When you’re in an auto accident, your insurance company will use a claims adjuster to investigate the accident and make recommendations to the claims representative. However, since adjusters are employees of the insurance company, are you really getting an unbiased opinion? Some experts recommend hiring your own adjuster when a lot is at stake.

What is the role of an insurance adjuster after an accident has occurred?

It’s a question that many drivers really don’t know the answer to. Brian Labovick, a car accident attorney in South Florida who specializes in auto accident cases, provided us with the details. “Although I have not been an insurance adjuster; I’ve hired insurance adjusters to work for me after they have gotten away from the insurance industry. From my analysis from talking to them and from what I’ve observed in dealing with insurance adjusters, their role is to investigate a claim made against their insured.”

Expect the bare minimum offer

Adjusters often offer policyholders the bare minimum in hopes that the insured will simply accept the offer and go away. Labovick continued, “Usually, an insurance investigator will be investigating a claim made against their insured for damages for whatever that insurance adjuster has been hired to investigate. For example, they could have a property damage adjuster who goes out and looks at the damages and their job is to try to adequately determine the amount of damages without paying a dollar more than is necessary to settle the claim. Not a dollar more than is necessary to pay off the damage and not a dollar more than is necessary to settle the claim, which means they like to extract some pain of “Well, if we fight about it, we’ll get whatever it is” - $100 more, $1000 more, whatever the claim is and they try to be right on that edge of “it’s not worth the fight, we’ll take this amount in settlement” and let it go.”

“That’s the best place for an insurance adjuster to be when they adjust and settle out a claim. There are times when insurance adjusters go out and look at an accident and say, “No, our policy is this, we’re in excess of that, let’s just pay it”. They will do that, but usually their job is to analyze the situation and figure out where the lowest point is to get it done and save the insurance company as much money as possible. Insurance companies make money by taking in premium dollars and not paying out claims. If they pay out claims, that’s money they haven’t made.”

When should you hire your own accident investigator?

In certain cases, policyholders might want to consider hiring their own investigator. Labovick told us that a surprising amount of cases that seemed to be cut and dry actually end up in court. He recommended that anyone who has been in a significant accident should consider hiring their own investigator and provided the following example from a recent case he had:

I have a case where a young woman was sitting in her car at a red light. She was rear-ended and didn’t speak English because she came from a foreign country just a few weeks earlier. The police officer came and she didn’t understand what he was telling her. What had happened is that the driver of the other car said that she backed into him sitting at the light and she didn’t know how to dispute that well in English.”

No one got a ticket and it was written up that there were conflicting stories that she was sitting still and the other guy hit her. Had she known better, she would have gotten the witnesses who had originally saw the accident to stay and talk to the police officer, but everybody thought it was clearly a rear-end collision and they left. The victim is now stuck with an argument that an insurance adjuster has gotten hold of and is trying to extract some pain our of her by saying, “Well, you could go to court with this, but what if the jury believes you backed into him?” So, she is willing to take a lower than normal settlement to avoid that risk.

If you’ve been in a serious auto accident and your insurance company isn’t paying your valid claim, contact an attorney whose practice focuses in this area. They can evaluate your case and put you in touch with an investigator who will look out for your best interests. Click here, to contact a Florida car accident attorney near you.