Darl Champion discusses the different methods insurance companies use in order to make money.

How Insurance Companies Makes Money

Sometimes we will have a client contact us who has been dealing with their insurance company and they will commonly tell us that they aren’t sure if they need an attorney yet because the insurance company says they are going to take care of everything. What I always tell clients is insurance companies are not charities. They are for-profit companies and the way that they make the most money is by paying as little as possible on the claims. So if you are hurt and you are dealing with an insurance adjuster, you should understand that the insurance adjuster is not looking out for your best interest. The insurance adjuster is looking out for the company’s best interest. You need someone on your side who is going to fight for you and advocate for you, and that is what we do as personal injury attorneys. Insurance companies have a variety of factors they use to evaluate a case. One of them is the type of attorney they are up against. They don’t necessarily look at win/loss records, but I think they recognize the lawyers that are willing to fight for their clients, and that’s where I think the difference comes. The lawyers that they know are going to roll over and take whatever settlement is given to them, they are going to offer those lawyers less money. The ones who are going to fight tooth and nail for their clients, they know who they are, and they develop a reputation over time, and the insurance companies know they are not going to get off easy. A lot of times, we skip the pre-settlement process if we think our client isn’t going to get a fair result. We don’t even waste time trying to negotiate with the insurance company. We will file suit right away sometimes. I’ve had cases where someone was seriously injured on someone’s property and I know they are not going to get a fair result, I will often file suit the very next day after getting hired. The reason for that is you don’t want to sit around and wait for the insurance company to give you a low ball offer if you think that’s coming. You are just delaying the inevitable. So when we think that is going to happen, we just go ahead and file a lawsuit. Now that’s not every time, there are times when it makes sense to try to go through the settlement process and see if they will resolve a case, but if they don’t offer our client a fair value, the insurance company is going to know that we are ready and willing to fight for our client.