The insurance company isn’t on your side. No matter what their TV commercials say, they are looking out for their own wallets, not yours.

Here’s what you need to know about settlement offers from insurance companies:

• They may significantly undervalue your damages. Insurance companies are notorious for making “lowball” settlement offers. This is often part of a strategy to pressure the victim into taking less than they deserve in order to minimize the insurer’s financial exposure.
• Once you accept the offer, you can never ask for more money. Accepting a settlement offer requires signing a binding “mutual release agreement,” which courts will generally uphold. Unfortunately, car crash victims will sometimes take the settlement and then realize later that they have more medical bills than they realized — or that their injuries are more serious than doctors suspected, or that something didn’t heal properly and now there are costly complications. For these reasons, it’s never a good idea to take a settlement offer too soon without consulting an attorney first.
• Settlement offers may be better for the insurance company than they are for you. Insurance companies do not make settlement offers out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it through careful calculation, using formulas designed to save themselves money.

We understand that it can be tempting to take a settlement offer right away — it might feel like you’re “turning down money,” and that’s hard to do. But you may be able to recover even more money. That’s why it is important to talk with an Augusta auto accident lawyer first. Make sure your decision is a fully informed one.