Never Give a Statement After a Car Accident to Opposing Insurance Company
The Adjuster's Duties
Insurance adjusters have two jobs. First, the adjuster must protect the rights of the insurer. Next, they are to protect the rights of the insured person who injured you. There are plenty of insurance company warnings to look out for when faced with giving a statement.
Formulating a Defense
One of the initial steps in formulating a defense is for an insurer to try to get a written or oral statement from you as to what happened in the crash. The written statement would be in your own writing and signed and dated by you. An oral statement will be recorded.
When taking the statement from you, it is the intention of the adjuster to use that statement against you sometime in the future. If you are not represented by an attorney at the time that you give that statement, what the insurer and the adjuster are doing is perfectly legal.
What Happens When an Adjuster Takes Your Statement
The friendly voice who seems so concerned about your injuries and treatment is likely reading from a script. Questions asked of you will be leading, loaded, framed toward the insurer's interests and not permitted in any court of law after an attorney objects to them.
The same question might even be asked time and time again in different forms in efforts to get somewhat different answers from you or even contradict yourself. You do not know the rules of evidence though, so when you start answering the adjuster's questions, you are giving up rights that you likely will not get back.
Two years later when you are in a trial, your answers to the adjuster's questions will be used against you to attack your credibility. It does not matter if the statement was not under oath, or a that court reporter was not present when you gave it. A statement need not be taken under oath to be used against you.
Example of How a Statement Can Be Used Against You
A teenage boy was struck by a passenger vehicle while lawfully crossing the street. He suffered a serious leg fracture and had to have his leg put back together by an orthopedic surgeon. An adjuster for the insurer of the driver who hit the teen showed up out of nowhere at the family's front door to "see how the kid is doing." Within minutes he was taking a statement from the teen, and he learned that the boy was listening to music through headphones when he was crossing the street.
Although this information does not turn on the driver's failure to yield to a pedestrian, it does go to the boy's possible negligence when crossing the street. He had a duty to of care for his own personal safety, and a jury could determine that indeed he breached that duty and was 20 percent at fault for the accident. If the jury reduces the teen's award by 20 percent, that adjuster saved his employer tens of thousands of dollars by getting that statement from the boy. An attorney never would have permitted that statement to be taken, but the parents did not have an attorney for the teen.
You are not Required to Give a Statement to the Opposing Insurer
If an adjuster from an opposing insurance company tells you that you are required to give a statement, do not believe it. No law in any of the 50 states requires you to give a statement to an opposing insurer. If you are in that minority of states with no-fault insurance, and your insurer tells you that you are required to give a statement, consult with a car accident attorney to confirm that.
Might giving a statement to the opposing insurer help my case?
It is highly unlikely that giving a statement to the opposing insurer is going to help your case at all. You might even be giving the insurer information that it does not have and might not get in the future. If the adjuster tells you that giving a statement will help your case, do not believe it. The insurance company that employs the adjuster is not going to help you simply because you gave a statement.
Once you give a statement, the adjuster will thank you for your time and walk away smiling. Sometime in the future, you will be told that the insurer has determined that it can not help you. You have nothing, and the insurer has a statement that will be used against you in your lawsuit.
For the reasons mentioned above, it is highly advised you seek out legal advice from an experienced and well known car accident attorney. Do not feel like you have to go against the insurance companies alone.
About the Author
Aaron Crane
Cantor Crane is comprised of highly successful and well-known Phoenix car accident lawyers and personal injury attorneys, representing... (show bio)
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