Today, I’d like to discuss what documents not to sign after an accident. A lot of times an insurance company will come to you from the other side, if they were at fault, and say “Oh I just want to take care of your medical bills, let me give you some money for your medical bills, and you can go see the doctor and get checked out. I’m going to give you some money (usually a small amount), and a document to sign and you sign it and I give you the check” You then think everything is good, but later on you’re more injured than you thought and you’d like to pursue a claim against the other party. You’d then go see an attorney, a lot of times people come to me and they want to retain me to go after the party and they show me that they signed a document to get some money for their medical bills. Unfortunately a lot of times that document is a release and when you sign a release that means you are giving up all of your rights to pursue any additional damages against the at fault party. The insurance companies won’t tell you this because they want you to sign the release in order for you to not be able to pursue them or their client and get any additional money. So they have you sign this document and then they use it to defend against any additional claims. So the important thing is after an accident do not sign anything unless you know exactly what it is or have an attorney review it first, but definitely don’t sign anything unless you read through it first and fully understand what you’re signing. We hope this was helpful, but if you have any further questions please reach out to us here at Zweben Law Group.
