Things You Should Know

1. THE INSURANCE COMPANY IS NOT YOUR FRIEND.

If you’ve been hurt in a slip and fall accident it’s important to understand the “real” agenda of the insurance company in your case. First, understand the insurance company is not your friend, they are not looking out for you, they are only looking out for their own interests. See, insurance companies exist for one purpose only, to make money. Insurance companies make money by selling insurance and receiving premium payments, they then invest this money and make even more money. Insurance companies lose money by paying out benefits (money) to people hurt in slip and fall accidents caused by the people they insure. Since you are one of those people who want the insurance company to pay you money you represent a potential loss to the insurance company and insurance companies hate losses, cause that really sets back that whole “exist only to make money” thing. Never forget these simple facts, they are the basis for everything the insurance company does, they have only one goal, that is to close your case without paying you anything or if they have to pay you something, to pay you as little as possible.

2. INSURANCE COMPANIES PAY ALMOST THREE TIMES MORE MONEY IN CAR ACCIDENT CASES WHEN THE INJURED PERSON IS REPRESENTED BY A LAWYER.

This fact comes straight out of an insurance company’s training manual. While the manual was primarily talking about car accident cases, we believe it applies to slip and fall cases also. Paying three times more money to injured people who have retained legal counsel certainly explains why so much of an insurance adjuster’s time is spent trying to discourage accident victims from talking to lawyers. When you think about it, it makes sense, of course unrepresented people who have essentially no knowledge or experience about slip and fall accident law, won’t be able to negotiate nearly as effectively as a trained, slip and fall accident attorney. Since insurance company’s sole reason to exist is to make money it’s clear that keeping injured people and lawyers apart makes good business sense for them but not for you.

3. HIRING A LAWYER DOESN’T MEAN YOUR CASE WILL TAKE YEARS TO BE SETTLED OR MEAN YOU WILL HAVE TO GO TO COURT.

A lot of people think that hiring a lawyer delays the legal process so that their case will take years to be completed. The truth is, this is usually not the case. At Brown and Crouppen most accident cases are finished in one year or less. We usually figure that a case will be all done within 60 to 120 days after we receive your final medical records. As far as your fear of having to go to court, don’t worry, it is rare that any Brown and Crouppen client will ever have to go to court or even sit for a deposition. Through a lot of hard work we have developed a reputation in the legal community that allows us to fairly settle most of our cases without the need of our clients to be subjected to these unpleasant parts of our legal system. In short, don’t worry, your case will probably be settled favorably in months not years and very few Brown and Crouppen clients ever have to appear in court.

4. YOU DON’T HAVE FOREVER TO TAKE CARE OF YOUR SLIP AND FALL ACCIDENT CASE.

Unfortunately, this is the case. There are definite time limits in taking care of your case. These time limits are called statutes of limitations and if you wait past the time set out in the statute your case is over, forever, regardless if you have gotten any money or not. Don’t let this happen to you, if you have a slip and fall accident don’t wait until it’s too late, call Brown and Crouppen now.

5. IT DOES NOT COST YOU ANY MONEY IN ADVANCE TO GET A LAWYER IN A SLIP AND FALL ACCIDENT CASE.

At Brown and Crouppen our policy in slip and fall accident cases, as well as our other injury cases, is that we never charge you any “in advance” legal fee. The only way you ever pay any legal fees or expenses is at the conclusion of your case and then only out of the money we were able to recover. If we are unsuccessful and no money is collected then any costs we incurred is our expense and of course you owe us nothing for our time. We believe we should make money only after we make you money. That’s why it doesn’t cost you any money in advance to get a lawyer in a slip and fall accident case.