21 Excuses the Insurance Company will Make that the Personal Injury lawyers at Auger Hollingsworth can Negate or Neutralize

1. The injuries you claim to have sustained in your auto accident are actually related to a prior medical condition.  The only way pre-accident medical condition can seriously damage your case is if you conceal it.

2. We have closed your file.  How about you re-open it?  The only way an insurance company can permanently close your file is if the limitation period expires or you sign a full and final release.

3. The police report does not indicate that you were injured. Many times the adrenalin from the accident keeps you from noticing injuries at the scene.  As long as you sought medical attention closely after the accident, don’t worry.

4. You weren’t wearing your seat belt.  Yes, you should have been wearing your seat belt. However, the worst case scenario is that your compensation will be lowered by 25%.  And that’s only if the insurance company can prove that not wearing your seat-belt made your injuries worse.

5. Your car wasn’t in great condition. This will likely only affect your case if the defect in your car caused or contributed to the accident.

6. You didn’t take steps to avoid the collision. As long as you are driving like a reasonable driver, you will not lose compensation because you were not able to take heroic measures to avoid the other driver’s bad driving.

7. You made a sudden stop.  The car behind you has to leave a safe distance in case you make a sudden stop.  There is very rarely liability on the driver who gets rear-ended.

8. You did not go to the hospital immediately after the accident. As long as you seek medical attention within a reasonable length of time after the accident, this won’t hurt your case.

9. Your complaints to the doctor were minimal. It is not at all uncommon for injured people to focus on what is most bothering them at the time of the appointment instead of giving a shopping list of complaints.

10.  Your complaints to your family doctor did not match the complaints you gave to the staff in the Emergency Room.  Injuries evolve over time.  Also sometimes the doctor’s notes get it wrong.

11. No one called the police after the accident. It is better if the police are called but not calling the police is still okay of you have the other driver’s info and report the accident to your own insurance company promptly.

12. You were partially at fault for the accident. In Ontario, even if you are partly at fault for the accident you can still recover damages.  For example, if you were 25% at fault, you get 75% of your damages.

13. No one else was injured in the accident. Super common and so what?  Different positions in the vehicle, different bodies etc. etc.  This is not a defence.

14. Your name is not listed on the police report. It is surprisingly common for passengers to be left off the motor vehicle accident report.  Make sure the driver tells his or her insurance company that you were in the car.

15. The property damage was not severe.  There are lots of reasons why people are badly injured in accidents where there is not a lot of damage to the vehicle itself.  Our engineers will explain all that.

16. You didn’t take an ambulance from the scene of the accident. Many seriously injured people decline an ambulance and prefer to travel to medical attention with a family member.  People also worru about the cost of an ambulance.

17. You had no objective injuries– no cuts, no broken bones, no bruises. There is no denying that objective injuries are easier to prove than subjective.  However, lots of invisible injuries are diagnosed and compensated every day.

18. The type of injury you sustained could not have possibly been caused by the accident.  Insurance adjusters are generally not engineers, doctors or bio mechanical experts.  Your body position in a car explains a lot.

19. Your memory of times, speeds, distances is inaccurate.  You are lying.  Where possible, it is better to speak to a lawyer before answering questions posed by the insurer.  However, there are many reasonable explanations for this type of error in a statement.

20. You told us you were not seriously injured in the accident.  There is danger in giving an early statement to the insurer when your injuries have not fully developed.  However, all personal injury adjusters know that in some cases injuries develop over time.  A medical expert will give an opinion to this effect.

21. You failed to give proper notice, so your claim is barred.  There can be notice periods that impact your claim.  But, don’t take the insurance company’s word for it.  In many cases there are ways around the notice or ways to compensate for late notice.

You don’t have to deal with the insurance companies alone, we are here to help!