Second-Party Claims
Claims Against You, By Your Customers or Employees
A second or third party claim can be an unnerving experience. You may start receiving copies of medical bills, letters from attorneys or even be served a summons on an occurrence you were completely unaware of. It's easy to feel like you're trying to play catch-up, trying to ascertain the who, what, why and when of whatever allegedly happened after the other party has already lawyered up. All you really want is to try to prevent litigation against you, and, should it come to it, be defended by your insurance carrier if indemnification is necessary. Here's how.
Lien Letters & Lawsuits
A lien letter is just a notice from an attorney alerting you that they are representing someone who alleges they were injured in your business or by your patrons on or around a certain date, and that you should send them your insurance company's contact information. In many cases, you may have no recollection of anything happening on the date in question. A lawsuit indicates that a suit has been filed and your time to respond (or your company's time to respond on your behalf) is ticking. Failure to do so could result in a default judgement against you.
Forward the papers to our office as soon as possible.
If you have an Incident Report on the situation, forward it as well. If you don't, try to recreate one from memory.
If you have a camera system, see if you still have footage of the date in question. If so, make a copy immediately.
Do not discuss the situation with anyone other than the claims adjuster sent out by your insurance company.
Response times will vary by company, when the claim gets turned in, and the workload of the adjuster assigned, but most should contact you within 24 hours. If you haven't been contacted by an adjuster within 48 hours of turning in the claim, let us know, we will get your adjuster to contact you immediately.
Slip & Falls
Complete an Incident Report - write down as much information as possible. Date & time, names and contact info of the injured persons, witnesses, and employees on duty, and a description of what happened. Was an ambulance needed?
Send the Incident Report to our Agency.
If you have a video surveilance system, make a copy of the incident (on a cd, dvd or thumb drive). Set it aside in a safe place with a copy of the incident report. We've written before about uploading them somewhere so you don't have to worry about losing a disc. Lawsuits against your business can take months to come to light, so get the footage of the incident off before it gets discarded or overwritten.
If you receive any medical bills from the injured person(s) or lien letters from their attorney, forward them to our office immediately.
Do not discuss the situation with anyone other than the claims adjuster sent out by your insurance company.
Response times will vary by company, when the claim gets turned in, and the workload of the adjuster assigned, but most should contact you within 24 hours. If you haven't been contacted by an adjuster within 48 hours of turning in the claim, let us know, we will get your adjuster to contact you immediately.
Workers Compensation Claims
For all types of claims by injured workers, the quickest way to get the ball rolling is to complete a First Report of Injury form and submit it to us or your Work Comp carrier.
