When you’ve been injured in an accident, the first phone call you get is often from an insurance adjuster, and what you say next can make or break your entire claim.
In this installment of our Road to Recovery series, Clarke explains exactly how adjusters try to steer conversations, the traps hidden inside seemingly innocent questions, and the one sentence you should always use before saying anything else. You’ll also learn when you’re required to answer questions, how a lawyer prepares you for a recorded statement, and why adjusters already know the answers to most of the questions they ask.
If you’ve ever wondered how to protect yourself after an accident — or why insurers want you talking before you’re ready — we’ll help you get the clarity (and confidence) you need.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
📞 The First Call – Why the adjuster sounds friendly — and why that’s part of the strategy.
🛑 Your Safe Response – The one line to repeat every time: “I’d like to speak with my attorney before I answer any questions.”
🕵️ Fishing for Fault – How adjusters ask misleading questions to reduce or deny your claim.
🎙️ Recorded Statements – When you must give one, when you shouldn’t, and how a lawyer prepares you to avoid traps.
📑 They Already Know the Facts – Adjusters have the collision report — so why are they asking you? Clark explains the real reason.
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
Accident, catastrophic injury, road to recover, insurance, insurance adjuster, attorney, Clarke speaks, speaks law
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Transcript (Click To Read)
Clark: I’m Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the verdict.
Carson Grace Toomer: Now, Mr. M. Speaks, I have a question. We were recently talking about kind of insurance adjusters, and you said that it’s dangerous, you know, for myself, as someone who had, you know, maybe been injured, to speak to an insurance adjuster without being informed about what they’re doing and kind of where they’re kind of fishing for me to admit any kind of guilt. What do I say to an insurance adjuster when they call me and do I say, you know, I don’t want to talk right now? How does that go about.
Clark: Good question. I think what you say to them is, I’d like to speak with my attorney first. Right. I used to do a lot of criminal defense, and I had this partner, uh, my old partner, Jeff Hosford, phenomenal, uh, criminal defense lawyer. Uh, but he had business cards, and on the back of the business cards, it said, uh, uh, it was courteous, it was polite. It just said, hey, I’d like to speak with my attorney before I answer any questions. And that’s it, you know, and that’s all you have to say. And so, and then you can just whatever question that if they ask you again or again or again, it’s just the same. I like to speak to my attorney before I answer any questions. You don’t have to be rude. You don’t have to be unfriendly or unkind or discourteous. But you do need to say that, uh, and then once you talk to an experienced, uh, personal injury attorney, you may very well decide that you want to answer the questions. In fact, if it’s your own insurance company, you are contractually obligated to answer these questions. Uh, but you want to know, you want a professional there with you when you do. Uh, because they may be asking questions that might, uh, be fishing for a different set of answers that could reduce or eliminate your claim entirely. And you want to be prepared for that, and you want to have somebody that knows what they’re doing and what’s best for you, uh, in order to be able to answer those questions properly. Uh, for example, so, like, um, I reviewed some old transcripts in preparation to speak with you, and this is an example of, uh, how this goes. Uh, you know, hey, this is so and so from the insurance company. I understand you were in an accident. Is that right? Uh, yes, it is. Uh, well, I’m sorry about that. I’m just going to handle the claims process for you. I just need to ask you a few questions for the file Right. For the file. Um, do you have a few minutes? Yes. Meanwhile, you’re going about your business, you’re doing your other things. You’re, uh, you know, putting your groceries away or you’re sitting on the couch with nursing a broken ankle or whatever it is you’re doing. Um, and maybe the TV’s on in the background. You got people, you know, kids running. You’re just not focused on what’s being. And then, uh. Can you tell me about the accident? Uh, sure. It wasn’t my fault. It was the other driver’s fault. And so, and so, and so, and so. And then I went to the hospital. I understand. Can you tell me where you were coming from? Can you tell me where you’re going to? Right now they’re getting to the part where they’re going to ask you what distance, time, those kinds of things. Um, uh, what were you doing immediately before the accident? Is there anything that you could have done to avoid the accident? Right. You’re an honest person. You know, you go to church and try to do the right thing and all that. Well, shoot, yes, there’s a million things I could have done. I could have not gone to work that day. I could have stayed home. I could have taken a different route, you know, but when they ask that question, they’re asking for stats, they’re looking for something else. They’re looking for a basis to deny your claim. They already have this report. They already have a. They already have a two or three. They have a. They have a four page report, front, back, uh, with a key that has other information on it so that they have road conditions and speed and ownership and vehicle and citations and investigative from a professionally trained officer, law enforcement officer, whose job it is to investigate these claims and assemble these records. They have it, and they have it sitting right in front of them. And they know the answers to 99% of these questions. So you got to ask yourself, why are they asking you these questions? You know, and they’re asking these questions because they’re looking for a way to reduce or deny your claim. It’s okay, you know, you may have to answer the questions. It saves them from having to litigate. It could be a good thing. But you have to have somebody professional sitting beside you who knows what they’re looking for, knows how to respond to these questions. So that when they get to the question, where was the first, very first moment when you saw the other car? Uh, how far away was the car when you saw it? How much time passed between the time you first saw the car in impact. You know how to answer that question, and you have thought about it, and you’re answering it accurately and not just off the cuff. Because as we said before, when you say 10 seconds, you know, and it sounds like, okay, that’s reasonable, till you stop and wait 10 seconds. And then you realize, holy smoke, that’s a long wait. I could have stopped in that time. And you realize, you know What? It wasn’t 10 seconds. It was bang, bang, bang, you know, and you got to ask yourself, hey, I know this was the other driver’s fault. The cop knows. The investigating officer knows it was the other driver’s fault. Everybody knows. What are they. What’s going on here? And they need it for their file. Their file has already got
00:05:00
Clark: all these. This documentation in it. Like, what. What. What are they? What is. What is there to ask? Well, they’re looking for things that could be harmful to your claim. So you have to walk into that prepared and knowing what you’re doing and with a professional. And that’s the important thing about, uh, that part of this process, I think.
