There are a couple of insurance companies out there that are offering clients money right after an accident. What’s the catch? To accept the money, you must sign a release which means that you cannot sue for any additional money, even if you ultimately are diagnosed with a significant injury!!! For the insurance company, if the injured person will accept $500 or $1500 (or more for that matter) following an accident and they accept it and sign the release, it is oftentimes WIN for them. Sometimes, it is a LOSS for the person accepting the monies.
The big issue with this is: how do you know what is the value of your case a couple days after the accident? If someone went to the hospital, how much money do you owe at the hospital? While the your own PIP will generally pay 80 percent of the medical bills up to $10,000, many people have a $1,000 PIP deductible and thus they may owe more to the hospital than what the insurance company is offering them. Further, what if the client does need more treatment and what if that treatment exceeds the $10,000 PIP? The point is that you really cannot know the value of your case at the very beginning and thus any sort of negotiation of the case is inappropriate and likely not in the injured person’s favor.
Thus, I would strongly suggest that you obtain a free consultation with a lawyer prior to accepting any money from the insurance company.
