Five Ways Insurers Undercut Claims w/ Attorney Chaz Roberts

A car wreck can change your life in seconds and then the insurance company starts building a case against you. We’ve handled thousands of personal injury cases, and we keep seeing the same five defense tactics used to pay less or deny claims entirely. Knowing them upfront helps you protect your credibility and avoid mistakes that quietly shave huge dollars off your settlement value. 

We walk through why delayed medical treatment is so damaging, even when you honestly thought you could “rub some dirt on it” and keep going. We also explain how “gaps in treatment” get weaponized, what it means to mitigate damages, and why missed appointments can look like you do not take your injuries seriously. Then we get into the pre existing injury argument, how insurers label people “damaged goods,” and how honesty with your doctors and a clean timeline can show a real aggravation or flare up after the crash. 

Next, we tackle the minimal property damage defense and why a small looking wreck can still produce serious pain, treatment, or even surgery debates, often with experts on both sides. We close with the big one: surveillance and social media. If you post workout clips, dancing videos, or “living my best life” content while your claim is pending, you may be handing the defense the easiest exhibit they will ever use. 

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If you are in need of legal guidance, visit our website: https://www.chazrobertslaw.com/

This show is co-produced by Carter Simoneaux of AcadianaCasts Network, Chaz H. Roberts of Chaz Roberts Law and Kayli Guidry Bonin of Beau The Agency, and Laith Alferahin. 

Transcript

Why Insurers Fight Your Claim

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You guys know I've been practicing law for almost 16 years and I've handled thousands of personal injury cases over that time. And so today I want to talk about the five most common tactics that defense lawyers and insurance companies use to undermine your case or to flat out deny your case. And so these are all tactics that I've seen through my career. And I've seen multiple tactics being used in the same case. I've seen one of them being used in some cases, but there are certain patterns that I've picked up on. And today I want to talk about those patterns, those attacks that they use to undermine, deny, or flat out, kill your case. And so we're going to go through some of those. Now, not all insurance companies are evil. Some of them try to do right by the injured party to protect their own client. But sometimes they're going to do what they do and they want to make money, right? And so we have to know who our opponent is. Our opponent has money and they don't want to pay you. The more money that they save, the more money they make, the more their shareholders are happy, the better their stock does, and everybody wins on that side. So insurance companies are not your friends. And so they use these tactics. And let's talk about these tactics.

Delayed Treatment Hurts Credibility

SPEAKER_00 1:19

The first tactic that they use is you waited too long to get treatment after your wreck. And so if you were really hurt, you should have gone to the emergency room or the urgent care that day, the next day, or immediately after. So you waited too long. What they're doing is they're taking advantage of your ability to rub some dirt on it and keep your life moving. Okay. And so what we say is the best time after a wreck to get yourself treated is the day of. What you really want to do is avoid waiting weeks and weeks, or if not months. If you call me and you've waited two months to get treated, it's really, really tough because the defense lawyer is going to show a jury one day or a judge one day and say, look, this person really was not hurt because they waited two months or one month. Recently, I had a trial. They were arguing that 10 days was unreasonable. Now, luckily, my client was able to sit down and discuss and say exactly why she waited 10 days. She felt symptoms the next day, thought it was soreness, thought it would get better. And so she waited a reasonable time to seek medical care. The problem is that's one more thing you have to explain. And so they're going to make certain arguments to the jury and they're going to try to kill you with the death of a thousand razor blades. And one of it is you waited too long to get treated. You know I recommend. What do I do, Chaz? Okay, that's a good argument. I understand that they're going to tell a jury or a judge, hey, she's not really hurt. He's not really hurt because he waited a month. What do we do with that? Here's what you do. You get in a car wreck, you should go to urgent care that day or the next day. That's perfectly reasonable. I like urgent care if it's not an emergency. If it's an emergency, if you go to an emergency room, it's because it's a severe injury. And we know you need to go to an emergency room when it's time to go to an emergency room. I like to try to avoid the emergency room unless it's a severe injury, because emergency rooms are very expensive. And an ambulance is very expensive. Now, the other side of it is, the other side of it is some people, street lawyers, will advice that's been passed down through the streets is anytime I'm involved in a wreck, even if it's a parking lot bump, I need to take an ambulance to prove that I have a case. That is the extreme version. I'm not saying to take the ambulance. An ambulance is a $2,500 ride up down the street. You could go to France and back probably twice for the same price that it takes to go from Pinhook to Oshner in an ambulance. Okay. I only go to an ambulance, I only advise taking an ambulance if it's absolutely necessary. You think you have some kind of trauma, you can't, you have some kind of trauma to your head, to your torso, a broken bone, you need to be put in a neck stabilizer. I get it. Sometimes the ambulance is a life-saving measure, but you don't need to go to the emergency room in an ambulance just to prove you have a case, but you do need to get medical care as soon as possible. And I prefer that day, I prefer the next day. Two days later, depending on the weekend, depending on the circumstances, it's raining outside. It was late, it was a late wreck. That's reasonable. Don't wait a month, don't wait two months. You're just giving the defense lawyer and the insurance company ammunition to say you were not really hurt.

