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.