Giving a Recorded Statement

Answer:

As soon as you are a victim of a personal injury incident, be it a car accident or even sometimes medical malpractice, you’re going to get a barrage of phone calls from insurance companies. One of the main things that they’re going to want to do is get a recorded statement from you. Please understand that this recorded statement is not for your benefit at all. It is for their benefit early on while you’re still under the stress of the incident and different things to solidify facts in order for them to attempt to deny your claim.

Should you give a recorded statement? The answer is unequivocally, absolutely not. Never ever, ever give a recorded statement to an insurance company before you talk to a lawyer regarding what has happened to you. Talk to a lawyer first. Call our office. It doesn’t matter if it’s after hours, on the weekend— call our office. Speak with one of our attorneys first, one of our staff people before you give a recorded statement. Please be assured that they’re going to use this recorded statement against you at some point, even if you know that you are not at fault. It’s not a good idea to just immediately offer up a recorded statement because there could be other things under the law that they use to mitigate their responsibility in taking care of the claims of your accident, even with your own insurance company. Again, these folks want your money but they’re not really willing to give up a lot of theirs.

At some point, will you have to give them a statement of what happened in the case? Absolutely. They’ll threaten you with things saying we’re not going to pursue your claim. We’re going to close your case if you don’t give us a recorded statement. All of that is false. They have an obligation to pursue your claim but you have a right to talk to a lawyer first. We would strongly urge you to do so. Whether it’s on the weekend, after hours, in the middle of the night, pick up the phone. Call one of our lawyers or one of our staff people will answer the phone. We’ll go over the facts of your case and we’ll call and deal with the insurance company and give them the information that they need to pursue your personal injury case.