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Your Personal Injury Insurance Settlement: The
Final Steps...
Your
personal injury insurance settlement
negotiations have been successful
and you've come to an agreement with the adjuster.
Now, all that needs to be done is to make things
official.
To actually get the cash for your settlement you'll
have to fill out a few forms and probably write one last letter.
The
adjuster should help guide you through this phase, since
there's little motivation now for them to work against
you.
However, throughout the entire personal injury insurance settlement
closing
process you need to read
everything carefully. You should also feel
free to question what the adjuster says. The last thing you want to do
is sign away your rights.
The first step in getting your cash
settlement is that you and the adjuster
reach a verbal agreement, but
this
doesn't finalize anything. Then you'll request a letter (or the
adjuster will tell you a letter is coming) confirming the verbal
agreement.
At the same time you'll send your own confirmation
letter. Remember to keep a copy for yourself.
You
should get the adjuster's letter within a few days. If
not, give
them a call to check on it. These letters are important because there
are still a few things that can go wrong. There's no assurance that
your adjuster can’t get transferred in the company, or even quit.
If
that were to happen, you wouldn't want to start negotiating from
scratch with a new person. The confirmation letters help you prove that
the insurance company has already agreed on a personal injury insurance
settlement amount.
Shortly after completing your confirmation letter, you'll receive a
formal document to sign. This is the
release form you must sign before
you can get the cash for your settlement.
You should receive this
release document within a couple of weeks. But if you don’t,
call the adjuster to make sure it’s on its way.
If the release
doesn't come right away don't worry, there are a lot of small things
that can happen to slow paperwork. With any large business, paperwork
can get "lost in the shuffle."
The actual release document looks different from
state to state, and from insurer to insurer. It will contain a lot of
very intricate legal jargon that may be confusing at first. Don’t be
threatened by it, but make sure you understand it before you sign.
Basically,
the insurance
company has to ensure that you won’t be able to pursue
any further actions against them. Before you get your
personal injury insurance settlement
they'll also want their insured to be waived of any wrongdoing.
This is
a standard stipulation in any release, and while you won’t like it, you
pretty much have to do it. Often the whole reason for settling a claim
out of court is so the insured doesn’t have to admit liability.
Once
you’re satisfied everything is as you discussed, you can sign the
release. Don’t worry about what they did or didn't admit. The important
thing is you got your personal injury insurance settlement, and that’s
what you really
needed.
Return
from Personal Injury Insurance Settlement to Compensatory
Damages
Return
from Personal Injury Insurance Settlement to Personal
Injury Settlement Guide
Personal Injury Areas
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