Leon Personal Injury Attorneys

If you have been injured in an accident near Leon, Iowa, understanding how the insurance company operates, what to do if your symptoms do not appear right away, and how to treat a serious neck injury can make a real difference in your recovery and your claim.

What Insurers Don't Want Leon Accident Victims to Know

Insurance companies are some of the richest and most powerful corporations in the United States. Each year they spend heavily in an effort to reduce the rights and compensation available to hardworking Iowans so they can maximize their own profit. What they do not control, however, are the judges and juries who ultimately decide the amount of compensation you receive if you have been hurt in an accident. Here are five things insurance companies generally do not want you to know.

1. The Insurance Company Is Legally Allowed to Mislead You

There is no law requiring the insurance company for the other side to tell you the truth or to do anything that is in your best interest. This is why an adjuster will sometimes act like your friend and try to build trust with you, a routine that is common when your injuries are serious. It is a bad idea to trust an insurance adjuster, because their job is to pay you as little as possible, and they may even receive promotions or bonuses for building a track record of paying less than cases are worth.

2. You Do Not Have to Give Them a Recorded Statement

An insurance adjuster will often claim they need a recorded statement to evaluate your claim, but in reality, you have no obligation to give the insurance company for the other side a recorded statement. The reason they want one is so they can ask questions in a way that lets them use your answers against you later. Your credibility is very important in any injury case, which is exactly why the insurance adjuster tries to test it early.

3. Their "Final Offer" Is Usually Not Their Best Offer

During negotiations, the insurance company will often tell you that a particular number is their final offer. Experience shows that this is usually not the case. There is little to lose by making another proposal to settle your Leon accident claim, since it is highly unlikely the insurance company will simply refuse to offer you anything at all. Sometimes, filing a lawsuit and going through the legal process is what it takes to get the insurance company's true best offer.

4. They Will Intentionally Try to Frustrate You

When the friendly approach does not work, insurance adjusters sometimes turn to frustration as a tactic. A very low initial offer can make an injured person angry, and the adjuster knows that a certain percentage of people will accept a low-ball offer just to avoid dealing with the process any longer. If you have sustained a serious injury with potential lifelong effects, it is worth turning the matter over to an experienced injury attorney who deals with these tactics every day.

5. They Usually Will Not Pay Your Medical Bills as You Incur Them

An adjuster may tell you to send in your medical bills, but that does not mean they will actually pay them. This is often a strategy to pressure you into settling for less once collection calls from creditors, hospitals, and doctors start coming in. In personal injury cases, it is generally best to have your medical bills paid through your health insurance or medical payments coverage rather than waiting on the other driver's insurance company.

What If Your Leon Accident Injuries Don't Appear Right Away?

If you have been hurt at work, in a car accident, or in another type of personal injury incident near Leon, sometimes you will not feel pain until later the same day or even the next day. Regardless of when your pain begins, you should seek medical care and treatment as soon as it starts.

Why Might Symptoms Not Show Up Immediately?

After an accident, your adrenaline may spike, and hormones like cortisol can be released, which can temporarily mask pain. Anyone who has lifted heavy weights or worked out too hard knows that muscle soreness sometimes does not appear until the next day. What matters most is that once the pain starts, you promptly seek medical care to document it and begin your healing process.

If You Waited More Than a Week to Seek Care, Is It Too Late?

Not necessarily, but waiting will raise a red flag with the insurance adjuster assigned to your case. Be sure to tell your doctor when the pain started and why you did not seek care immediately. Going to the emergency room, urgent care, or your regular doctor may be inconvenient, but failing to go at all can cost you your claim and your case.

What If New Pain Shows Up After an Earlier Injury Is Treated?

It is common for people and their doctors to focus only on the most obvious medical issue at hand. For example, someone with extreme neck pain radiating into their arm following an accident may need neck surgery. After that surgery, the arm pain improves, but shoulder problems begin to show up. You should report any and all additional pain as soon as possible, because it is common for other problems to surface once the initial, more severe condition has been treated and was previously masking a second injury.

What If You Are Diagnosed With a Condition Months Later?

This can happen for many reasons. If you injure your right arm and need surgery, you may start relying more on your left arm, which can lead to overuse and new damage. Similarly, some people with serious leg injuries do not experience back pain until they are up walking again, often with a limp that causes new low back and hip pain. These new problems should still be reported, along with an explanation of how they developed from overuse or returning to activity.

Ultimately, your attorney should have a conference with your doctors to establish which conditions are related to your original injury, known as a causation opinion. Simply hearing a doctor say a condition is "possible" related to the injury is not enough under Iowa law. The injured person carries the burden of proving it is more likely than not that the injury caused the condition.

Cervical Radicular Pain and Neck Injuries Near Leon

Radicular pain, or radiculopathy, is a condition in which the nerves stop working properly. Disease or trauma may cause the condition, which is a malfunction in the root of the nerve. It can result in pain, numbness, weakness, and loss of motor control. Even though the problem occurs in the spinal area, the pain is often felt in other parts of the body. Many cases of radicular pain occur in the cervical spine and result in severe neck pain and other symptoms.

What Causes Cervical Radicular Pain?

In many cases, a herniated disc, usually the result of trauma such as an accident, causes cervical radicular pain. Radicular pain may also result from arthritis or other types of degenerative bone disease. The material from the ruptured disc can put pressure on the nerve root, compressing it and causing pain.

How Is Cervical Radicular Pain Treated?

Many patients suffering from this condition treat it with conservative therapies first, which may include corticosteroids and pain medication to varying degrees of effectiveness. Treatment may involve injectable medications, though some patients take medication orally. Physical therapy may also be part of a typical treatment plan, including cervical traction, which involves either mechanical or manual traction, along with other methods a physical therapist might use to relieve symptoms. When conservative treatment fails and the pain becomes intolerable, surgery is often the next step. However, there is another treatment called the epidural nerve block procedure that may provide pain relief.

Living with cervical radicular pain is not easy. The patient's life becomes about pain management, and patients may be unable to work, sleep, or enjoy everyday activities. If you suffer from this condition because of an accident near Leon that someone else caused, you may be able to get compensation for damages like medical bills for epidural nerve block procedures to relieve the pain, along with lost wages, pain and suffering, and more.