Carson Grace Toomer: So I call you and say, hey, this insurance adjuster, um, call me. Is that a situation where you come and sit down, we meet with this person?
Clark: Sure, yeah. Well, what happens is you call and you say, hey, I was in an accident and I, uh, I have some questions. Right. Um, do I need a lawyer? Uh, should I go to the doctor? What do I do about my car? How do I get to work? Um, you know, what am I going to do about my lost wages? You ask, whatever. Are you going to be able to help me? Or is this your bag? Or is this. Should I call somebody else? Or whatever. And then you’re going to get a feel for, like, these people know what they’re doing and they can help me, or, no, this is a good fit. Or maybe they refer you to someone else or whatever. If it’s us and you’re asking us those kinds of questions and the answer is going to be, you know, yes, we can help you. And here’s how that works. So, um, what would happen then is you get to the question and you say, hey, they want me to do a recorded statement. Or maybe they haven’t even asked you that, but we know they’re going to ask you to do a recorded statement. So we’re going to say when they ask you to do the recorded statement, you say, I’d like to speak to my lawyer. And then at that point, if you’re. If we’re already working with you, any question they ask you, you’d say, hey, you can you direct them to us? Right. We want to take over that communication completely so that you can focus on getting better and we can focus on doing what we do, which includes communicating with the insurance company. You would call us and say, hey, they want to talk to me about this accident. And then what we would do is we would say, okay, um, we would contact them and we would find out if that was necessary. What we’re going to say first is you got a collision report. The collision report shows exactly what happened. It, it shows the road conditions, tire compressions, weather conditions, who was at fault, who was cited, why they were cited. It’s a comprehensive investigation. Why do you need to speak to our client? And they might give us a reason that says that makes sense. And we go, um. And sometimes that reason is we’re not going to pay you anything until you speak to us. In which case, okay, uh, I’d rather prepare for. And give you the key is prepare a recorded statement. Didn’t have to litigate this thing to a jury and take another nine months or whatever and expose my client to risk and expense and uncertainty and time. So, okay, we’ll answer, we’ll do the recorded statement. Recorded statement, take an hour. Okay. But now we’re going to prepare you. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to sit down with you on a telephone, either in person or on a telephone call. Used to. All these, used to be in person, but now we would, we might do it on a zoom or a telephone call or whatever. And we’re going to tell you these are some things to expect. These are some questions that they’re going to ask because they follow a very predictable formula when they’re asking these questions. And we’re going to talk to you about how to answer that so that you won’t be surprised and you’ll know, ah, what’s going to be asked and what the appropriate answer is. We’re not going to tell you what to say. We’re just going to have to tell you how to answer the question, you know, and if they try to ask you, it’s very much like preparing for a deposition, you know, for a trial, you know, we want to make sure you answer just the question being asked for you. For example, if I say to you, if I, if I say to you, do you know what time it is? Most people are going to look and go, it’s one o’ clock or whatever. They didn’t ask you what time is it? They said, uh, uh, they said, do you know what time it is? So what you want to do is be able to answer that question. Yes, I do. In normal conversation, people don’t communicate like that. In legal conversation, it’s important to communicate like that. You know, sometimes they’ll assume, uh, the answer to a previous question, you know, um, before they ask it. So, so in other words, in light of the fact that, you know, uh, you could have, you saw this car coming, um, could you have done anything different in order to avoid this accident? Right. That assumes that you saw this car coming, you know, and so we want to be careful about that. That’s a compound question and it’s misleading. And so we would want to ask them to rephrase that question and first establish that you did in fact see that car coming. And so those are examples of some of the things that we would have to be careful of in dealing with a situation like this. But as a person who just normally talks to people in day to day life, you don’t have to be so careful with the things that you say. And so in these contexts you do have to be careful with the things that you say because there will be a team of lawyers studying this later to see if there’s a basis for disputing, denying or reducing, uh.
Carson Grace Toomer: How, uh.
Clark: Much a claim is worth and the value of a claim. So you do have to be very careful about those types of things. Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
