Check out the conversation about this new Zippifish.

date: 12/20/09

time: 9:00 am

meet up location: crank mob park, culver city, ca

participants: pablo, alex, ian×2, italtk

number of tubes we consumed: 2

fall off the bike: 2

route: crank mob – vermont ave. & venice blvd. – 7eleven – crank mob again – culver blvd all the way to dockweiler beach – hermosa beach – paisanos pizza and pasta

slyce of pizzas: 6

beer: 1 (uncertain)

gestimate distance: 30mi

Anyone who happens to come to Redondo Beach has to go to the Espenade to catch an amazing sunset-it is breath taking. I was fortunate to see one of the most magnificient with my family-what a joy to live in the South Bay.

If interested in real estate in the South Bay please call me at 310-938-7118 or email: craigtenmenq@yahoo.com

Exterior of California Sushi & Teriyaki

California Sushi & Teriyaki is your typical Americanized sushi bar. Gone are the sushi chefs seen building your rolls, in fact, gone is the walk up sushi bar. In its place is an extensive menu lit on fluorescent light, and a soft drink case in the corner of the restaurant. However the tables still give off a slight oriental vibe as well as the paper lanterns. However, the “traditional” decor juxtaposed next to the soda case seems a bit tacky to me at least. However the dining area was very clean, just like it has been on previous visits.

The menu board received a much needed makeover. Once a hard to read font with many items crossed off, it is now replaced with legible font on a beige background with pictures of menu items as well. Smaller menus, now offered with menu covers are also available to peruse.

The menu consists of traditional appetizers such as edamame and gyoza. Entrees include bento boxes, a la carte sushi, noodles, and sushi combinations. There are chicken and beef dishes for those that do not care for sushi. Mochi ice cream is also available for dessert.

The cashier took our order right away. The sushi took about 10-15 minutes to prepare. Since sushi is handmade, it is understandable that it takes a little bit longer than other types of food.

We had our order to go. The staff packed our bag with plenty of soy sauce, two pairs of chopsticks, and even disposable soy sauce containers.

Crunch Roll

The crunch roll, made with crab, avocado, and cucumber, of course with fried shrimp was very tasty. The rice was warm and the vegetables were fresh. The shrimp was crunchy, not soggy, a sign that it had not been made too far in advance. The roll was very filling. It was a very refreshing dinner.

California Sushi and Teriyaki is great for those who would like a quick bite of sushi to eat. The customer service is good, the staff does have a proactive attitude when it comes to orders to go but it is just passable for dining in.

The average menu price is $10.00. California Sushi & Teriyaki has its own parking lot that does not fill up that often.

Click here for more Hermosa Beach sushi.

My rating ***1/2 out of 5 stars.

There's plenty to do on the Hermosa Pier

Hermosa Beach is a break from the downtown LA vibe; in it’s place is a mellow and laid back atmosphere. Hermosa Beach is definitely a walk friendly town. The Strand, which runs next to the sands of Hermosa offers a wonderful beach view 365 days of the year. A few blocks down is Hermosa Avenue which is lined with shops & restaurants. You can see locals and tourists alike taking a walk on Hermosa Avenue, whether it be to grab a bite to eat, or peruse the stores.

The Hermosa Pier offers many restaurants and shops for many different walks of life. The Pier Plaza is blocked off to traffic and is a great place to hang out. Some places worth checking out in that area are Hennessey’s and Mediterraneo.

Head east and check out Zane’s on the corner of Pier & Hermosa. Walk even further up the hill and find local favorites like Fritto Misto and Creme De La Crepe.

Longing for some New Orleans flavor? Then check out Ragin Cajun. Want some Thai food? Fear not, for you can find Thai Top even further up the street.

There’s even some hair salons, including my personal favorite, Mimosa. As well as a mini spa, the Massage Spot. There’s clearly something for everyone. If that’s not enough, there’s free 3 hour parking at the meters on Pier Ave. from now until Dec 25th.

The exterior of Good Stuff in Hermosa Beach

Good Stuff is located right on the strand in Hermosa Beach. The location alone is perfect for people watching, and simply to take in the beautiful ocean view. The patio, like many in Hermosa is dog friendly. Runners and casual walkers alike are known to dine outside with their pup in tow.

At ten in the morning, a small line formed next to the host stand. The patio was also practically full. At Good Stuff, this is a typical sight to see as its beachside location alone is plenty enough reason to draw a crowd.

The host greeted the guests, giving them the option to sit on their patio or inside. She then seated the guests quickly and presented the guests with menus and informed them that their server would be right with them.

The interior is tiny with beige and blue walls and tables adorned with blue tablecloths as well as white chairs. The beautiful view of the pacific ocean is what makes sitting indoors worthwhile as few eateries in town have this beachfront view.

Good Stuff is known for its breakfast which is served all day long. Many an athlete resides in Hermosa and the menu reflects this offering both healthy and hearty options.  Some breakfast notables include the fitness breakfast, the island breakfast, the energy bowl, and the California Omelette.

The lunch menu offers a wide selection from burgers, to wraps, sandwiches, and even some Mexican food. Noted lunch dishes include the avocado bacon burger, the low carb tuna wrap, baja fish taco, and the southwestern chicken salad.

Despite the busy dining room, the server was very attentive to each table. She took the time to go over the breakfast specials and proceeded to take drink orders. Upon returning with the drinks, she took the food orders. Most of the menu is customizable where brown rice or fruit can be substituted. The server made these options clear as she took the order.

