These Tips Help Win Injury Claims

In his book, “How to Win Your Personal Injury Claim,” attorney Joseph L. Mathews offers many practical tips about how to organize and process your claim without having to rely on, or pay part of your settlement to, a lawyer.

Many of these suggestions offer some insight into how our court system operates.

A sampling of his observations:

* Use photographs to support your points. Regular photos are better than Polaroids, he says, because you can make prints and still keep the negatives, and they usually show greater detail. Take the photos soon after the event in question or dispute and establish the dates the photos were taken, perhaps by having a friend witness the photos being taken.

* Learn the language of the people you will be negotiating with, in this case, insurance adjusters. A few terms in personal injury law worth knowing: duty of care (the legal obligation to be careful in conduct or care of property so that people are not injured by our actions or our failure to act), liability (legal responsibility for an accident. A person who is liable must pay for injuries caused in the accident) and negligence (the carelessness that causes or contributes to an accident).

* Evaluate your effectiveness as a witness: “An insurance adjuster is more likely to be sympathetic to your claim if he or she believes you are giving an accurate picture of the accident and your injuries. If you are organized and understand how the claims system works, the insurance adjuster will realize you are unlikely to settle the case for less than it is worth. And the insurance adjuster knows that if you are both organized and believable, a jury is more likely to give you a substantial award if your claim ever went to court.”

* Keys to successful claims negotiation: be organized, be patient, be persistent, be calm and straightforward.

* Use words persuasively; they can be your allies. Strong words can make your point better than merely adequate words. “For example, a car does not hit another car, it slams into it. Or a car did not merely have the right of way, it clearly or obviously had the right of way. A knee is not merely twisted but has suffered a strained collateral medial ligament.”

The book, reviewed in last week’s column, is available from the Berkeley self-help legal publisher Nolo Press for $24.95. You can order by phone by calling (800) 992-6656.