Why Won’t the Insurance Company Make a Reasonable Offer to Settle My Claim?

You’ve been injured because of someone else’s negligence. Why won’t that person’s insurance company make a reasonable offer to settle your claim?

Many injured people are left frustrated and angry when they receive low settlement offers for their bodily injury claims. The injured person may have treated with doctors for months (sometimes years) and incurred tens of thousands of dollars in medical expenses, only for the insurance company to offer only a small fraction of that amount to settle the claim. Why would the insurance company do that? Part of the answer lies in the way that insurance claims operations are organized.

Insurers have developed an intricate system designed to keep their costs down and their profits high. Large insurance companies receive thousands of claims every day. Injury claims from Pensacola, Milton, Navarre, Cantonment, Pace and Jay are mixed in with claims from all over the state. In order to handle the large volume of claims, the insurance companies want to resolve as many claims as possible at the earliest stages of review. They know that injured people are often unaware of the fair value of their claim, and many times are so overwhelmed by the claims process that they are willing to take whatever is offered to them (or simply to go away when their claim is denied). Insurance companies are frustrating in the best of circumstances, but dealing with them while injured is a new level of frustration.

Moreover, insurance companies know that injured people often need money quickly and can’t wait for months or years to receive fair compensation. They capitalize on this desperation, hoping that the injured person takes whatever small amount is offered, just to get something. And this system works, for them. Insurers resolve a huge number of claims this way. In fact, many insurers limit the “desk authority” of first-line claims adjusters to just a few thousand dollars, making it impossible for them to offer any more money without additional approval from their superiors. Before they can pay, the adjuster will have to justify the larger amount to their boss. And the more money needed to fairly resolve a claim, the higher in the company they have to go for approval. In fact, many times bodily injury claims do not land on the desk of an adjuster with significant settlement authority until a lawsuit has been filed. Even then, those adjusters usually have to seek higher authorization to settle for large amounts. The biggest claims are reviewed by company vice-presidents before reasonable settlement offers can be made. And at each stage of review, a new set of people have to be convinced that the case should be settled for a reasonable amount. Sometimes, the insurance company simply won’t offer fair value unless a jury makes them do so.

Unfortunately for an injured person, the process and time involved in getting the right person at the insurance company to fairly evaluate a claim is complicated and time-consuming. At Phil Hall, P.A., our attorneys and legal professionals are trained and experienced in dealing with insurance companies and will help you resolve your claims for their full value.