Tamale special at Good Stuff

The tamale special was delivered within 10 minutes after ordering. The server brought fresh salsa and ketchup and Tabasco sauce along with the order. The tamale came with Spanish rice and beans. The meat was very tasty and seasoned well. The rice was moist however was not too flavorful. Rounding out the dish were the black beans that were also very tasty.

The server was quite efficient, refilling drinks without being told as well as clearing the plates once the meal was through. She presented the check and settled it right away. All in all the experience was a pleasant one.

Good Stuff is open Monday- Sunday 7am-4pm. Daily specials are offered as well as their “2 good 2 be true” special where $2.00 is taken off of every meal from 2-4pm. Metered street parking is available as well as two nearby parking garages. Be sure to bring extra change and allow more time for parking on weekends as it is known to fill up by 10am. This restaurant is known to be busy on weekend mornings, expect a 15 minute wait at the least. For more information please call 310-374-2334

Average menu price: $10 per entree

My rating **** out of 5 stars.

Members of our South Bay Los Angeles 350 Climate Action Group speak to our representatives and fellow activists in Copenhagen at Friday night’s Candlelight Vigil in downtown Hermosa Beach.  Unedited and unrehearsed, our straight from the heart messages.

And here’s some still photos from our event.  To see our Flickr photo slide show click here.

That’s our co-host and 350 supporter, the Mayor of Hermosa Beach, Michael DiVirgilio, behind the big number 5.

And here’s your Creative Greenius and 350.org Organizer for the South Bay Los Angeles 350 Climate Action Group.  That big smile on my face is because our community showed up and brought their compassion for our brothers and sisters across the Pacific who live on the small island nations, like Tuvalu.  If you’re a regular Creative Greenius reader you know how concerned I am about the plight of island states like Tonga, the Carteret Islands, the Maldives and Kirabati.  It breaks my heart to think of those people paying the price for the way we live our lives here in the USA but it gives me great hope for the future that my friends and neighbors now stand with me on their behalf.

Click on the postcard above to get the details of our Hermosa Beach Dec 11 Candlelight Vigil for Survival

I love checking out pictures of the southbay in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s, I wish I had a chance to experience this place before it became so populated and developed.  Life magazine has a huge photo library that is search able, there are endless interesting pictures to look at.

Here are a couple that I found today, “Belly-sliding” is something I’ve never seen or heard of.

The Belly Slide Photo

I’m a big a fan of the head-first slide, so rest assured, I’m bringing it back.

Members of the newly formed South Bay Bicycle Coalition are happy with the Hermosa Beach "sharrows," which allow bicyclists to use a lane of traffic on Hermosa Avenue. The group hopes to see more South Bay cities install such bicycle-friendly facilities. (Steve McCrank, Daily Breeze Staff Photographer)

Last Thursday your friendly, neighborhood Greenius hopped on my bike and cruised on down the hill to the beginning of the bike path on the beach that I’ve ridden on as far as Malibu in the past.  But last week it was just a short carbon-free spin over to Pier Plaza in Hermosa Beach to meet up with my fellow members of the new South Bay Bicycle Coalition.  That’s us in the photo above, with group founder Todd Dipaola on the far left and the CG in the red shirt on the far right.  I’ll tell you all about it in an upcoming post, but meanwhile why not read this informative piece in the good, old Daily Breeze by clicking here.

I posted this ad on Craigslist a few weeks ago in preparation for an Embassy holiday party. Of course, I no longer live at the vaunted Embassy, and wasn’t sure if I was even going to make the party, but such is life. If I may quote:

The Embassy is Looking for Attractive, Fun Women with Loose Morals – mm4ww – 23 (The Strand, Hermosa Beach)

The world-famous Embassy – host to scintillating events such as “Zebra and Short Shorts” and the “Pumpking Smash Party Bash” on The Strand, is hosting an ultimate holiday character party, and we want you there!

Us:
Four dudes who do dude stuff. We party our fucking faces off and run when the cops show up.

You:
Good-looking young woman/women who want to rage at the beach and get other women at the party topless for our photographer friend Doctor’s upcoming show.

LET’S GET RETARDED AS FUCK

Here’s what I got back:

Getting retarded as fuck sounds fuuuunnnn =) !

Holy fucking hell.

The Friday after #Thanksgiving we played a special show at The Shore in Hermosa Beach…. check it out! (You can’t see me in the video, but I’m standing behind Mike)

December is finally here…. the air is filled with cheer….the snow….ok maybe not so much snow, but here’s some events that are going on in the South Bay cities so you too can partake in this festive time of year. Please dress warmly for these events. Know of a South Bay holiday event? Post it in the comments section!

Manhattan Beach

Dec 2- North Manhattan Beach Holiday Walk

The Manhattan Beach business district is hosting their 5th annual Holiday walk Event where refreshments, sales raffles & discounts can be found. From 5-10pm at North Manhattan Beach Highland Ave between 32nd and 38th street.

Dec 7- Dec 11  & Dec 14- Dec 17 from 6pm-9pm

Santa Float- Santa & his elves will be spreading the Christmas cheer throughout the city

Dec 13- Holiday Fireworks Festival 3pm-8pm

The annual fireworks festival at Manhattan Beach will be held at the pier with games, music, fireworks, and of course Santa Claus. Be sure to bring blankets and chairs.

Hermosa Beach

What’s going on in Hermosa Beach? Click here to find out.

