If you find yourself dealing with an auto insurance settlement, there are many things you must know. However, the most important thing to remember when dealing with this situation is to know how to appeal a settle offer that has been made by an insurance company. If at any point you feel that you are not being treated fairly with the settlement offer, you will need to appeal the offer. Auto Insurance companies are in the business to make a profit, and sadly, sometimes this means their settlement offers are not high enough to cover all of your various expenses.
The first step in appealing an auto insurance settlement is to hire an attorney. If you do not have an attorney that specializes in this type of case, it will be nearly impossible to win a settlement appeal. Remember to always write down each directive for your attorney.
After you have located an attorney, you will want to spend an afternoon reading through your states insurance liability information. This is very important because your particular case may not be an appropriate complaint, which could lead to the appeal being dismissed. Of course, your attorney will have all of this information readily available as well.
You will need to gather several documents in order to appeal an insurance settlement offer:
- Obtain copies of all police reports
- Gather information on your insurance policy and how you are covered within this particular case.
- Write down and store all telephone calls with the insurance company, an example of an excellent way to do this is to do the following: Date/Time of Phone Call, Name of Associate you talked with, What the conversation consisted of.
- Print and save any e-mails or other electronic documents that you have received from your insurance company. This includes all e-mails, faxes and mailed documents.
- Never throw anything away that is associated with your settlement offer, or the case.
Once you have decided to appeal your settlement offer you will need to write an official letter to your insurance company. Within this letter you will need to clearly define why you are appealing their settlement offer. Your attorney will be able to help you outline and write this letter. Remember you should NEVER claim any type of responsibility for the accident, and clearly define your reasons.
There are some settlement appeals that are settled just from writing this letter alone, however, don’t expect this to happen. If you desire extra security when dealing with your settlement appeal, you will want to hire a professional who can reconstruct your auto accident. These specialists will be able to present your particular case to your insurance company, which normally show that the insurance company’s accounts of the accident are inaccurate. However, hiring these specialists can be expensive; however, the extra money will be worth it in the long run. This is why you should go general liability insurance so that you can protect yourself and your vehicle from all the unnecessary hassle in case of accident.
