If a car owner has purchased an automobile insurance policy, then that same car owner has made a contract with the insurance company. According to the contract’s terms, the policyholder must provide the insurer with certain information, after becoming involved in an accident.

Who should the policyholder contact?

The policyholder would have the right to contact either the insurance agent or the company’s claims office. Policyholders that chose to contact their agent should ask for a letter that gave the date of the initial contact. In addition, the agent’s letter to the policyholder should confirm the fact that the reported claim was shared with the claims department.

What aspects of the policyholder’s information must be shared with the insurance company?

The insurer will want access to the policyholder’s medical and work records. Some insurers ask those policyholders that have submitted a claim to sign a special form. When that is the case, then the same policyholders must use caution.

The presented form could specify an agreement to the release of the signee’s credit card records. If such a request appears in the presented material, then the person that needs to sign the form should make some changes. He or she should cross out on the document/form the stated request for credit card information.

In order to keep things legal, the person signing the altered document should initial the statements that have been crossed out. In addition, when it gets sent to the insurance company, the altered form should be mailed in the same envelope as a letter. That particular letter needs to explain the reason for the changes on the mailed document. Sometimes, too, an insurer tries to obtain all of the policyholder’s medical records. That is more than what the insurer really needs. The victim’s most recent medical records should prove sufficient.

In other words, this is another time when the presented document must be altered, before it gets signed. The victim that has been asked to sign the request for records needs to cross out any reference to the most dated medical records. As mentioned above, any such alteration needs to bear the initials of the person that made the changes.

Consequently, policyholders’ obligations relate to 2 different sets of requests. Requests from the other party’s insurance company do not have to be honored. Those that may have come from the policyholders’ own insurance company can be challenged, if the challenge gets made in the right way. Personal injury lawyer in St John’s knows that a proper and fitting request should be honored. One that seeks facts that should be of no concern to the insurance company ought to be revised in some way. In that way, the person making the revision should not get punished.