Dealing with Insurance Companies After a Wrongful Death

Dealing with Insurance Companies After a Wrongful Death

• October 2, 2025
• Categories: Wrongful Death

Dealing with insurance companies after a wrongful death in California can be exceptionally challenging for grieving families. It requires navigating complex legal processes while facing insurers motivated to minimize payouts. Families must balance their emotional trauma with the need to pursue fair compensation for damages. It can feel overwhelming and unfamiliar.  An experienced wrongful death lawyer can help you stand up to insurance representatives and ensure that you’re treated fairly. A skilled attorney knows how to approach this challenging situation with authority and strength.

Key Challenges with Insurance Companies in a Wrongful Death Claim

Insurance companies don’t want to pay out on claims. Their entire focus is to defeat claims, and when they can’t do that, they are motivated to pay as little as possible in damages. Following are the challenges families face when confronting insurance companies:

1. Profit-Driven Tactics

• Settlement Lowballing: Initial offers frequently undervalue claims by ignoring long-term financial impacts, such as lost future earnings, and non-economic losses, such as grief or loss of companionship.
• Bad-Faith Practices: Some insurers may deny valid claims without proper investigation, or they misrepresent policy terms.
• Early Pressured Offers: Insurers often rush families with early settlement proposals, capitalizing on emotional distress and financial strain.  These offers typically exclude long-term costs.
• Exploiting Vulnerability: Adjusters may frame low offers as “final” or “best possible,” hoping families accept before consulting legal counsel.

2. Delaying the Claims Process

• Intentional Delays: Insurers prolong investigations, demand repetitive documentation, or stall negotiations to frustrate families into accepting reduced settlements.  This tactic is particularly effective when families face mounting funeral costs, large medical bills, or lost income.
• Bureaucratic Hurdles: Insurers often request excessive paperwork, like decades of tax returns or irrelevant medical records, in an attempt to overwhelm families.

3. Disputing Liability or Shifting Blame

• Comparative Negligence Claims: Insurers may argue that the deceased shared fault for the accident, reducing payouts under California’s comparative fault rules.  For example, a $1M claim could drop to $800,000 if 20% fault is assigned.
• Fabricating Contradictions: Adjusters might misrepresent evidence, like security footage or witness statements, to challenge liability.

4. Undervaluing Damages

Economic Damages

• Lost Income: Insurers may ignore the deceased’s career trajectory, using outdated salary data or excluding benefits like pensions.
• Funeral Costs: Offers might cover only basic expenses, excluding memorial services or travel for family.

Non-Economic Damages

• Emotional suffering, loss of companionship, or parental guidance are often dismissed as “subjective” and undervalued.

5. Surveillance and Social Media Scrutiny

• Covert Monitoring: Insurers may surveil families to depict “normal” activities, suggesting these are inconsistent with emotional distress.  Attending a social event or travelling to see friends can be depicted as “having fun.”
• Social Media Mining: Posts, photos, or check-ins can be misconstrued to undermine claims of grief or financial hardship.

6. Exploiting Recorded Statements

• Manipulative Questions: Adjusters might ask leading questions during recorded calls to trick families into admitting fault or downplaying losses.
• Misquoting Statements: Innocent remarks like “I’m managing” could be used to argue against severe emotional harm.

7. Denying Valid Claims Outright

• Policy Loopholes: Insurers may cite exclusions, like “intentional acts,” or claim incomplete paperwork to reject claims.
• Medical Disputes: They might allege that pre-existing conditions caused the death, or they challenge treatment necessity.

As you can see, there are multiple ways that insurance companies can undermine a family’s sincerity when filing a California wrongful death claim. By overwhelming families and misconstruing policy language, insurers can convince families to settle for significantly less than a claim is worth.

Critical Steps for Families to Take in Wrongful Death Cases

To protect themselves in the legal process, family members should adhere to the critical steps listed below:

1. Document Everything

Preserve police reports, medical bills, X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, lab results, photos, accident scene information, witness contacts, surveillance video, and communications with insurers.

2. Avoid Recorded Statements

Refrain from discussing fault or details with insurers without legal counsel.

3. Hire Legal Representation

Attorneys can protect you because they know how to negotiate using actuarial data and expert testimony from economists and vocational experts.  Lawyers also use strong evidence like employment records to rebut low valuations.

4. Stay Off of Social Media

Don’t post anything on Facebook, Instagram, or any other social media about the accident or death, including written details, photos, or any other commentary.

5. Reject Early Offers

California’s 2-year statute of limitations allows time to assess the claim’s true value and negotiate aggressively with insurance representatives.

By understanding these tactics, families can better navigate negotiations and secure compensation reflecting their significant loss. Legal counsel is critical to countering insurer strategies. Hiring a skilled wrongful death lawyer is an important step to ensure your future.

Why Choose Neale & Fhima?

The wrongful death attorneys at Neale & Fhima have more than 40 years of combined experience in handling personal injury and wrongful death cases in California.  We know the complexities of the law, and we use this knowledge to pursue the highest compensation possible for our clients. We don’t treat people like a number on a case file like many high-volume law firms do. We care about our clients and treat them like family.  We’re transparent and will explain to you the legal process, potential obstacles, role of insurance companies after an accident, and estimated value of your claim before you make a decision about hiring us.  We have countless satisfied clients who refer friends, parents, siblings, and others to our law firm. You can trust us to care for your family like we would our own.

Legal Deadlines for California Wrongful Death Actions

It’s important to keep in mind these legal deadlines for wrongful death cases:

• 2-Year Statute of Limitations: Most wrongful death lawsuits must be filed within 2 years of the date of death.
• 6-Month Deadline for Government Entities: Claims against government entities require a notice within 6 months.
• Medical Malpractice: Claims against doctors, hospitals, and medical facilities for medical malpractice must be filed within 1 year from the date of discovery or 3 years from the date of injury, whichever comes first.
• File an SR-1 Report Within 10 Days When There’s a Vehicle Accident Leading to Wrongful Death: California mandates that you submit this DMV form within 10 days for fatal accidents.
• Produce a Demand Letter Via Your Attorney Promptly: A wrongful death attorney drafts this document, detailing liability evidence, damages, and settlement expectations.

Why Legal Representation Is Essential

There are many reasons why you want to hire a lawyer to represent you rather than dealing with insurance companies on your own. These include:

1. Evidence Gathering: Attorneys obtain critical proof like surveillance footage, accident reconstruction, or expert witnesses to counter insurer disputes.
2. Maximizing Compensation: Skilled negotiators know how to secure significant payouts that are much higher than low-ball offers from insurers.
3. Litigation Readiness: If insurers refuse fair settlements, lawyers file lawsuits and present cases to juries, often achieving higher awards than initial offers.

By partnering with a wrongful death attorney, families level the playing field against insurance companies, ensuring their rights are protected while pursuing accountability.

Neale & Fhima Provides Authoritative and Aggressive Legal Representation in Wrongful Death Claims

Insurance companies often take advantage of grieving families in wrongful death cases by providing early low-ball offers, delaying the claims process, shifting liability, and pursuing other bullying tactics. Our lawyers are wise to these tactics, and we know how to secure fair compensation despite insurance representatives’ unkind efforts. We understand that a wrongful death can have intergenerational financial consequences for families, and we are determined not to let that happen. We know this is a difficult time of grieving for you. Our caring personal injury attorneys will support you with concern and empathy throughout the legal process. Our law firm has an outstanding record of recovering more than $50 million in rightful compensation for victims throughout California. For a free consultation about your case, call us at 888-407-2955.