About 3-4 times a week we get a call from someone who says that they are looking to talk to the work comp adjuster on their case and have been unsuccessful. I’m not going to lie, most of these people are Amazon workers who are trying to get a hold of Sedgwick, but there are other insurance companies who this applies to also.
So the question is, why won’t the work comp adjuster talk to you?
The number one reason is actually an innocent one. If you are already represented by an attorney, the insurance company can’t and shouldn’t talk to you. They could get in trouble and doing so is unethical. Most injured workers who have a lawyer but contact the insurance company do so because either they can’t get reach their attorney or don’t want to bother them. Neither of those excuses is acceptable.
If you can’t reach your lawyer and that’s a regular problem then they are not doing a good job for you. You should fire them and get a new one which will cost you nothing to do. Get a real advocate in your corner. If you are worried about bothering them, don’t. They are going to eventually make money off of your case. Make them earn it. They are there to be contacted when you need them. It’s not a bother. If your check is late or a medical procedure isn’t getting approved, it’s their job to fix it.
The other big reason and insurance company doesn’t talk to you is strategy. It is their hope that they can frustrate you in a way that will help their case and lower their costs. That’s all they really care about. They don’t lay awake at night worrying about how you are going to pay your rent or bills or if your injury will get worse if it’s not treated in a timely fashion.
So they hope that if they ignore you, you’ll try to work when you shouldn’t or seek out medical care through your own insurance. If you do, it saves them money. It’s a dirty insurance company trick.
The final reason you don’t hear back has to do with how bad some of these companies are to work for. When they have a lot of turnover, it takes a moment to re-assign case files to someone. This can overwhelm adjusters and often they will just ignore newer files until they are caught up. You as an injured worker can get caught up in the crosshairs.
The solution to the last two problems is to file trial motions. That goes back to the first point that your lawyer needs to be an advocate for you. Your job is to focus on your health and communicate with your attorney. Your attorney is there to solve these problems as they come up. There’s no need for you to spend hours on the phone trying to get someone on the line.
