Evidence · 9 min read
What the insurer is doing while you recover
Insurance adjusters are not villains. They are employees measured on claim cost, following a documented process. Understanding that process is far more useful than being angry at it — and it makes the individual moves entirely predictable.
Reviewed May 2026The early call
Contact usually comes within days, before you have been fully assessed and while you are least able to answer precisely. The purpose is legitimate — a claim must be investigated — but the timing is not accidental. A statement given while medicated and exhausted becomes a permanent record measured against everything you say afterwards.
Authorisations that go further than they need to
Medical authorisation forms are routine and often drawn far more broadly than the claim requires — sometimes covering your entire medical history rather than the relevant period and body systems. You are entitled to a scoped authorisation. Most people sign the broad one because it arrived with everything else.
The early offer
A quick offer arrives at the moment your bills are mounting and your recovery is uncertain. It is usually calculated on the assumption you will recover fully and quickly, and it comes attached to a release that ends the claim permanently, including for injuries that later prove worse. It is not fraud. It is a rational purchase of certainty at a discount, and the discount is yours.
There is no cooling-off period, no reopening for deterioration, and no second claim later. A signed release is the end of the matter — which is precisely why offers arrive early rather than late.
The independent medical examination
You will likely be sent to a physician chosen and paid by the insurer, described as independent. Many of these assessors are careful professionals. Some produce almost identical opinions across hundreds of files, and experienced plaintiff firms know exactly which is which. What you should know going in: the examination is not treatment, nothing you say there is confidential, and the assessment often begins in the waiting room and the parking lot.
- Be accurate rather than either brave or dramatic. Both distortions are visible.
- Describe a normal week, including your better days. Claiming every day is your worst day is the fastest way to lose credibility.
- Note the start time, end time and what was actually done. Reports have been contradicted by a documented eleven-minute examination.
- Ask your lawyer beforehand whether you may bring someone with you. Practice varies by province and by assessment type.
Surveillance
Surveillance is lawful in public spaces and routine in contested claims. It is generally deployed around predictable moments: before a mediation, before an examination for discovery, and around any assessment. The footage is rarely dramatic. Its power lies in juxtaposition — twenty seconds of you carrying groceries, edited against your description of your limitations, with the two days in bed afterwards left out. The defence against it is not hiding. It is describing your abilities accurately in the first place, including what you can do.
Delay
Time is an asset to the party that is not injured. Requests for further records, scheduling difficulties and reassessment cycles all cost the insurer very little and cost you a great deal, because your financial pressure increases with every month. Firms that keep files moving on their own schedule — issuing a claim rather than negotiating indefinitely — remove that lever.
What none of this means
It does not mean your adjuster is dishonest, that your own insurer is your enemy, or that every claim is a fight. Many claims resolve reasonably and without drama. It means the process is asymmetric — one side does this every day and the other side is doing it for the first time while injured — and that asymmetry is the entire reason representation exists.