Theme Park Injury Insurance Investigation

Answer:

When we had a client come in and they were talking about their fall at one of the local theme parks, a question we often get is, “Should I be speaking to the theme park representative? They’ve reached out to me. They have sent me letters. They’re trying to get me to talk to them.”

We would say, under most circumstances, no, do not speak to the representatives of the theme park or the insurance company if they are asking you to give them a statement or some kind of recording or any kind of detailed explanation of what may or may not have happened. We say in certain circumstances because if you have hired an attorney and discussed the facts of your case with the attorney, and your attorney decides that it’s in your best interest to speak to the insurance company, in terms of helping you cooperate with the investigation of the case, you may do that, but that’s in very limited circumstances. For the most part, we would say, no, do not speak to the insurance company. We would say do not speak to the insurance company alone, ever, in any of these situations.

Sometimes we have clients who, when they’re at the theme park, a theme park representative will try to reach out to them while they’re lying there on the ground or while they’re being helped by EMT’s. Be careful of giving any great detail into what happened. Let them know what body part you’ve injured, let them know what may or may not have happened. Aside from that, just give them the basics of the situation so they can fill out an incident report. If they do that, make sure that you get a copy of that, and make sure that you read the incident report before you fill it out, sign it, and give it back to them.

We’ve had cases where some of these incident reports have questions in there which basically have the person signing it admit that they were negligent or admit that they’re not going to pursue any claim against the theme park. Be very careful with speaking to the theme parks. Don’t ever speak to the theme park’s insurance representative without an attorney. In some cases it’s okay, if you’re with your attorney or under the guidance of your attorney, to speak with them; that way you can help in the investigation, and they can’t deny you benefits for not cooperating with their claim. If you have any other questions about theme park accidents, please contact our office.