A leading road safety charity has moved to warn people against insurers who are acting to settle claims mere hours after accidents have taken place. Brake is concerned that insurers are encouraging victims to take a pay out before getting legal or medical advice. This problem with this is that, although it may be tempting to settle the claim quickly and gain compensation early, victims can be left out of pocket especially if they have longer lasting injuries. The pay outs offered are in full and final settlement of claims and mean that there is no legal option to claim any further compensation once this is agreed.
Insurers have often looked to force victims of accidents to settle claims at an early stage in an attempt to minimise the amount of money that they pay out. It is unscrupulous behaviour by insurance companies to move to try and dissuade victims not to seek legal advice especially in the days and even hours following accidents were injured parties are often in pain, upset and shaken up following their ordeal and not necessarily in a position to fully weigh up their options.
According to the BBC website, Kimberley Harrison was one such person who was put under pressure to settle her accident claim immediately following an accident. She describes the third party insurers as behaving ‘like a bully – really trying to push me to close a deal’.
As solicitors it is always our intention to try and progress your claim for you as quickly as possible and to provide an effective, efficient service. However, we don’t want to do this at the expense of settling your claim for less money than you are entitled to. We would always advise victims of accidents to seek legal advice before settling their claim and to be careful about signing anything before getting that advice.
Following the findings from Brake, the Financial Services Authority are investigating the concerns and hope to have a report on this later in the year.
