Truck Accident Insurance Investigation

Answer:

When we investigate trucking accidents, of course, we start out by going to the scene to see if there are any markings in the roadway, to see if there’s something at the scene that can help us determine who was at fault. Many times, the first response we get from the insurance company representing the trucking company is that it wasn’t our fault, it was someone else’s fault, something else happened, it was the weather, it was the roadway, it was – an animal ran in front of the truck. There’s usually an excuse right up front that it’s not their fault, and they don’t want to pay. The first thing we do is go to the scene to see what we can learn from the scene itself, from the skid marks, the brake marks. There’s a lot of evidence at these scenes that people don’t realize. Of course, if we go out to the scene six months later or a year later, it’s not going to be there. We want to go out there as soon as possible. That’s one good reason why you should hire an attorney right off the bat.

The second good reason is that you want to communicate with the insurance company and the trucking company and let them know that you want them to preserve whatever evidence they have in their possession, including the downloads from the truck and any photographs that they’ve taken of the scene. That preservation letter that we send out has to be worded correctly. It has to be sent to the right people. That’s something a lawyer can do for you and should be done right away. Then, the next step is to make arrangements through either your expert or someone that we hire or trust, to get the information, to make an arrangement with the insurance company to  allow access to the 18-wheeler so we can take photographs of it, inspect it for ourselves, and secure any evidence from the truck that might be helpful to your case.

Now we have visited the scene, secured evidence from the scene, and we have inspected the truck and secured evidence from the truck. That puts you in the best possible position to recover from the harms and losses that you and your family have suffered. If you wait a week, a month, a year, the lawyer is not going to be able to get that kind of information for you, and it’s going to be that much more difficult for you to prove your case.