Redondo Beach

Dec 3 Holiday Stroll from 5-8 pm

Shop and dine on South Catalina Avenue between Elena Avenue and Avenue I

Now through Jan 10 Seaside Ice

Palm trees, the beach….and ice skates. Enjoy skating by the beach at the Seaside Lagoon

Dec 12  5:30-7pm King Harbor Holiday Boat Parade

Take a stroll around the Redondo Beach Pier as festive boats sail by.

Torrance

Dec 5  11am to 3pm Christmas Grand Tea

Enjoy historic holiday fun at The Zamperini House, 2028 Gramercy Ave. Torrance, CA 90501.

Torrance Christmas Lights

An entire neighborhood is fully decked with lights and decorations off Pacific Coast Highway and Robert Road. Be sure to arrive early in the evening as cars get backed up quickly. Drive through or park and stroll as youngsters serve you hot chocolate. This festive atmosphere will definitely get you in the Holiday spirit!

In the last month I’ve reviewed five coffeehouses. I’ve organized a list to help you decide what coffeehouse is right for you. Yes there are more than five coffeehouses in the South Bay, I will review more as I go but I needed to change pace a bit!

Catalina Coffee Co.

Located in Redondo Beach just moments away from the surf and sand, this coffeehouse offers ample space on the inside and out for studying, working, or just to relax. It is perfect for those who like fresh coffee as the staff produces its own coffee right on site. The pastries and sandwiches are worth trying. This coffeehouse is best suited for those who love to read as it has its own honor code library. It is also well suited for large study groups and meetings as its floor is furnished with many oversized armchairs and couches. A wonderful place for those who enjoy live music and poetry, scheduled often. The staff is knowledgeable and efficient and delivers your order.

Java Man

Located in Hermosa Beach on Pier Ave, this small coffee house is best suited for those taking a stroll with their pet as they offer one dog biscuit per party. It is also a good place to get dessert as fresh desserts are delivered daily from their sister restaurant, the Ocean Diner. The breakfast burritos are worth checking out. The lunch sandwiches along with the lattes were not too flavorful, just average. Its small dining area and busy location is not suited for large study groups but rather for those that would just like to relax with the morning paper.  The staff is quick but not too personable. Note that the order must be picked up at the counter. Its small patio is perfect for those who like to relax under the sun with their friends or pet.

The Healthy Bean

The Healthy Bean in Torrance is a great coffeehouse for those with sensitive stomachs as their coffees are lower in acid. Health conscious coffee drinkers will be delighted to know that this establishment serves many items low in calories and fat even some vegan and vegetarian options. Give the premade burritos and sandwiches along with salads and soup a try. There is also a frequent buyer card available offering a free beverage after the tenth purchase. The coffee is prepared well and the staff is pleasant and will deliver your order. Due to its location on the busy intersection of Hawthorne and Lomita, it is not suited for those who need silence in order to work. However if working in a loud environment is tolerable, be sure to bring your laptop as they offer free WiFi.

Blue Butterfly Coffee

Blue Butterfly Coffee is on Main Street in El Segundo. This eatery offers an extensive food menu featuring crepes, bagel sandwiches, wraps and paninis. They brew their own coffee and they also have a wide selection of coffee beverages at slightly more affordable prices than the more well known coffeehouses. The staff is knowledgeable and is friendly to the newcomers as well as the locals alike.  Note that the order must be picked up. Blue Butterfly has a small dining area, best suited for small groups. Its prime location is perfect for those who would like to grab their coffee and take a stroll around quaint downtown El Segundo. Its two patios are perfect for relaxing and watching the planes takeoff from nearby LAX.

Our Daily Grind

Located on Main Street in El Segundo, this small coffeehouse is best suited for those who like organic coffee without a scene. The lack of music makes it good for those that need quiet to read or study. Our Daily Grind is also good for those that need a quick no nonsense lunch.  The two small patio tables offer a glimpse of planes taking off at LAX. Another option is to get your whole order to go and enjoy the sights and shops of Main St.

Bobby se produira ce soir en banlieue de Los Angeles, au  “Saint Rocke” à Hermosa Beach.

Et un petit message avant le show :

“J’ai adoré le show d’hier soir au “Night Cafe”, je suis à Sainte Rocke ce soir, très excité… Ca serait bien de vous y voir.”

Is it a sad day or a good day when you realize you are turning into your mother?  Because, it’s official I am literally going to write a post about the two best dogs in the world.  Left and Right.  My feet.  Here they are:

My mom always says her “dogs are barking” whenever she’s walked too long or too far in wedges or heels (I rarely ever see her in flats).  So, dogs to me are feet.  And since I spent this past week dog-sitting down in Hermosa Beach, I thought it would be appropriate to blog about my own dogs. Especially considering the fact that Thanksgiving was just two days ago and I am feeling extremely thankful for my feet and their ability to walk.  And run.  And swagger in heels.

And swagger I do.  Why?  Because I am still single.  And I just turned thirty.  And I’ve spent the last two years worrying about the M.S. and wondering who I should tell about it.  Because let’s be honest, telling some man you’re dating that you have an incurable disease that may one day land you in a wheelchair isn’t exactly the best pick up line in the world.

Trust me, I’ve tried it.  And it’s funny to watch the guys try and be all nice about it and act cool with the whole thing, but I can guarantee that they will not call the number they were so anxious to get minutes prior, no matter how hot I was looking in my heels and designer jeans.

To them, I say, “Screw you.”  If you can’t handle the truth of my world for more than one evening, how the hell are you going to handle it for the rest of my life?

Until I find a real man who likes my dogs and all that they represent, I’m going to keep on walking.

