Why Do I Need a Lawyer After a Car Accident in Georgia?

Some of you have decided not to even get a lawyer after you’ve been involved in a motor vehicle accident or trucking accident and you’ve decided to deal with the insurance company yourself. Sometimes, it’s a good idea. If there’s not a lot of property damage, less than $2,000 maybe in property damage, you might be just fine in dealing with the insurance company yourself so long as you don’t have a more serious injury such as a disc injury or such as a herniated disc or a bulging disc injury.
Those of you who do persist in trying to deal with the insurance company yourself may be in for a little bit of a rude surprise. That’s simply because they’re in business and they’re in business to make money so if you find that they’re very difficult in trying to settle your case and not wanting to even pay for your medical bills in the case, you may find yourself at some point, contacted a lawyer in order to help with representing you on the case.
If you’ve done that, that is you’ve tried to do with the insurance company yourself, I usually do not advise that if there’s more substantial injuries. I don’t advise it simply because what happens is that people will say things not innocently, not realizing that the insurance company will use that information that you’ve just provided to them against you in an effort to pay you as least as they possibly can on your claim.
If the insurance company asks you to give a recorded statement after an accident, you never ever want to do that. There’s a couple reasons or at least one primary reason that I can think of. Number one is, of course, they’re going to try to use anything that you say in that recorded statement later on in case there is a lawsuit filed. Number two, if you have been injured and they’ve taken this recorded statement from you fairly soon after the accident, you may have some injuries that might not be noticeable immediately after the accident.
What the insurance company will do, invariably, is they will take that statement and they’ll say, “Mrs. Jones, well, we took your statement and we asked you about the injuries and you never complained about these injuries at that time, did you?” Of course, you’re going to fight them on that point but what’s going to happen is they’re going to say, “Of course, you didn’t complain about those injuries to us when we took your statement because the fact of the matter is you really weren’t hurt, were you?”
I will say one thing that if you are dealing with the insurance company after an accident, one thing that you probably want to do even if you think that you’re not hurt is to be checked out by your personal physician. If you have questions about dealing with an insurance company after your accident, please call this office at 770-792-1000 and I’ll see if I can help you.