Pre-existing injuries refer to all the damages or health issues an individual had before the current and the main accident occurred. Now, this can be as simple as a minor sports injury or some chronic condition like arthritis that existed before the recent incident occurred.
Some of the common injuries that can pre-exist are mentioned below. These can be:
- Previously broken bones or fractures
- Chronic disc disease
- Spinal issues
- Herniated disc
- Prior concussion or brain injury
If you want to learn about its details, a personal injury lawyer in Houston can help you out the best in this matter.
Why Pre-Existing Injuries Matter?
Pre-existing injuries matter a lot and have their own importance. Here is why they matter.
Insurance Company Scheme
Insurance companies belong to a business where they work to minimize the payouts. So, there is a high chance that when they come to know about your previous injuries, they can put it out of proportion and that is why a low settlement can be expected from them.
Estimation of Liability and Damage
In order to determine the compensation, the insurance company professionals estimate the injuries that are sustained. So, in case of the pre-existing injuries, there can be questions asked like if the recent accident was the cause of injury, or did it just make it worse?
Legal Complications
Now, once a new accident occurs and results in an injury on the pre-existing injury, the part that is at fault can still be blamed and held liable. But, for this, the injured party must prove that the injury was caused by the recent accident.
How Pre-Existing Injuries Affect the Calims?
Pre-existing injuries do leave their impact on the claims, and sometimes these can be really hard to digest.
Potential Reduction in Compensation
Whenever there is a record that shows a preexisting injury and those injuries are quite similar to the ones that occurred just now, the insurance company officials might stress that the injuries not completely being caused by the recent accident. Now, this perception can result in three things:
Challenging the medical costs: The claimant may go through difficulties in getting full compensation for the treatment related to the injury, a there is a high chance that they attribute the treatment cost to the maintenance cost of the pre-existing injury.
reduced compensation: The insurance company can also make it tough for you by claiming that the injuries caused before were merely aggravated by the new accident. So, there are high chance that your compensation gets less.
Proving aggregation: Now, if the pre-existing injury becomes worse with the new accident, it is all on the claimant to prove that the extent of the aggravation is pretty bad. This can be really challenging and can require extensive medical documentation.
Arguments Presented by the Insurance Company
In order to minimize the claims and maintain their profitability, the insurance companies might come up with some arguments, especially when it comes to pre-existing injuries. Here are a few:
Citation of previous medical treatment: Insurers can delve into the previous medical records in order to show you that there has been medical treatment taken before. This can backfire as they can claim that the current issues aren’t because of the existing injury.
Questioning the timing of diagnosis: If there is a condition that is diagnosed just before the accident occurred, the insurers can question the validity or can make arguments that the condition is not related at all.
Attribution to old Injuries: The companies might argue that the discomfort, pain, ad disability of the person affected is suffering is entirely due to the pre-existing conditions.
The gap between medical treatments: So, if the claimant has a gap between the last treatment they took compared to now, the insurers might think that the insured person was in need of money anyway. And because of that, they do not take the new accident injury seriously.
Use of independent medical examination: A lot of times, insurance companies require the injured person to get themselves checked by a doctor of their choice. Now, these medical professionals can be biased, as they are associated with the insurance company itself.
So, all in all, if we focus, we can tell that insurance companies can be a really big challenge for people who have previous injuries and have availed the compensation offered by the insurers.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that honesty and being transparent is the way to go in case of pre-existing injuries. If you try and conceal them they can hurt your credibility and can damage the claim that you make. It is always appreciated if you take medical care seriously and go for it right after the accident occurs. Keeping the medical documents and all other relevant files is really crucial if you want your claim to result in something fruitful