Past…

And…

And…

Why?  Because…

Who knows what will happen tomorrow…’til then, Walking Girl here, walking off!

Are you planning on dining out on Thanksgiving day? Do you need help figuring out what restaurants are open on the big day? Fear not. Click here for a resource of all things open on Thanksgiving day.

As a Hermosa Beach Wrongful Death Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar or larger settlements from over thirty years of experience in or around Hermosa Beach, other nearby cities and internationally, I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves for the maximum and the biggest settlement you can to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how attorneys negotiate for top dollar and I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a larger, much greater amount in your pocket or in the trust fund you set up for any children injured in the accident, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, bike, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the largest amount possible, which may be the policy limits of the insurance policy, depending upon the severity of your injuries, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll also need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses or had to use up valuable sick time, personal time, or vacation days.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident and you should take photos of the scene if there was something wrong with the road conditions or other unusual circumstances.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason why, in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement and this is where an attorney’s experience kicks in.

An attorney such as Sebastian Gibson who has been negotiating these cases with many of the same adjusters for decades, knows the tactics and negotiating style of them and their companies and knows how refute the talking points their insurance companies train their adjusters to use in negotiations.

What causes many attorneys to be unable to settle their cases and who then find themselves with no alternative but to file a lawsuit in court and face two to five years of litigation before the matter settles or goes to jury, is to get angry (some even scream and yell) with the adjuster, box themselves into a corner and tell the adjuster something along the lines of, “If that’s the best you can do, we’re filing suit.” The adjuster’s response to this is naturally, “go ahead.”

An insurance company doesn’t really care if they have to dump your case onto the case load of their attorneys who are already handling tens of thousands of such cases. One more case, makes no difference to them at all. They also know, you may give up or settle for even less when you learn from an attorney how much just the court costs will be. Just to file a lawsuit in most courts alone incurs a $350.00 or larger filing fee. Depositions can cost over a thousand dollars if they are lengthy. And all such court costs come out of your settlement, even if you have a contingency fee attorney handling your case.

Sadly, many of these same lawyers take this step or let their improperly trained staff members (secretaries and clerks) force the matter to such an impasse and then file suit without properly informing the client of the negotiations that took place and led them to that point.

If you are negotiating with an insurance company yourself, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Yes, you are probably going to hear that the insurance adjuster has evaluated your case to be worth much less than you think it’s worth. But you’re forgetting that, that’s just their first offer. Communicate with the adjuster. Tell them how the injuries affected your life and tell them what you still go through today with the pain you still have. You’ll be surprised how many adjusters will actually relate to what you tell them.

Unfortunately, just as there are bad attorneys out there, there are also some lousy insurance adjusters and insurance companies to deal with as well. They’re supposed to get back to you in 40 days with an offer after you present them with your demand package. Some take longer. Some will sound unpleasant, even snotty. And once they make their first offer, it can take weeks sometimes to reach the adjuster again to make your counter-offer. Sometimes the negotiations can take months. If you want to get the most you can for your case, you need to be patient. Your job, just as it is the job of your attorney, is to get these unpleasant insurance adjusters to warm up. I ask them how the weather is, how they’re doing, if their busy, anything to get them to open up to me. You’d be surprised how far a little kindness goes.

We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries. You’ll find that your health, in many cases, will drastically improve, once you remove yourself from the stress of handling your case and resolve it either yourself or with the assistance of our law firm by way of settlement. If on the other hand, your case goes into litigation, as do the cases of many lawyers who don’t have the settlement experience or negotiating tools to settle their cases advantageously for their clients, your stress level will almost certainly rise.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases in Hermosa Beach, and throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, motorcycle, car, truck, pedestrian, or bicycle accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been injured in a dog bite or animal attack in Hermosa Beach.

As a Hermosa Beach Wrongful Death Accident Lawyer with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar or larger settlements from over thirty years of experience in or around Hermosa Beach, other nearby cities and internationally, I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves for the maximum and the biggest settlement you can to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how attorneys negotiate for top dollar and I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a larger, much greater amount in your pocket or in the trust fund you set up for any children injured in the accident, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, bike, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the largest amount possible, which may be the policy limits of the insurance policy, depending upon the severity of your injuries, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll also need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses or had to use up valuable sick time, personal time, or vacation days.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident and you should take photos of the scene if there was something wrong with the road conditions or other unusual circumstances.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason why, in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement and this is where an attorney’s experience kicks in.

An attorney such as Sebastian Gibson who has been negotiating these cases with many of the same adjusters for decades, knows the tactics and negotiating style of them and their companies and knows how refute the talking points their insurance companies train their adjusters to use in negotiations.

What causes many attorneys to be unable to settle their cases and who then find themselves with no alternative but to file a lawsuit in court and face two to five years of litigation before the matter settles or goes to jury, is to get angry (some even scream and yell) with the adjuster, box themselves into a corner and tell the adjuster something along the lines of, “If that’s the best you can do, we’re filing suit.” The adjuster’s response to this is naturally, “go ahead.”

An insurance company doesn’t really care if they have to dump your case onto the case load of their attorneys who are already handling tens of thousands of such cases. One more case, makes no difference to them at all. They also know, you may give up or settle for even less when you learn from an attorney how much just the court costs will be. Just to file a lawsuit in most courts alone incurs a $350.00 or larger filing fee. Depositions can cost over a thousand dollars if they are lengthy. And all such court costs come out of your settlement, even if you have a contingency fee attorney handling your case.

