November 30, 2011
Hi, I am personal injury and wrongful death lawyer, Elliott Dennis with a tip for you.
A person involved in an auto accident where injuries are not “obvious”, will frequently say “I’m not hurt”, but the next day will experience sever pain and disability. Frequently that same person will skip seeing a doctor and will drag themselves into work, even when the pain makes them both miserable and unproductive. This willingness to tough it out will hurt you and, at the same time, help the insurance company who owes you money.
1) You will not likely heal up as fast as the time you took off from work. So, by being tough, you pro-long the pain and delay the healing.
2) If you are not productive at work, you could be fired.
3) The whole point of this article, is that when it comes time to settle your injury claim, you will get short-changed.
Neither an insurance company nor a jury will highly value the days of misery you experienced dragging yourself into work. Their thinking goes like this; if you were really hurt, you would go to the doctor and get treatment; if you were “really injured,” you would stay home and use sick leave; if you were “really injured,” you would not be able to work. Since you did not see the doctor or stay home from work, you obviously were not hurt very much and any settlement for your personal injury should be valued accordingly.
So, the moral of the story is don’t be a hero; go to the doctor if you are hurt and stay away from work if you feel lousy because of an accident injury. Doing so may help speed up your recovery, gain some sympathy with your boss, and it definitely will document the fact you were hurt. The insurance company won’t low ball you based on the absence of a prompt health care visit and your failure to take time off to recover.
This message is from Elliott T. Dennis, an attorney that collects money for clients from insurance companies who don’t want to pay.
If you need help, call Elliott Dennis at (907) 929-4890 or email him at Elliott@attorneydennis.com.