Gaps In Treatment And Missed Visits

SPEAKER_00 4:56

The second tactic that insurance companies use and defense lawyers use to pay you less or flat out deny your claim is to say that you have gaps in treatment. Gap is an insurance term. Gap means you missed appointments. You didn't treat consistently consistently. And what it means is what they want to tell a jury or a judge is hey, this person can't really be hurt because they didn't prioritize their treatment. Now, also remember you have a duty to mitigate your damages. That means you have the duty to fix yourself as quickly as possible in the best way possible. That's a duty, a duty to mitigate damages is pretty much universal in every area of the law, right? If if the windstorm blows off your roof, you should go put a blue tarp so that everything in your house doesn't get flooded. So gaps in treatment make it look like you're not really concerned about getting better. Other things are are a priority in your life. And so if you didn't prioritize your appointment, and look, if you go look at the medical records, some some medical facilities will put did not show, charge them 50 bucks, did not show, did not call, did not reschedule. That looks bad. It looks like you're not prioritizing your health. If you're not prioritizing your health, are you really hurt? So we never, we always encourage our clients, never miss a doctor's appointment. If you have to call and reschedule, respect their time, respect their ability to run a business. Call within a reasonable time and reschedule it within a reasonable time. If not, you could be the victim of that defense that says gaps in treatment. It's an industry term, it's an insurance term, a gap. A gap means you don't care. That's what it means. You don't care about your treatment. So why should the judge, why should the jury, why should a judge or jury believe you were really hurt and deserve a lot of money if you didn't prioritize your health?

Pre Existing Injuries And Honesty

SPEAKER_00 7:02

The third way that insurance companies try to deny or claim or pay you a lot less than what you deserve is say, oh, we believe that you're hurt, but we think it was pre-existing. You had pre-existing neck pain, you had pre-existing back pain, you were involved in three prior wrecks, you had neck surgery, you had back surgery before this, you are damaged goods. And so this wreck didn't cause that. We're only going to pay what we're responsible to pay. We're only going to pay what this wreck costs. And you know what? I understand that argument, right? We're all reasonable people. A jury is made up of reasonable people. A judge is a reasonable person. That's not fair that this insurance company has to pay for everything you've ever, any uh injury you've ever had. Okay, how do we get around that? How do we get around that? Even if you had a pre-existing injury, neck pain, but your neck pain had resolved for years at a time, or even 18 months, six months, and then this new wreck caused all that neck pain to come back or made it worse, they're still responsible for that. Just because you had neck pain and back pain before doesn't mean that you can't collect for this neck pain and back pain. How do we handle that? That is a common defense. In fact, it could be one of the most common defenses because when you're 54 years old and you get in a car wreck, you've lived life. You've done some things. You might have an old football injury, you might have had two prior wrecks, you might have even had a prior case. We don't expect people to be perfect. And we also have the eggshell plaintiff doctrine, right? That talks about those sorts of things. You shouldn't not pursue your claim in a car wreck because you've had prior injuries. We just have to be smart about it. So, the way you do that, the best way, the best practice is when you start seeing doctors for the new car wreck, you need to disclose that you had prior neck pain or prior back pain. They're gonna ask you your history. Don't lie about it. Don't say, oh, no, I've never had neck pain, and you've had two neck surgeries in the past. Oh, I've never had back pain, and you know you were seeing a chiropractor. You just gotta be upfront about it and say, look, I did have, uh I did get treated with a chiropractor, you know, six years ago. My neck was hurting back then. They fixed it. I haven't had any issues. This wreck happened, and boom, my neck hurts again. Or my neck hurts worse, or whatever the facts are. Don't hide that information. Because if you hide it, it makes it seem like you're dishonest about it. You are who you are. And look, sometimes we don't always remember when we treated in the past. Try to do a good job of being fully transparent because we all understand that humans live life and have experiences and bad things happen over the course of our life. That doesn't prevent us from exercising our rights in this case. You just have to be transparent. Okay, and so it's a common thing. Don't lie

