What To Do When The At-Fault Driver’s Insurance Won’t Pay After A Crash

You’ve just been through a traumatic car accident that wasn’t your fault. Your vehicle is severely damaged or totaled. You’re recovering from painful injuries. And to make matters worse, the at-fault driver’s insurance company is giving you the runaround, refusing to pay your legitimate claim.

It’s one of the most maddening situations an accident victim can face – but unfortunately, it’s all too common. Insurance providers are multi-billion dollar corporations incentivized to nickel-and-dime injury claimants at every turn to preserve their profits. When they think they can get away with it, the bad faith games and denial tactics start flying.

As seasoned Brooklyn, NY, personal injury attorneys, we’ve witnessed virtually every underhanded insurance tactic in the book. More importantly, we know exactly how to advocate for your rights and counter their stall techniques. You don’t have to accept their lowball settlement offer or denial of your rightful compensation. By understanding why insurance companies behave this way and the proper response, you can emerge from this ordeal victoriously.

Why Insurance Companies May Refuse to Pay Your Claim

While infuriating, insurance claims denials often trace back to a few predictable justifications:

• Disputing Fault: The insurer may argue the evidence doesn’t prove their client was liable for the collision that caused your injuries. So, in their view, they shouldn’t have to pay out a third-party claim at all.
• Downplaying Damages: Even if they accept basic liability, the carrier will try minimizing the monetary value of your vehicle damage, medical bills, lost wages, or other economic losses stemming from the incident. Their offered payout doesn’t come close to making you whole.
• Policy Exclusions: The insurance policy language contains all sorts of outs and limits that can enable an adjuster to entirely deny your claim or cap payments below what’s truly owed. They may claim certain damages fall outside of the covered provisions.

In any scenario, the insurer’s core incentive is protecting their own fiscal interests over fairly compensating you, the innocent victim. That’s why determined legal representation proves absolutely invaluable.

Common Bad Faith Insurance Tactics to Watch Out For

Beyond baselessly denying claims or undervaluing damages, watch for these additional bad-faith tactics:

• Delaying and Dragging Out Investigations: Purposefully being slow to respond and communicate, costing you time and pressuring you into accepting a lower settlement.
• Leading Questions: Adjusters ask misleading questions aimed at getting you to admit some degree of fault, and then they deny based on your statements.
• Excessive Documentation Demands: Burdensome requests for documents, records, and submissions most claimants can’t reasonably compile alone.
• Bare-Bones Denial Explanations: You’ll receive a vague, unsubstantiated reason for denial, lacking clear evidence justifying their decision as lawful.

The common thread is underhanded techniques designed to erode your resolve until you simply give up or accept an inadequate payout. But having a personal injury firm vigilantly advocating on your behalf puts a stop to these games.

Steps to Take After an Auto Insurance Claim Denial

If your claim has been denied or you’ve been offered an unfair settlement offer, don’t panic – but do quickly take defensive measures.

First, resist the urge to retaliate in frustration and remain polite and calm in all communications. Hostile responses could undermine your credibility later.

Next, document all interactions and requests made by the insurance company from this point forward. Keep notes, save emails/letters, and record all call conversations.

Then, collect and organize all relevant evidence to strengthen your case for both liability and the full extent of damages suffered. Items could include:

• The police report and eyewitness statements from the accident
• All photo and video footage of the wreck and resulting injuries
• Medical evaluation reports and records of care required
• Proof of lost wages and any out-of-pocket expenses

Once you’ve built a comprehensive file, partnering with an experienced personal injury law firm becomes crucial for moving your claim in the right direction.

The Power of Having a Car Accident Lawyer Negotiate for You

Insurance companies know they can usually outmuscle unrepresented claimants driven by desperation. But squaring off against aggressive legal advocacy changes the dynamic entirely.

Our team understands New York’s bad-faith insurance laws and regulations governing fair claims practices. We instantly analyze the policy language to identify exclusions or limitations the carrier improperly cited as grounds for denial.

From there, we apply intense negotiating pressure leveraged by our reputation for taking meritorious cases to trial if needed. The insurance company knows we possess the resources and skill to credibly escalate with maximum damages awarded by a jury.

More importantly, bad faith violations like abuse of delay tactics or outright misrepresentation instantly empower us to seek additional punitive damages against the insurer. These penalties raise the stakes should they continue acting in bad faith during settlement negotiations.

So, while claimants going it alone face long odds, our battle-tested advocacy levels the playing field entirely. The carrier must take your demands seriously, or we will force their compliance through the legal system.

When You May Need to File a Lawsuit

Sometimes, insurance companies stubbornly refuse to be reasonable, even after we push them. In those cases, filing an official personal injury lawsuit becomes necessary to resolve the claim:

• If the insurance company completely denies your claim despite clear evidence proving their client was at-fault
• When the insurance company’s settlement offer is way too low, and they won’t increase it to properly cover your damages
• If there’s still heavy disagreement over who was liable and more investigation is needed to prove negligence
• When the at-fault driver’s insurance policy limits are too low to cover the full extent of your economic and non-economic damages

Nobody wants to go through the long and uncertain process of a trial unless they absolutely have to. That’s why our skilled negotiators are so valuable. If we can’t get you a fair settlement offer before filing a lawsuit, we’ll work to make the lawsuit process as smooth as possible while maximizing the pressure on the other side

You Deserve Better Than Being Mistreated by Insurance Companies

No accident victim begins their claims process expecting to be devalued, disrespected, and discounted by the very insurance companies expected to make them whole again after negligence upends their lives. But the sad reality is that these for-profit entities are highly incentivized to minimize paid claims however they can – even resorting to bad faith delay and denial tactics against the injured every single day.

At Held, Held & Held, taking on these major insurance carriers and ensuring claimants’ voices get heard is our personal calling. Through an exhaustive understanding of bad faith laws, aggressive negotiation skills, and a reputation for prevailing, we empower accident victims to reject the unacceptable.

So, if you’re currently facing an insurance company refusing to compensate you reasonably after an accident you didn’t cause, don’t resign yourself to this injustice. Contact us for a free, no-obligation case evaluation.