Pre-Existing Injuries

Answer:

Just yesterday we were speaking with a client who asked us how her preexisting physical conditions might affect her new case. Preexisting conditions are one of the ways that insurance companies love to attack your case, and try to devalue your case, and tell you your case is worth less than what it is, and it takes a very skilled and experienced personal injury attorney to navigate those waters.

What we do at the Victory Law Firm is to make sure that the insurance company understands the difference between preexisting conditions and the injuries that you have suffered subsequent to the accident. Insurance companies will try and tie everything to something that has happened before. It is very important that we have a very open relationship with your doctors and are very clear as to what is new and what is not.

Insurance companies will oftentimes hire experts, and it’s important that your attorney be able to hire experts to counter those experts’ testimonies to what might be a preexisting condition. Insurance companies, even if you do have a preexisting condition, have to take you the way you are. They’re not allowed to say, “Well, this all has to do with a prior incident.” If you have a bad back and this accident worsened it, they have to pay for that. They have to take you for what you are not what you could be or should be. It’s a doctrine in Florida called the eggshell plaintiff.

There are many tricks that insurance companies try to do to reduce the value of your case, which is why it’s critically important to talk to an attorney who is skilled and experienced in these matters to handle your case. Do not fear moving forward with the claim because you had a prior claim before, had prior surgeries before, had prior injuries before. It’s not something that’s going to stop you from moving forward with a very successful claim. Please reach out to the Victory Law Firm so we can discuss those types of things further.