If you are injured while working in Illinois and it’s more than a short term problem (e.g. you’ll need lots of treatment or surgery), then your accident will of course affect your life. Call me Captain Obvious.
You should be more concerned about your injury than anyone you know and if you have a good law firm in your corner, your attorney should be a close second. That means you are paying attention to details, communicating with your doctor and attorney, not missing doctor’s appointments, etc. It’s not hard stuff. I don’t want you to be obsessed with your case, but I do want you to treat it seriously.
While a serious injury such as a fusion or one that causes you to lose your career makes it seem like your life is on the line (and it may be), to the insurance company you are just another case name and number. The reality is that your claim is being handled by an insurance adjuster who has your file and 500-1,000 others. They might act like jerks to you or blow you off, but it’s often because they could really care less what happens to you. And this is your biggest advantage.
I say this based on an e-mail I recently got that proves my point. An insurance adjuster who handles claims for a very large company was getting a real hard time from his bosses about the number of open cases he had. In fact they had authorized him to spend a certain amount to close his cases and he was way below that number. You’d think he’d be rewarded for saving them money, but in fact his job was at risk because he didn’t settle enough cases.
So he, looking out for nothing other than himself, put the word out that he was open for business and willing to settle any case that he had for good money as long as he could justify the settlement if he ever got audited. So while he wasn’t going to give someone a million dollars if the case was worth between $50-75k, he certainly would give out the $75k.
Just like how you are concerned about your future, these insurance adjusters are concerned about theirs. What happened to this particular adjuster doesn’t happen to all of them, but most that I know are compensated in part based on how many files they close.
What you shouldn’t do is settle just to settle or too early. If you are getting medical care then you only focus on that. However, if your case is ready to settle your lawyer should absolutely use to their advantage the fact that the adjuster wants your case closed. Every day it’s open costs their company money. So while it may seem like the fact the insurance company treats you like garbage is a bad thing, we can use their lack of care against them and make it a good thing.
If you’d like to discuss a possible case, fill out our contact form to the right or call us at (312) 346-5578. We have a state wide network of lawyers who handle Illinois work injury cases in every part of the state.
