Volume 3 Issue 1

In this issue

January 2005                                      

Witnesses

• Why YOU should contact witnesses before the adjuster
• How to get information from your witnesses
• How to present witness information to the insurance adjuster
• What format to use to give your witness the most credibility

Settle-It-Yourself Newsletter

Hello!!  Welcome to the January edition of Settlement Central’s Newsletter.  We are pleased to share this newsletter with you, as our business is helping people get satisfactory settlements for their personal injury claims. 

In this issue, we will discuss why witnesses can be essential in providing credibility to your injury claim.

As always, we will post our articles on our website as they are sent out in the Settle-It-Yourself Newsletter.  Our readers will have a rich resource available to them, our hands-on battles with the insurance companies translate into useful and accurate information for our readers.

All of us at Settlement Central wish you a wonderful, and safe, new year!

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Witnesses

Witnesses can be an essential aid in presenting your case.  The purposes of witness statements are numerous but basically, they can be summarized in the following one or two main areas: They support either your version of what occurred during/after the accident, or your assessment of damages resulting from the accident.

If you are handling your insurance claim yourself, it is your responsibility to gather witness statements.  You can present the information to the insurance adjuster, gathered from your witnesses in several ways:

• You can cite what the witness would say in your conversation or letter to the insurance adjuster giving him the name or contact information for the witness should he wish to follow up.
• You can prepare a quick handwritten note for the witness to sign and either cite that for the insurance adjuster or photocopy it and present it with your claim.
• You can speak with the witness and prepare a letter for her/him to sign to be included with your demand package.
• You can prepare a formal declaration or certified statement, made under penalty of perjury of the laws of your state, with a caption format (even if you are not in litigation) and include that with your materials as something, which carries the same weight as actual testimony.  This would be our recommendation to you as it gives the most credible weight to your witnesses testimony of the event.

For more free information on handling witness, including why you should contact witnesses before the adjuster, and how to get information from your witnesses,

please click here: http://www.settlementcentral.com/format.php?Page=8016.
  
Thank you for your interest in our site; we hope you will find us to be an excellent source for your own personal injury needs!!

Jeanine Steele

Publisher, Settle it Yourself Newsletter

SettlementCentral.Com has a wealth of information and special tips for members who wish to arm themselves with the best advice for dealing with insurance companies.  Our Negotiation section is filled with fresh and effective ideas on how to approach a company to ensure a successful settlement of your case.

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About SettlementCentral.com

http://www.settlementcentral.com

SettlementCentral.Com, Inc. is a Washington corporation providing general educational information, online, to personal injury victims throughout the United States on how to manage their own personal injury claims through the settlement process—from gathering the necessary information (evidence) to submitting claims and demand letters, through engaging in successful personal injury settlement negotiations with insurance companies. Our online instructions and self-help forms and letters are designed to make for easy insurance claims settlements in the areas of auto accidents, pedestrian accidents, dog bites, vicious animal bites, premises liability, and slip and fall accidents.

Contact Information

Your comments and suggestions are welcome!  Tell us what topics you would like to see discussed in this newsletter and we will do our best to bring you current useful information.  Write to us at: info@SettlementCentral.com