Sadly, many of these same lawyers take this step or let their improperly trained staff members (secretaries and clerks) force the matter to such an impasse and then file suit without properly informing the client of the negotiations that took place and led them to that point.

If you are negotiating with an insurance company yourself, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Yes, you are probably going to hear that the insurance adjuster has evaluated your case to be worth much less than you think it’s worth. But you’re forgetting that, that’s just their first offer. Communicate with the adjuster. Tell them how the injuries affected your life and tell them what you still go through today with the pain you still have. You’ll be surprised how many adjusters will actually relate to what you tell them.

Unfortunately, just as there are bad attorneys out there, there are also some lousy insurance adjusters and insurance companies to deal with as well. They’re supposed to get back to you in 40 days with an offer after you present them with your demand package. Some take longer. Some will sound unpleasant, even snotty. And once they make their first offer, it can take weeks sometimes to reach the adjuster again to make your counter-offer. Sometimes the negotiations can take months. If you want to get the most you can for your case, you need to be patient. Your job, just as it is the job of your attorney, is to get these unpleasant insurance adjusters to warm up. I ask them how the weather is, how they’re doing, if their busy, anything to get them to open up to me. You’d be surprised how far a little kindness goes.

We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries. You’ll find that your health, in many cases, will drastically improve, once you remove yourself from the stress of handling your case and resolve it either yourself or with the assistance of our law firm by way of settlement. If on the other hand, your case goes into litigation, as do the cases of many lawyers who don’t have the settlement experience or negotiating tools to settle their cases advantageously for their clients, your stress level will almost certainly rise.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases in Hermosa Beach, and throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, motorcycle, car, truck, pedestrian, or bicycle accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been injured in a dog bite or animal attack in Hermosa Beach.

As a Hermosa Beach Truck Accident Lawyer with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar or larger settlements from over thirty years of experience in or around Hermosa Beach, other nearby cities and internationally, I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves for the maximum and the biggest settlement you can to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how attorneys negotiate for top dollar and I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a larger, much greater amount in your pocket or in the trust fund you set up for any children injured in the accident, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, bike, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the largest amount possible, which may be the policy limits of the insurance policy, depending upon the severity of your injuries, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll also need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses or had to use up valuable sick time, personal time, or vacation days.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident and you should take photos of the scene if there was something wrong with the road conditions or other unusual circumstances.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason why, in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement and this is where an attorney’s experience kicks in.

An attorney such as Sebastian Gibson who has been negotiating these cases with many of the same adjusters for decades, knows the tactics and negotiating style of them and their companies and knows how refute the talking points their insurance companies train their adjusters to use in negotiations.

What causes many attorneys to be unable to settle their cases and who then find themselves with no alternative but to file a lawsuit in court and face two to five years of litigation before the matter settles or goes to jury, is to get angry (some even scream and yell) with the adjuster, box themselves into a corner and tell the adjuster something along the lines of, “If that’s the best you can do, we’re filing suit.” The adjuster’s response to this is naturally, “go ahead.”

An insurance company doesn’t really care if they have to dump your case onto the case load of their attorneys who are already handling tens of thousands of such cases. One more case, makes no difference to them at all. They also know, you may give up or settle for even less when you learn from an attorney how much just the court costs will be. Just to file a lawsuit in most courts alone incurs a $350.00 or larger filing fee. Depositions can cost over a thousand dollars if they are lengthy. And all such court costs come out of your settlement, even if you have a contingency fee attorney handling your case.

Sadly, many of these same lawyers take this step or let their improperly trained staff members (secretaries and clerks) force the matter to such an impasse and then file suit without properly informing the client of the negotiations that took place and led them to that point.

If you are negotiating with an insurance company yourself, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Yes, you are probably going to hear that the insurance adjuster has evaluated your case to be worth much less than you think it’s worth. But you’re forgetting that, that’s just their first offer. Communicate with the adjuster. Tell them how the injuries affected your life and tell them what you still go through today with the pain you still have. You’ll be surprised how many adjusters will actually relate to what you tell them.

Unfortunately, just as there are bad attorneys out there, there are also some lousy insurance adjusters and insurance companies to deal with as well. They’re supposed to get back to you in 40 days with an offer after you present them with your demand package. Some take longer. Some will sound unpleasant, even snotty. And once they make their first offer, it can take weeks sometimes to reach the adjuster again to make your counter-offer. Sometimes the negotiations can take months. If you want to get the most you can for your case, you need to be patient. Your job, just as it is the job of your attorney, is to get these unpleasant insurance adjusters to warm up. I ask them how the weather is, how they’re doing, if their busy, anything to get them to open up to me. You’d be surprised how far a little kindness goes.

We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries. You’ll find that your health, in many cases, will drastically improve, once you remove yourself from the stress of handling your case and resolve it either yourself or with the assistance of our law firm by way of settlement. If on the other hand, your case goes into litigation, as do the cases of many lawyers who don’t have the settlement experience or negotiating tools to settle their cases advantageously for their clients, your stress level will almost certainly rise.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases in Hermosa Beach, and throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, motorcycle, car, truck, pedestrian, or bicycle accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been injured in a dog bite or animal attack in Hermosa Beach.

As a Hermosa Beach Truck Accident Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar, or larger settlements from over thirty years of experience in or around Hermosa Beach, other nearby cities and internationally, I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves for the maximum and the biggest settlement you can to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how attorneys negotiate for top dollar and I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a larger, much greater amount in your pocket or in the trust fund you set up for any children injured in the accident, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, bike, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the largest amount possible, which may be the policy limits of the insurance policy, depending upon the severity of your injuries, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll also need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses or had to use up valuable sick time, personal time, or vacation days.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident and you should take photos of the scene if there was something wrong with the road conditions or other unusual circumstances.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason why, in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement and this is where an attorney’s experience kicks in.

