Looking for a great line of diesel oil and lubricants? Then try Torco Oil & Lubricants for your diesel. Once you’ve tried Torco Oils & Lubricants you won’t go back to just any brand out there.

• 10% OFF Torco RTF Racing Transmission Fluid
• 10% OFF Torco RGO Racing Gear Oil
  
• 10% OFF Torco MTF Manual Transmission Fluid
  
• 10% OFF Torco ATF Automatic Transmission Fluid
  

Please Note: Black Friday – Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

Looking for a great line of diesel oil and lubricants? Then try Torco Oil & Lubricants for your diesel. Once you’ve tried Torco Oils & Lubricants you won’t go back to just any brand out there.

Buy 3 Bottles of Torco’s SD-5 or TD-1 Oil and receive FREE:

• 1 FREE Bottle of Oil
• FREE Torco Hat
• FREE Torco Funnel

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

BD Diesel Performance is unique among its peers in that it designs, manufactures and distributes a wide range of products specifically engineered for performance diesel applications.

FREE Stealth Cover with the purchase of a BD Diesel High Performance VP44 Injection Pump!

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

If you travel or tow heavy loads with a factory fuel tank, odds are you already know your factory fuel tank doesn’t cut it. Why not fill up when and where you want with Titan’s large capacity replacement fuel tanks.

FREE SHIPPING and a FREE Titan Hat with every Titan Fuel Tank Purchase.

That’s a $140 Value for FREE!!

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

aFe offers one of the best aftermarket air filters in the industry. aFe filters and intakes provide your diesel truck or SUV with more cold air and therefore more POWER.

Purchase any aFe Stage 2 Intake System and get the following FREE:

• FREE aFe Restore Cleaning Kit
• FREE Pre-Filter
• FREE aFe Diesel T-Shirt

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

It’s time to grab your Authentic OCDiesel T-Shirts. With a price this low you can’t pass this savings up!

Authentic OCDiesel T-Shirts
Normally: $34.95
Sale Price: $15.00

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

DiabloSport’s Trinity is one of the most advanced tuning devices on the market. The Trinity is a touch-screen monitor with the capability to tune, log and record data, display and customize virtual gauges, read and clear codes and even compute multiple track times.

FREE DiabloSport T-Shirt with the purchase of DiaboSport’s Trinity.

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

* * SALE ALERT!! * *

DiabloSport’s Extreme PowerPuck
Normally $359.99
Sale Price $299.99

DiabloSport’s Predator
Normally $369.99
Sale Price $295.99

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

The Dr. is in! Dr. Performance offers a wide selection of aftermarket diesel performance products including their Performance Modules, Boost Foolers, Water-Methanol Injection Kits, DPF-Delete Kits and More! Come check out what Dr. Performance can offer your diesel.

FREE Dr. Performance T-Shirt & Hat with every Dr. Performance purchase of $250 or more!

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

Ranked the #1 Tuner at SEMA 2009, The Bully Dog Triple Dog GT Diesel Tuner is an all-in-one downloader and monitor including a downloader, tuner, gauge monitor and driving coach. Add more horsepower, torque and improve your fuel economy with Bully Dog’s GT Diesel Tuner!

FREE Bully Dog Hat & T-Shirt with the purchase of Bully Dog’s Triple Dog GT Diesel Tuner!!!!!

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

 
Tired of low mileage and weak performance out of your late model diesel rig? Get with the new DPF-Delete Exhaust System from aFe. These systems eliminate the cork more commonly referred as the DPF (diesel particulate filter). By eliminating this barrier from the exhaust flow, you unleash faster turbo spool, increase performance, and create a massive gain in fuel efficiency.

Purchase a DPF Delete Exhaust System and get a FREE aFe Diesel T-Shirt!

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

Receive a FREE OCDiesel Bundle Package when you spend $500 or more during Black Friday-Cyber Monday Sales Event!

Bundle Includes: OCDiesel T-Shirt (S-XXXL), OCDiesel Can Kuzzi, and OCDiesel Stickers.

How Do I Get It?

1. Spend $500 or more at OCDiesel.com
2. Add OCDiesel Bundle to Cart 3.
3. Use Coupon Code: BUNDLE upon checkout.
4. Bundle price will be subtracted from your total.

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

It’s time to grab your Authentic Boost Bunny Apparel and Pre-Order your 2010 Boost Bunny Calendar, the Girls of Diesel on Edge. With prices this low you can’t pass these savings up!

2010 Boost Bunny Calendar, the Girls of Diesel on Edge!
Normally: $14.95
Sale Price: $9.00

Boost Bunny Crew Neck T-Shirt
Normally: $17.95
Sale Price: $9.00

Boost Bunny Cami Tank Top
Normally: $16.95
Sale Price: $9.00

Boost Bunny Thongs
Normally: $9.95
Sale Price: $5.00

Please Note: Black Friday – Cyber Monday Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

In celebration of the two largest shopping days, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, OCDiesel.com is bringing you our biggest sales event of the YEAR!! This amazing weekend long sales event kicks off Midnight Friday, November 27th through Monday, November 30th, 2009. You don’t want to miss this chance to SAVE!!

Black Friday – Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sales Offers:

• 5% Site Wide* Discount
• aFe DPF-Delete Kits
• aFe Stage 2 Intakes
• BD Diesel VP44 Injection Pump
  
• Boost Bunny Apparel & Calendar
  
• Bully Dog GT Tuner
• DiabloSport’s Extreme PowerPuck
• DiabloSport’s Predator
• DiabloSport’s Trinity
• Dr. Performance Products
  
• Edge Products
  
• OCDiesel Apparel & Bundle
• PacBrake PRXB Exhaust Break
  
• Titan Fuel Tanks
  
• Torco USA SD-5 and TD-1

Please Note: Black Friday -Cyber Monday Weekend Long Sale at www.OCDiesel.com on November 27, 28, 29, 30th of 2009 ONLY.

This photo was taken last November.  A small snow front had just past and a larger and much darker cloud of lake effect snow was quickly approaching.  The short break between the storm clouds provided some interesting lighting.

… taken with a 1.3mp camera phone …

Came across this image of a chewing gum truck, which looks exactly how I want my magazine to look – a large scaled chewing gum packet:

It even has that elusive foil I need to get hold of.. if anyone knows where to get some let me know! (it’s the foil which is shiny on one side but paper on the inside)

an excavator bucket and a truck at exploration field

an excavator bucket and a truck at exploration field blue,bucket,bulldozer,digger,dipper,dozer,dredge,earth,earthmover,excavate,excavation,excavator,grader,ground,industrial,loader,machine,machinery,mining,mover,scoop,sky,transport,transportation,truck,vehicle,workplace,yellow

Some pics from Parteen Villa Weir, O’Briensbridge, Montpelier, Castleconnell, Annacotty and Plassey here.

Kriska Transportation truck at a back entrance to Neilson Dairy in Ottawa, Ontario.

Web site: www.robhuntley.ca
Click on the image to go straight to the same image on my website.

A graffiti pup hops a ride on a delivery truck near Union Square in New York City.

Seen on my way to work last week  (in square F3 on page 95). Made me smile.

As a Coachella Valley 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley.

As a Coachella Valley 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley.

As a Coachella Valley 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley.

As a Coachella Valley 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley, 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 the Coachella Valley.