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The Claim Letter: Your First Contact with the Insurance Company...Your personal injury claim letter is the written document that officially starts the negotiating process. It lists your damages and requests compensation for those damages.Click here for a sample personal injury demand letter. The idea is to write a formal, concise letter that lays out the basics of your case to the insurance company. In your demand letter you'll have to lay out several things in clear terms. What to Include in Your Personal Injury Demand Letter:
Your claim letter is almost never the last word in your insurance battle. What it does is lay a ground work for the insurance company and let’s them know the basics. It's a document they'll continue to reference the entire time your claim remains open. The insurance company is never going to offer you more than you demand so it's essential that this initial communication is made only when you're fully informed. You must make sure the demand letter adds up all of the damages with their fullest amounts - you don’t want to leave yourself shortchanged. The insurance company will typically respond to your letter with a counter offer. That offer will naturally be lower than your demand. How low they go depends greatly on the amount of your initial demand and how convincing your case is. The Structure of Your Personal Injury Claim Letter... In your demand you should be laying out an argument that shows the strengths, and only the strengths, of your case. Even if you know you were partially at fault in an auto accident, this isn’t the time to admit it. If the insurance company is aware of that detail then they'll calculate it into their counter offer. Dealing with more than one insurance company won’t usually change the dynamics of your demand letter. Chances are that by the time you're at this stage the companies will have already informed you which is representing the primary coverage. Send that company your letter. (If this hasn’t happened yet then you'll have to write a letter to each insurer - tailor each letter to each individual company.) Make sure your demand letter stresses certain things. At the start it should outline the liability issue by explaining how the accident happened and why their client is negligent. Along with the specific details be sure to offer what is called intangibles. This is any information that can help your case but is not definitely relevant. For example, take the case of an auto collision: -If the police report mentioned the other driver was on a cell phone you should stress that. -If you have a clean driving record, mention that. -If the car was damaged in a dramatic way, mention that and include pictures. Mention things that the insurance company knows will help you in court so they'll be more likely to settle it on their own. If it has already been suggested that you were negligent then you may want to bring that up. Instead of admitting to it you'll be denying it. If possible you should offer a good explanation as to why you shouldn’t have to share fault. From here you outline your damages case by case. Add them up and present them with a final total. Later on we'll discuss exactly how to arrive at this total. Lastly, include with your claim letter copies any supporting documents you have. These are bills, medical reports, police reports if you have them and, as mentioned, any car accident photos that will help your case. These include photos of the accident and photos of the injury. Return from Claim Letter to Personal Injury Settlements Return from Claim Letter to the Personal Injury Settlement Guide Personal Injury Areas How Much Is Your Case Worth? Find out NOW! Complete this form for a FREE case review by an experienced attorney... The accuracy of information on this site is not guaranteed. Information on this site is strictly opinion and should not be considered formal legal advice. Under no circumstances should the information on this site be used to make decisions about the proper course of a legal matter.Click below to read our full User Agreement, Disclaimer and Copyright Information.
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