An attorney such as Sebastian Gibson who has been negotiating these cases with many of the same adjusters for decades, knows the tactics and negotiating style of them and their companies and knows how refute the talking points their insurance companies train their adjusters to use in negotiations.

What causes many attorneys to be unable to settle their cases and who then find themselves with no alternative but to file a lawsuit in court and face two to five years of litigation before the matter settles or goes to jury, is to get angry (some even scream and yell) with the adjuster, box themselves into a corner and tell the adjuster something along the lines of, “If that’s the best you can do, we’re filing suit.” The adjuster’s response to this is naturally, “go ahead.”

An insurance company doesn’t really care if they have to dump your case onto the case load of their attorneys who are already handling tens of thousands of such cases. One more case, makes no difference to them at all. They also know, you may give up or settle for even less when you learn from an attorney how much just the court costs will be. Just to file a lawsuit in most courts alone incurs a $350.00 or larger filing fee. Depositions can cost over a thousand dollars if they are lengthy. And all such court costs come out of your settlement, even if you have a contingency fee attorney handling your case.

Sadly, many of these same lawyers take this step or let their improperly trained staff members (secretaries and clerks) force the matter to such an impasse and then file suit without properly informing the client of the negotiations that took place and led them to that point.

If you are negotiating with an insurance company yourself, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Yes, you are probably going to hear that the insurance adjuster has evaluated your case to be worth much less than you think it’s worth. But you’re forgetting that, that’s just their first offer. Communicate with the adjuster. Tell them how the injuries affected your life and tell them what you still go through today with the pain you still have. You’ll be surprised how many adjusters will actually relate to what you tell them.

Unfortunately, just as there are bad attorneys out there, there are also some lousy insurance adjusters and insurance companies to deal with as well. They’re supposed to get back to you in 40 days with an offer after you present them with your demand package. Some take longer. Some will sound unpleasant, even snotty. And once they make their first offer, it can take weeks sometimes to reach the adjuster again to make your counter-offer. Sometimes the negotiations can take months. If you want to get the most you can for your case, you need to be patient. Your job, just as it is the job of your attorney, is to get these unpleasant insurance adjusters to warm up. I ask them how the weather is, how they’re doing, if their busy, anything to get them to open up to me. You’d be surprised how far a little kindness goes.

We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries. You’ll find that your health, in many cases, will drastically improve, once you remove yourself from the stress of handling your case and resolve it either yourself or with the assistance of our law firm by way of settlement. If on the other hand, your case goes into litigation, as do the cases of many lawyers who don’t have the settlement experience or negotiating tools to settle their cases advantageously for their clients, your stress level will almost certainly rise.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases in Hermosa Beach, and throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, motorcycle, car, truck, pedestrian, or bicycle accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been injured in a dog bite or animal attack in Hermosa Beach.

As a Hermosa Beach Personal Injury Attorney with millions of dollars in settlements and multiple million dollar or larger settlements from over thirty years of experience in or around Hermosa Beach, other nearby cities and internationally, I know many of you are attempting to settle your own personal injury, dog bite and wrongful death cases by yourselves for the maximum and the biggest settlement you can to save the cost of an attorney.

In this article I’ll tell you the secrets of how attorneys negotiate for top dollar and I’ll also tell you why insurance companies lick their chops and rub their hands together with glee when individuals try to settle their claims without an attorney and why, in most cases, you’ll receive a larger, much greater amount in your pocket or in the trust fund you set up for any children injured in the accident, even after an attorney’s fee and costs if you hire a reputable and experienced personal injury attorney.

If you’ve been the victim of a car, motorcycle, bike, truck, pedestrian, bicycle, or auto accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been the victim of a dog bite or animal attack, you can visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com for more information and call us at any of the numbers easily found on our website.

First, you need to know that insurance companies evaluate cases two ways. As soon as you begin negotiating with the insurance company yourself, they evaluate your case, unfortunately, in terms of a nuisance value matter. They’ve settled tens or hundreds of thousands of cases with individuals before for paltry amounts and they will expect they can settle your case for a measly amount as well.

Why do they look at you as if you’re chopped meat? As soon as you tell them you are negotiating your own settlement, they know you’re trying to save money. To them, that means you may even be desperate. They also know you won’t be as knowledgeable about their tricks and tactics and like those tens or hundreds of thousands of people before you, they know how they can play you until you either become so frustrated you settle for their bad offer or become panicked that your time is running out.

The second way they evaluate a case, namely one presented by a lawyer, is an analysis of what the case’s true settlement value is based on the attorney’s skill and experience, how prepared the case is for litigation in the event it doesn’t settle, and the actual value of the injuries and associated pain and suffering, wage loss and other out of pocket expenses.

To settle your case for the largest amount possible, which may be the policy limits of the insurance policy, depending upon the severity of your injuries, you need to get the insurance adjuster to evaluate your case in the same manner they would as if an attorney were negotiating with them. While most insurance companies, unfortunately, simply won’t do that, here’s what you need to do to try to obtain the maximum settlement value.

First, you need to obtain all of your medical records and bills. You can’t rely on the insurance company to do this. As soon as you tell the insurance company you want them to do this or agree to having them do it and tell you how much your medical bills come to and what your medical records say, you are giving up control of the situation. I can’t stress this enough.

