UNFAIR TACTIC: The Other Driver’s Insurance Representative Tells You “My Company Won’t Pay if You Don’t Sign Our Medical Release Form”
The first thing to remember is that the other driver’s insurance is not likely to pay anything for your injury unless and until you are willing to settle your Iowa personal injury case once and for all. Signing a medical release or any other insurance corporation document is not likely to change that.
An insurance corporation is eventually entitled to review records of any medical treatment for which you ask to be reimbursed. In our experience, however, most medical release forms are written in such a way they give the other driver’s insurance corporation access to all of your medical records–even records that are unrelated to your car accident injuries.
Often insurance corporations will then turn around and use your pre-accident health history as an excuse for making an unreasonably low settlement offer. For example, they will often argue that – because you had chiropractic treatment in the past – you were “damaged goods” before the car crash and should not receive full compensation for your injuries.
Our firm protects our clients from this unfair tactic in several ways:
- We advise our clients to avoid giving the other driver’s insurance corporation a medical release until we have reviewed your medical records first.
- If our review uncovers items in your medical history that may affect your claim, we make sure that you know about it before the other driver’s insurance corporation does.
- When we do provide the other driver’s insurance corporation with a medical release, we make sure the release only applies to relevant medical treatment.
To find out the rest of the Six Unfair Tactics Insurance Corporations Use to Exploit Car Accident Victims, use the form on this page to download the entire Law Guide to Iowa Car Accident Claims.
