Making a Request to your Insurance Adjuster
This brief article addresses the best ways to approach an insurance carrier when you’re making a request related to an injury claim. Although, this advice can apply to any sort of claim you are making with any insurance company.
The rule of thumb is, give details and be specific. You have to remember, when you are dealing with an insurance carrier, you are dealing with a rich and powerful company that has lots of money, and you are likely requesting that they part ways with that money. A couple things about that. First, just like any other organization or person, insurance companies don’t want to part ways with their money, so you have to give them good reason—i.e., reasons that are consistent with their contractual and/or legal obligations. And secondly, insurance companies have fiduciary duties to those who pay their premiums to administer their pooled funds responsibly. For that reason, they cannot simply acquiesce to any request you make without verifying the legitimacy of your request.
What does that mean? Again, give details and be specific. Here’s an example: Often times, people receiving worker’s compensation benefits have difficulty paying their rent, since worker’s compensation benefits are paid at a rate less than the injured worker’s full wage. They may need to apply for public benefits such as a bridge card. In order to obtain such benefits, they’ll need documentation from the worker’s compensation carrier proving just how much money they’re making. If you’re in this situation, don’t just say to the insurance adjuster, “I need a letter from work comp to DHHS.“ Instead, tell them, “I’m applying for a bridge card, and I need to show DHHS exactly how much money worker’s comp is paying me so that I can get approved for it.” Why is this important? Because there is a document called a notice of compensation payments that gets filed with the state of Michigan whenever our worker’s compensation claim is being paid. The adjuster can simply send that document directly to DHHS. This is an adjuster who is probably handling hundreds or thousands of claims, and if you make his or her job easy by giving these specific details, they’re more likely to get on top of your request right away. However, if you are vague or nonspecific, that makes you more difficult to deal with in their eyes, so they are probably going put you to the bottom of the stack in terms of people they respond to right away.
Giving details and being specific makes the adjuster’s job easier. When you make the adjusters job easier, they’re much more likely to pay you what you’re owed and not give you as a hassle with your claim. Make their job easier, and they, in turn, will make your life easier.
