Workers’ Comp and Personal Injury. Are you being fairly represented?

At the desk with me now is, Atlanta Personal Injury Attorney, Attorney Richard Griffin. Richard, thank you for coming in again.

Glad to be here.

Okay, we’re going to start off talking about adjusters. So tell me exactly what they do. What’s their job?

Well adjusters, (with personal injury cases or workers’ comp cases.) their job is to try to basically adjust the claim and pay money to resolve the claim for the insurance company that insured the responsible party. Now part of their job is to do so for as little money as possible.

So they can low-ball a lot of their clientele without them actually knowing?

Well that’s true. If you don’t know the value of your case and or if you represent yourself, they’re going to lock into very small numbers. They may even just say, “We’re not going to pay anything.”. They may offer $500 and it may be worth a $100,000. Adjusters are trained to I use every weakness they can find (and make a big deal out of it) and then try to get away with paying as little as possible.

Adjusting the numbers, but not to our favor, to be honest.

So tell me the importance of being represented. Should they just take the adjusters, push them off to the side and then actually go to a personal injury attorney?

Well, in a personal injury case after the automobile accident happens, you call the police, you get the witness information and things are moving. The adjuster is going to very quickly try to get a recorded statement to try to get information that’s going to hurt your case and help their position. So it’s much better to never give that recorded statement and to call an attorney. We’d like to talk to people as soon as possible so that we can guide them through that. If a recorded statement is needed (it’s not always needed) then we’re going to want to be on the phone as well and prepare the client for that.

Tell me about the process once you guys start to take over— what the client can expect.

Well we’re gonna pretty much take care of everything. We’re gonna be there (on a personal injury case) making sure that all the insurance companies are notified properly. If you don’t do that, you might lose coverage. On auto case, there can be a lot of coverages that you can stack.

On a Worker’s Comp case, we’re going to make sure that the Workers Comp benefits or kicked in. If they’re not, able to work, the medical treatment begins to be paid for by workers comp.

In both situations, the adjuster is going to be, kind of the person saying, “No.” and we’re going to be the ones trying to push through that resistance.

So adjusters don’t necessarily take the personal injury and then the workers comp cases and treat them fairly. I mean, it could be a little unfair.

Well what is fair to the insurance company is unfair to the injured party. So they are absolutely 100% looking for what’s best for the insurance company. Unfortunately, every dollar saved is that the expense of the person who was injured.

These low ball offers that nobody wants to actually deal with or actually be told that. How can you overcome those?

We had a client that was an EMT in an ambulance. He was injured in an automobile accident on the job.

So he had a personal injury case against the negligent driver and that insurance company and he had a worker’s comp claim against the employers insurance company. He waited 30 days, which is a big mistake. He was in hurt, he was in pain but he delayed [getting treatment]. Well, the adjuster for the personal injury said, “Soft tissue injuries? Here’s $500.”  The Workers Comp Adjuster said, “We’re rejecting the claim altogether. You didn’t notify us soon enough.”

It’s almost like you want to throw your hands in the air! What do I do at this point? I’m being rejected.

That’s when you come in to play.

Yeah we went to work right away and we fought for him. We ended up getting both policies tendered on the automobile claim for a total of $75,000.

So that went from $500 to $75,000.

On the Workers’ Comp Claim, there were some real hurdles because he’d delayed so long going to the doctor.  We were able to get another $25,000.

So he went from a no offers and $500, to a total of  $100,000 after we went to work on both claims.

Literally shot through the roof!

We know that you have a testimonial. We want to listen-in to that. This is a first hand thing right here.

Client Testimonial

“My advice anyone who is thinking, “they don’t want to be that guy” or  I think they’re bad bad for calling attorney. Don’t think that way and don’t believe that. You’re just protecting yourself, you’re protecting your health, you’re protecting your livelihood and you’re protecting your family. Don’t ever be afraid or hesitate to call an attorney. Just as long as you call, Richard Griffin’s law firm.”

Richard, thank you for coming in.

I do want to point out. Your website is SO helpful. You go on there and immediately if you’re not sure what to do, a box pops up and someone’s going to talk to you right then and there and answer all your questions.

That’s right and you can call 877-PAINLAW and we will be glad to have a free consultation regarding any claim.