The first thing to remember is that the other driver's insurance company is not likely to pay anything for your injury unless and until you are willing to settle your case once and for all. Signing a medical release or any other insurance company document is not likely to change that. An insurance company is eventually entitled to review records of any medical treatment for which you ask to be reimbursed. In our experience, however, most medical release forms are written in such a way that they give the insurance company access to all of your medical records--even records that are unrelated to your accident injuries.

Often insurance companies will then turn around and use your pre-accident health history as justification for making a low settlement offer. Our firm protects our clients from this tactic in a number of ways:

• We advise our clients to avoid giving an insurance company a medical release until we have reviewed your medical records first.
• If our review uncovers items in your medical history that may impact your claim, we make sure that you know about it before the insurance company does.
• When we do provide the insurance company with a medical release, we make sure the release only applies to relevant medical treatment.

To find out the rest of the 6 Unfair Tactics Insurance Companies Use to Exploit Car Accident Victims, click below to download the entire Legal Insider Guide to Iowa Car Accident Claims.