Let’s say that you are a waitress and you sustained a soft tissue injury to your neck and low back. No matter how good and helpful your medical treatment or no matter how much healing you achieve from a couple of days off of work, your condition will worsen just as soon as you again start carrying those trays full of food or drinks. The weight of that tray on one side or other will make your injuries worse, and it will be much more difficult for you to obtain healing.

Another example might be a single mother who has to pick up her 11 month old baby frequently. She will suffer continued pain from her accident injuries a lot longer than a person who does not otherwise burden healing tissue. Think of how many times a day she has to pick up that child, and what a strain that puts on her neck and back.

Now do you think there is any way that either of these—or like—situations will be covered or considered in Colossus result? Of course there isn’t. This is old adage of: “Garbage In—Garbage Out”. Since computer was not queried or programmed to consider either of these circumstances, then it is your job to provide sufficient information to adjuster to allow her to modify result from Colossus by making another set of information inputs to program.

What you have to do is to think about your situation and come up with some aspect of your case that may be a little different than norm. Then you will make note of that situation in a letter to adjuster and ask her to confirm that in her evaluation she will make allowance for your situation notwithstanding result suggested by Colossus. A good resource to consult to get such a letter would be a website specialized in personal injury claim such as SettlementCentral.Com (http://www.settlementcentral.com)

If she does not respond, or if she does not agree to make allowance for your particular situation, we suggest you warn her that you will write to insurance commissioner. Again, consult SettlementCentral.Com website (http://www.settlementcentral.com) as they do provide a sample demand letter. As a next step, we suggest that you write to your state insurance commissioner and complain about use of Colossus. Finally, we think that your state Trial Lawyers Association may have some information or suggestions on legislation to curtail total reliance on Colossus.

Another key to working with an adjuster who is using Colossus is to make sure your medical record documents everything in a way that software will reward. There are three key elements to this requirement, and you control only one of them: other two are held by your doctor (who may not wish to make adequate documentation) and adjuster (who may not cooperate to let you know what format is required for information to be understood by Colossus).

You will need cooperation of adjuster to tell you what format would be helpful to him in getting you full value for your claim. Ask him about quality of your medical records. Which records were most useful, and which records were virtually useless. He should be able to tell you. This person is not an actual enemy; he has a job to do in this mission, and so do you; you need each other to ensure case is settled fairly and amicably.

Solicit adjuster’s cooperation to let you know specific injuries and specific complaints used to evaluate claim. Since each complaint and injury must be documented in a medical report to be considered by Colossus, ask him to help you by telling you which doctor needs to make a supplementary record in this case.

If you don’t have a good medical record, you will have to obtain a narrative report from your doctor, or get him to make specific findings that are translatable to input into Colossus.

Additional information such as a letter to insurance adjuster regarding Colossus, letter to insurance commissioner, and other Colossus references are available for free on our website at: http://www.settlementcentral.com

If you’ve counted on those few extra days from time you mail your check and time check clears your bank, beware! Many credit card issuers have switched from traditional method of processing checks to a new electronic process. This new system shaves off a day or more from traditional method it normally takes for your check to clear by electronically debiting your account.

If you’re considering paying your credit card bills online, check to see if any additional fees will be charged for using this type of payment. I recently received an e-mail message from one of my credit card companies announcing how easy it would be to make my payments online. Included in fine print at bottom of e-mail was this note - “A fee of up to $14.95 may be charged for this service and will be deducted from your checking account”. Hmmm, spend 37 cents on postage and mail my payment five days before due date or pay now and get charged an additional $14.95 fee? I’ll bet you can guess which choice I made.

Taking time to carefully read and understand your credit card agreement now will help you save money by avoiding unnecessary fees or climbing interest rates later down road.