If you have contacted an insurance carrier before consulting a Taylorville personal injury attorney to represent you, the carrier may have taken a statement from you; a Taylorville personal injury attorney would tell you not to agree to this. But, if you do, some less-scrupulous carriers will take that statement and write it up in a way that reflects poorly on you, such as rewording your answers slightly. Once you are given the statement to review, you will be asked to review it, without the benefit of a Taylorville personal injury attorney present, and you may find it difficult to raise objections or questions about it. If the statement is “essentially correct” you will be expected to sign it, which is a binding agreement that the statement is “true and correct to the best of your knowledge.” The insurance company can then bring up the statement in negotiations with you and your Taylorville personal injury attorney.

Consider this example; your Taylorville personal injury lawyer may be able to relate similar ones. A man is riding a bicycle in a camping area when a pickup truck takes a tight turn and forces him into a ditch. He suffers moderate to serious injuries and accrues several thousand dollars’ worth of medical bills.

Within a week of the incident, an insurance adjuster visits the man’s home to get a statement. Since he is still recovering and has not made the decision to retain a Taylorville personal injury attorney, he does not quite understand the ramifications of what is happening or whom the adjuster represents. The adjuster does not tell the man that the statement might be used against him later.

During the deposition with his Taylorville personal injury lawyer present, the man states that he was only three feet from the side of the road. But the attorney for the defense might pull out the statement that was given that says “I’m not sure how far from the side of the road I was.” Your Taylorville personal injury attorney might have ways of defusing this contradiction, but it still looks bad. The man might say that he remembers telling the adjuster that he had only been three feet from the side of the road, but if that is not taken down in the statement, it does not really matter and the Taylorville personal injury lawyer will have to find a way to explain around the statement.

Don’t get caught off-guard by the insurance carrier. Call an experienced Taylorville personal injury attorney at McCarthy Rowden & Baker. Call 800-373-6050.