Leading personal injury lawyers across the United States come together to provide advice in the new book, “ Injured in an Accident?: Ten of America’s Leading Personal Injury Attorneys Share Their Wisdom.” The book includes a section by Massachusetts personal injury attorney Peter Ventura on the state of the insurance industry and the role of a personal injury attorney. All proceeds from the book’s sales benefit Kiwanis charities.
Accidents and injuries are an unfortunate reality of life, and they can have unexpected or difficult consequences. One of these difficulties is the fact that when an injury results from someone else’s carelessness, a person attempting to recover fair compensation for their injuries is flung into the complicated and unfamiliar legal system.
Fortunately, the recently released book “Injured in an Accident?: Ten of America’s Leading Personal Injury Attorneys Share Their Wisdom” can help people better understand the system, allowing them to take a more engaged role in the process. The book contains contributions by experienced personal injury attorneys from across the country providing a variety of perspectives on the practical realities of the personal injury litigation process. These insider tips can help victims learn about potential pitfalls before they happen so that they can better avoid common litigation traps and mistakes.
A Chapter Written by Peter Ventura
The book contains a section by a Worcester-based personal injury attorney, Peter Ventura, who details the state of the insurance industry and how it came to have the aggressively anti-consumer business model that victims often encounter. The insurance industry used to operate in a much more congenial manner, focusing on providing service to customers and sound investment practices. Insurance companies would seek enhanced profits through better underwriting, better marketing and customer service, than their competitors. This began to change in the 1950s.
Insurance companies began looking for other ways to improve their bottom lines. This included a public relations campaign to demonize personal injury claimants as well as developing a business model of claims handling that is anti-consumer. Insurance adjusters are employees of the insurance company who get assigned to a particular insurance claim as representatives of the company and help investigate the facts of the claim. While these adjusters used to be focused on resolving these claims, adjusters are now often focused on denying as many claims as possible and delaying payment on the claims that they cannot deny. They understand the system thoroughly, especially compared to victims who often are having their first experience with the personal injury system.
The Benefits of Hiring a Personal Injury Attorney
Ventura’s contribution to the book also highlights the way that personal injury lawyers can help push back against this new model of the insurance industry. Personal injury attorneys can often use their experience to help level the playing field against insurance companies. Just like insurance adjusters and the lawyers for insurance companies, personal injury attorneys move through the legal system every day. They can lend their experience to the victim, and help them counter common insurance company strategies for denying or delaying payment on legitimate claims.
Attorneys can also offer other tangible benefits. For instance, personal injury lawyers are used to investigating the facts of accidents and injuries. These attorneys can help determine what happened, giving the victim the power to push back against the insurance company and the claims adjuster’s version of what happened in the accident.
Learn More
If you have recently been injured in an accident and are now faced with the task of dealing with an insurance adjuster you can learn more about the process in the book” Injured in an Accident?: Ten of America’s Leading Personal Injury Attorneys Share Their Wisdom.” However, there is no substitute for real-world experience of a dedicated personal injury lawyer.
