You received a number from the insurance company and something about it felt wrong. Maybe it was obviously too low. Maybe it was close enough to your out-of-pocket costs that it seemed almost reasonable, but something stopped you from accepting it. That instinct is worth paying attention to, because the feeling that a settlement offer […]
How Do Insurance Companies Decide How Much to Offer
When a settlement offer lands in front of you, it feels like a number pulled from somewhere opaque, a figure the adjuster arrived at through some internal process you have no visibility into and therefore no ability to challenge. That opacity is not accidental. Understanding how insurance companies actually calculate what to offer, and more […]
Should I Accept the First Settlement Offer from Insurance
The first settlement offer from an insurance company almost always arrives before you are ready for it, which is precisely the point. You are still treating. Your doctors have not told you what your recovery looks like long-term. You may have missed weeks of work and the bills are accumulating. Into that uncertainty arrives a […]
Can an Insurance Company Record My Phone Calls Without Telling Me
If you have called an insurance company after an accident, you have almost certainly heard the phrase at the beginning of the call: this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes. Most people register it as background noise and move on. What fewer people understand is what that recording actually is, who can access […]
Do I Have to Give a Recorded Statement to the Insurance Company
Within a day or two of your accident, before you have fully processed what happened, before your injuries have declared themselves, and before you have spoken to anyone with legal training, an insurance adjuster is going to call you and ask whether you would be willing to give a recorded statement. The request will be […]
What If the Accident Happened in a Construction Zone
Construction zone accidents are among the most serious and most legally complex vehicle collisions on the road, and if you were injured in one, the question of who is responsible for compensating you is almost certainly more complicated than it first appears. The instinct most people have is to identify the other driver as the […]
What If I Was in an Accident in a Rental Car
If you were hurt in an accident while driving a rental car, or while riding as a passenger in one, your right to compensation for your injuries is not diminished because the vehicle had someone else’s name on the title. The personal injury claim works the same way it would in any other vehicle. What […]
Can I Still Sue If I Wasn’t Wearing a Seatbelt
The seatbelt question sits at a particular intersection of legal doctrine, insurance strategy, and moral intuition that makes it more complicated than most people expect and more consequential than almost anyone plans for. The short answer is that in most states, including Missouri, not wearing a seatbelt does not bar you from bringing a personal […]
What If the Accident Was Partly My Fault
Most serious accidents are not clean. One driver ran a red light, but the other was going fifteen miles over the speed limit. One driver failed to signal a lane change, but the other was following too closely to stop safely. A driver pulled into traffic without enough clearance, but the approaching vehicle was not […]
What If There Are No Witnesses to My Accident
The absence of witnesses is one of the first things people fixate on after an accident, and it tends to produce a particular kind of anxiety that is both understandable and somewhat misdirected. The assumption embedded in the worry is that witnesses are the primary mechanism by which fault gets established, and that without them, […]