A lot of times people will schedule a consultation with me after they have tried to work with an insurance company on their own to try to resolve an injury claim whether it be from an auto accident or a slip & fall type of case.
Generally, they ask me what to do because the insurance company is either denying their claim or they aren’t paying a reasonable value for the injuries they sustained.
Typically I tell people that unfortunately a lot of times insurance companies don’t pay full value to people that haven’t hired an attorney. I know it sounds self-serving, but it’s true. There have been studies done showing that many times insurance companies will make much lower offers to individuals than they will once an attorney gets involved.
My advice really at that point, if they aren’t making an offer or a big enough offer, is to retain an attorney to try to push the insurance company to do what’s right and pay a reasonable value for your claim.
Once an attorney is involved typically we can get the case resolved.
Sometimes we still have to push it and file a lawsuit in order to get them to do the right thing and pay you a reasonable value for the injuries you sustained. Typically, in order to do that, you do need to retain an attorney to file a suit and take that next step.