You will need to sign authorization forms to obtain your medical records and bills and pay the cost of obtaining those medical records and bills (the cost of which can range from $15 to hundreds of dollars) from each hospital, ambulance company, doctor, chiropractor, radiologist, emergency room billing service, etc. Some medical providers require you to use their authorization forms. Some require you to agree to their using a photocopy service to copy your records at a higher cost. Some medical providers require one fee for your bills and another fee for your medical records.

Just obtaining all of your medical records and bills is one of the most time consuming aspects of handling personal injury cases. And, to make matters worse, you’re still not through with your medical providers. When your treatment is complete and you have all of your medical records and bills and the first settlement offer is made to you, you’ll need to call each of your medical providers or their billing offices again to learn if you have any balance owing (and you can expect to be on the phone repeatedly and for long periods of time to learn this information) and in many cases you will need to send them another authorization form before they’ll tell you this information.

You will need to obtain a copy of the police report. This is a much simpler process. Some police departments charge between $10 to $40 for a copy, while other departments provide them to you for free. You can pick it up at the police or CHP office yourself or request one by mail with an authorization form and a check for the proper fee.

You’ll also need to obtain your wage loss information on a wage loss form from your employer if you suffered any wage losses or had to use up valuable sick time, personal time, or vacation days.

You should obtain witness statements if there is any issue as to the liability of the other driver for the accident and you should take photos of the scene if there was something wrong with the road conditions or other unusual circumstances.

You will also need to obtain a number of good photographs of your car damage, copies of the vehicle repair bills and estimates and receipts for any items damaged in your vehicle.

Here’s a secret. In California you are entitled to the cost of a replacement child seat if one was in the accident. It’s automatic. Just tell the insurance company the make and model or find out the cost for the make and model child seat and the insurance company will send you a check for a new one, even if the old one wasn’t broken. Why? It’s in the California insurance code. The insurance companies, however, don’t volunteer this information. Why? They’re in business to make money, not pay it out.

Finally, when all your treatment is done, you will need to put together a demand package with a demand letter reviewing the facts of the accident and the negligence of the other driver that made him or her at fault, a summary of your injuries and medical treatment (from your medical records), an itemization of your medical bills, a discussion of your pain and suffering and how the injuries impacted your life, a discussion of your wage loss and how you determined the amount, and finally the amount of your demand and a time limit (40 days – the time allotted under the insurance code) for the insurance company to respond with their offer. The demand letter should be a minimum of four pages in length. Some of ours have been close to twenty pages. Accompanying the demand letter should be copies of all of your medical records and bills, color copies of the car damage photos, copies of the repair bills and estimates, any wage loss documentation and any other relevant items such as witness statements, etc.

If all of this is too much work for you to accomplish (and it is a lot when you are just trying to get better, get on with your life, raise a family and still go to work to put food on the table) you may want to hire our law firm to represent you.

The reason why, in most cases you will receive more, even after an attorney’s fees and costs are taken out, is that insurance companies offer much more to an attorney handling your case than when you are attempting to settle it yourself. In addition, an experienced and reputable lawyer can also obtain reductions from your health insurance company and from any medical providers with a balance with regards to what amount has to be paid back to them out of any settlement.

When you rely on the insurance company to pay your medical bills, and then simply pay you a skimpy amount on top, you are giving them the right to determine what bills they think were “reasonable” and to obtain any reductions in the bills to save themselves money. When an attorney obtains a reduction in your bills or your health insurance company lien, the amount the attorney saves increases the amount of your net settlement.

Keep in mind that as soon as you start negotiating your claim by yourself, it’s almost impossible for an attorney to persuade the insurance company to evaluate your case in the higher category type of claim. At our law firm, while we’ll take on a case that may be months old where the injured victim has simply been receiving medical treatment, we won’t take on the case in most cases if the victim has already received a bad offer from the insurance company. At that stage it’s usually too late for an attorney to make much of a difference.

Hopefully, this article has provided you with some insights as to how to obtain the maximum settlement from an insurance company for an auto, car, motorcycle, bicycle, pedestrian, truck, dog bite, or wrongful death claim. There is much more that an experienced attorney does, especially in the negotiation stage to maximize the settlement and this is where an attorney’s experience kicks in.

An attorney such as Sebastian Gibson who has been negotiating these cases with many of the same adjusters for decades, knows the tactics and negotiating style of them and their companies and knows how refute the talking points their insurance companies train their adjusters to use in negotiations.

What causes many attorneys to be unable to settle their cases and who then find themselves with no alternative but to file a lawsuit in court and face two to five years of litigation before the matter settles or goes to jury, is to get angry (some even scream and yell) with the adjuster, box themselves into a corner and tell the adjuster something along the lines of, “If that’s the best you can do, we’re filing suit.” The adjuster’s response to this is naturally, “go ahead.”

An insurance company doesn’t really care if they have to dump your case onto the case load of their attorneys who are already handling tens of thousands of such cases. One more case, makes no difference to them at all. They also know, you may give up or settle for even less when you learn from an attorney how much just the court costs will be. Just to file a lawsuit in most courts alone incurs a $350.00 or larger filing fee. Depositions can cost over a thousand dollars if they are lengthy. And all such court costs come out of your settlement, even if you have a contingency fee attorney handling your case.

Sadly, many of these same lawyers take this step or let their improperly trained staff members (secretaries and clerks) force the matter to such an impasse and then file suit without properly informing the client of the negotiations that took place and led them to that point.

