I frequently talk to insurance adjusters as I negotiate my client's claims in order to try to reach a settlement.  The insurance adjuster is in an interesting position.  The adjuster is presented with a police report, medical records and photographs of the cars involved in the accident.  The insurance adjuster is not trained in accident reconstruction, but has to decide if his or her insured was at fault for causing the accident.  The insurance adjuster also doesn't have medical training, but has to review medical records and make decisions about those medical records that often contradict the opinions of the treating physicians.

I try to keep the adjuster's situation in mind in order to understand why they do and say what they do and say, but sometimes they still surprise me.  An adjuster called me to discuss a case in which my client had suffered an impact to his head.  The impact had fractured my client's neck and required a neck fusion surgery.  The adjuster told me that, while he wasn't a doctor, he didn't see how the accident could have caused my client to suffer a brain injury and my client's many brain injury related symptoms.  \

This statement was so surprising that It took me a moment to process what I was being told.  The adjuster, a person without any medical training, told me without any hesistation that an impact that was severe enough to fracture a my client's neck could not have caused him to suffer a brain injury.  Naturally, the adjuster's opinion was directly contradicted by every medical record in the case and did not have a single medical record to support it.  

Sometimes, people just don't get it and somtimes they are paid not to get it.