Tips For Handling Your Texas Personal Injury Claim

Get the treatment you need, but only the treatment you need.

Get the treatment you need to get better, but do not try and seek extra treatment to increase the value of your case. If adjusters or juries believe you have received too much treatment, it will significantly impair your claim.

Don’t talk to your medical providers about your claim.

Your medical providers are not concerned with your claim, and discussions of a claim may affect their view of your injuries.

Follow your doctors' orders.

Your doctor will give you specific instructions such as following up with another appointment or performing home exercises. Follow those instructions. Following those instructions not only help you get better, but it also helps your claim. You can be assured that if you fail to follow doctors' orders that your insurance adjuster or defense attorney will use that information to argue that you were not hurt.

Keep a journal for your attorney.

Ask your attorney whether you should keep a journal. We often recommend clients keep journals to help them document their trials and tribulations with pain, rehabilitation, and recovery. Journals can be helpful by describing the situation as you go along instead of trying to remember how things went. We will also frequently requests victims' spouses or significant others' to keep journals to give us a different perspective of the clients' injuries and recovery.

Document your injuries.

The old saying that "a picture is worth a thousand words" holds true in the personal injury context. Many clients think to take pictures of their damaged vehicles, but few think to take pictures of their injuries. But pictures can make a huge difference in the recovery from an insurance company or jury. Take photos of any bruises, casts, scars, etc. If you have physical therapy, take video of some of the more difficult tasks that you have to undergo at therapy. Documenting not only helps prove that you are injured, but it also helps adjusters and jurors relate to you and your injuries.

Do not give a recorded statement.

Insurance companies typically seek recorded statements from injured persons. Since you do not have the same opportunity to take a statement from the other parties involved, a recorded statement gives them an advantage.

Do not judge your case by others’ experiences.

All injured persons hear from friends who knew someone else who was hurt and received an outrageous amount of money. Do not judge your likely results by the results of others. Many factors go into a case, including when the incident occurred, the law in effect at the time, how effective the parties and experts testify, and procedural issues.