If you are negotiating with an insurance company yourself, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Yes, you are probably going to hear that the insurance adjuster has evaluated your case to be worth much less than you think it’s worth. But you’re forgetting that, that’s just their first offer. Communicate with the adjuster. Tell them how the injuries affected your life and tell them what you still go through today with the pain you still have. You’ll be surprised how many adjusters will actually relate to what you tell them.

Unfortunately, just as there are bad attorneys out there, there are also some lousy insurance adjusters and insurance companies to deal with as well. They’re supposed to get back to you in 40 days with an offer after you present them with your demand package. Some take longer. Some will sound unpleasant, even snotty. And once they make their first offer, it can take weeks sometimes to reach the adjuster again to make your counter-offer. Sometimes the negotiations can take months. If you want to get the most you can for your case, you need to be patient. Your job, just as it is the job of your attorney, is to get these unpleasant insurance adjusters to warm up. I ask them how the weather is, how they’re doing, if their busy, anything to get them to open up to me. You’d be surprised how far a little kindness goes.

We wish you good luck and a speedy recovery from your injuries. You’ll find that your health, in many cases, will drastically improve, once you remove yourself from the stress of handling your case and resolve it either yourself or with the assistance of our law firm by way of settlement. If on the other hand, your case goes into litigation, as do the cases of many lawyers who don’t have the settlement experience or negotiating tools to settle their cases advantageously for their clients, your stress level will almost certainly rise.

The law firm of Sebastian Gibson handles personal injury cases in Hermosa Beach, and throughout Southern and Central California and handle wrongful death cases throughout the state. To learn more about Sebastian Gibson and the other areas of law handled by the law firm, visit the Sebastian Gibson website.

We invite you to visit our website at http://www.sebastiangibsonlaw.com and call us if you’ve been seriously injured in a personal injury auto, motorcycle, car, truck, pedestrian, or bicycle accident, lost a loved one in a wrongful death or been injured in a dog bite or animal attack in Hermosa Beach.

I am finally back at home sitting in front of my computer, fingers stabbing away at the keys that will result in an overdue new blog entry. A week away from my computer, from writing, I missed it. I missed home, as I was away, down south, for work and pleasure.

I worked the three days of the Memorial Day weekend at Fiesta Hermosa in Hermosa Beach, California, about 20 minutes south of LAX. I spiel my product endlessly at shows with good attendance, and the resultant sales is how I make a living. During one of my spiels this weekend, I recognized the person I was talking to from either film or television but couldn’t place him. The person I brought with me to work the show with also recognized him, but couldn’t place him. Finally, my business associate whispered “big brother”.

I am a reality TV junkie. I have watched seasons of Survivor, Big Brother, Idol, Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, Project Runway, Charm School…you name it, I’ve watched it. If I could only choose one, it would have to be Big Brother; the fish bowl purity of the show appeals to me. The tall, smiling, man in front of our booth was Zach Swerdzewski from Big Brother season 8. Zach came in third, losing only to the father/daughter pair of Evil Dick and Danielle.

Season 8 of Big Brother was one of the better casts, starring the broken down old rocker, Evil Dick, who used profanity laced invective, tearing apart fellow houseguests, insulting others for their sexuality, religion, and any other button he could expose. Other houseguests included Jameka, a pious black woman; Amber, a meth using drink slinging single mom from Vegas; Eric, America’s player; Jessica, Eric’s showmance; Dustin and Joe, the hilariously bitter gay ex-couple; Danielle, Evil Dick’s emaciated daughter; and Zach, a guy too nice by far to play in the same game as Evil Dick.

When we were able to place the person from our Fiesta Hermosa booth inside the Big Brother house, he let us know that yes, we remembered correctly, his name was Zach and he was from season 8. I was surprised that other reality TV addicts in the crowd didn’t recognize him, but Zach seemed to operate in a cloak of anonymity; we were the only people who seemed to recognize him. Zach was gracious in spite of our fantarding, posed for pictures with us and even gave us hats from his clothing line, Dolphin Crash. Oh, and Zach now has one of our Corkers. It was really nice to meet someone so genuinely nice.

We also saw Jason “Wee-Man” Acuña of Jackass fame. We did not fantard over Wee-Man, although my 12 year old son was excited that we had seen him.

With the show done, I stayed an extra day in Southern California and visited Metropolis Books at 440 Main in the core of downtown Los Angeles. A high school friend, Julie Swayze, owns the store and we got to spend an hour in conversation. The store is a jewel, an independent book store, and you should visit the store if in Los Angeles. Eat at the Nickel Diner when in the area, the entire area is on the verge of a revitalization, and both the book store and the diner are the future of downtown Los Angeles.

Through Julie, I picked up two more books by Anthony Bourdain, and a book that a friend, Marie Poirer Martinsson, recommended to me, “No One Sees God” by Michael Novak. The last book inspired conversation between Julie and me about spirituality, religion, and the non preachiest preacher man I know, Dean Anderson, another class mate of ours.

Finally, I drove through the Alexander Valley of Sonoma County on the way home today, stopping to get out of my car and walk in some vineyards. I am Frasier like, I know most people are Daphne like; I want to share what I know and love about wine in a way that makes it understandable, maybe even inspiring someone to try a wine instead of a beer with a meal or when out with friends. I know my wine writings will never be #1 on any most read list, but I will continue to write about wine on a regular basis. Perhaps I’ll get better at writing about it, or perhaps more people will find it a palatable topic as my readership grows.