Minimal Damage Claims And Experts

SPEAKER_00 10:20

about it. All right, number four is minimal property damage. Oof, just went to trial last week on this. That was a big, big, big debate. And they had an accident reconstructionist, they had a uh an acceleration, deceleration expert, biomechanical expert who says that this property damage can't cause this wreck. Oftentimes plaintiffs will also have a biomechanical expert that says, no, no, this can cause this type of injury. The reality is sometimes, sometimes there is a wreck and visually it doesn't look that bad. But in those cases, the research will show that sometimes in those cases where visually it doesn't look as bad, those could actually cause worse injuries because there's no crash plates that absorb some of the impact. And so what happens is the force is transferred through your body. And so that's a big, big thing that a big, big defense where minimal property damage. We don't believe that this type of wreck could have caused that type of injury. We don't believe that this type of wreck could have caused the need for surgery. And the reality is it happens every day, happens every single day where things that appear minor can lead to major consequences. And so they're really trying to appeal to the jury or a judge and say, look, this couldn't have caused all this, is it's nothing. This is an issue for the doctors to discuss, this is an issue for experts to discuss. But I'm just making you aware, this is a defense, but if you are hurt and it doesn't visually look bad, don't believe that that prevents you from having a case. So, yeah, minimal property damage. Typical, typical defense. We see it all the time. We usually get around it. Don't let it prohibit you from making your claim just because it doesn't look visually bad.

Surveillance And Social Media Mistakes

SPEAKER_00 12:28

The last point, number five, is surveillance and Facebook and what you do in public. All right, surveillance, they will hire creeps to follow you around and get footage of you looking like a normal person. I've seen people take the trash out on camera, I've seen people carry their groceries, I've seen people, I've seen these creeps follow people in the gym and take footage of them lifting weights. All right. Now look, if you think that you have a big case and you're not willing to make sacrifices by getting people to assist you with the things that your doctor said that you shouldn't be doing, then that's your own damn fault. Right? Because the doctor told you not to do those things and you're still wanting to do those things. And so that's your fault. You did that. But even worse is when people, and I've had this happen so many times, will post pictures of themselves or videos of themselves on Facebook or even create TikTok videos dancing. There's some, there's a famous twerking videos that we've seen on their own. They are posting it. It's not even, they didn't even have to hire a private eye creep to follow you around. You are actually filming yourself and posting it to the public. Well, what's an insurance company gonna do? What's a defense lawyer gonna do? They're gonna hire people or even get their stab, their paralegal, their assistant, to scrape the internet, scrape Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and get videos and footage, and then they're gonna blow it up as big as the wall and show a jury and say, this is the person that's asking you for several hundred thousand dollars. Does this person look like they're materially altered, permanently injured, not enjoying life? You did that to yourself. There's one thing to be mindful of surveillance. And look, the last probably five times I've had surveillance conducted on my client, four of those or three of those, my client knew that they were following them. Okay. They're they're not as slick as they want to pretend to be. In fact, one of them called the cops on them. But Facebook and TikTok, you're posting yourself and putting it out to the public while you have an ongoing personal injury case. What are you doing? You're hurting yourself. You're you're giving them ammunition to shoot you. No other way of putting it. I've seen cases lose $100,000, $200,000, $300,000 of value by that. I know that there's people that get zeroed because of that. You did it yourself. Are you telling me you can't make sacrifices for a year, 18 months, two years, six months, whatever, and not post on Facebook? Look, appear like you're living your best life, right? And so those are the five arguments.

Final Warnings And What To Do

SPEAKER_00 15:29

And I've seen each one of those employed. And so if you know these things going in, I hope some of my current clients listen to these things and are more mindful of it. And I hope I don't have to see you one day after a car wreck because nothing ever bad happens to you. I really don't wish this on my worst enemy. But if it does, call me and be mindful of these things, these traps. All right. Hope you enjoy the episode. Spin law, have mercy. Have a great day.