Hi, my name is Arkady Frekhtman from F&A Injury Lawyers. And today I’m discussing what do insurance companies hate. Insurance companies hate when you ask certain questions because it shows you’re knowledgeable, you know what you’re doing, you’re aggressive, and you’re not going to take no for an answer.

Insurance companies hate the question and adjusters, adjusters really hate when you ask them point-blank, “What is your check writing authority?” Because a lot of adjusters only have authority up to a certain point. Even if it’s a big policy, even if it’s a million-dollar policy, this adjuster who’s handling your claim may only have authority for example to $50,000. And that means they just cannot get more than 50,000 without going to their supervisor and getting approval. And there are certain prerequisites that they have to show as to why they’re going to the supervisor, why this case warrants approval. They have to write reports. They have to jump through all these different hoops just to get more approval.

And so they don’t want to do that. They want to keep the file. They don’t want the file to go to a different adjuster. They don’t want somebody else, like their supervisor, their boss, watching over them to say, “Hey, how come you couldn’t settle it within your primary authority?” Because if they settle it for their primary authority, they probably get bonused for that. “Oh, you got rid of the case within your primary authority. Great job. Here’s a bonus.”

So, see, the bottom line is these insurance companies are financial for-profit entities. All they care about is making money and their bottom line, and saving money, and paying out as little as possible to the injury claimant, you. So what you need to do is have a lawyer who’s very knowledgeable, who understands how all of this works so that they could sidestep all the pitfalls and just cut through it, like cutting through butter with a knife, and go for the maximum. Because a lot of the time, even with a million policy, that adjuster only has check-writing authority to 50,000.

So then file a lawsuit. Don’t even bother speaking with them. Get the other adjuster on and then find out if they have access to an umbrella, because even on a million, they could have 10 million, or we’ve even seen cases where beyond the million, they have 25 million excess beyond the first million. But they won’t tell you about that unless you ask for it. And you ask for affidavits, affidavits of search, speak to the brokers who wrote the policies, just go all in. So it’s very, very important.

So I hope this has been helpful. Always find out their check-writing authority and make sure you’re dealing with the right person. And if not, ask them to move it up the ladder. Okay.

Have a great day, everyone. Bye-bye.