Will a Pre-Existing Injury Affect My Personal Injury Claim?

Preexisting injuries are a subject that insurance adjusters may address during the settlement of a case. While a preexisting condition may affect the settlement value of your personal injury claim, you are still entitled to compensation for physical or emotional conditions that were made worse as a result of an accident. However, how you handle your preexisting injuries may either negatively or positively impact your claim.
Preexisting Injuries
Preexisting conditions can complicate the settlement of your case. If you have previous injuries, the at-fault party may claim that your original condition was the cause of your current injury. However, one key to determining whether a preexisting condition affects your current case is whether the condition was causing you pain at the time of the accident.
However, the good news is, the preexisting condition will not make the settlement go away. You are still entitled to recover the difference between your level of pain and injury prior to the current accident and after the accident.
The Importance of Full Disclosure
Insurance adjusters are looking for any way to attack the credibility of a victim in a personal injury claim. If you have a preexisting medical condition and you fail to disclose it to your attorney, it may make the insurance adjuster suspicious of your claim, even if you didn’t think there was a connection between the old and the new injury.
As such, regardless of how dissimilar previous injuries may be to your current injuries, it is important to disclose them to your attorney at the outset of your claim. Failing to disclose previous medical conditions, especially those that affect the same part of your body, can severely impact your credibility and the overall value of your claim.
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Attorney Kenneth A. Wilhelm is a New York personal injury attorney with over 43 years of experience. For more information or to schedule a complimentary consultation, please call 1-800-967-5496 24 hours a day, seven days a week or visit us at www.work4youlaw.com. We can even come to you. Huge amounts of money have been offered to our clients.