Attorney Ben Schwartz explains why insurance companies ask the injured party to sign a release with a confidentiality clause in it.

Hi, I’m Attorney Ben Schwartz,

Today we’re going to answer a viewer question from Jennifer in Smyrna, Delaware. Jennifer wrote-in. Essentially, she says that she settled her car accident personal injury case on her own. The at-fault drivers’ insurance company wants her now to sign a release that has a confidentiality clause in it. It says she can’t talk to anybody about the fact that she got a settlement or how much money she got from the settlement and is that normal?

The answer is no, that’s not normal. Normally when we see car accident personal injury cases, when we see the releases coming from the insurance company for that settlement there is no confidentiality clause.

Once in a while, very rarely, we see a confidentiality clause and/or we will see a non-disparagement clause. So, a confidentiality clause is something that says you’re not going to say anything negative about the defendant; about the at-fault party who paid you money.

There are reasons why the insurance companies and the defendants would want these things. There’s no real reason I can think of why an injured plaintiff would want it. I would suggest that you ask the insurance company to take it out. If it’s not something that they’re paying you extra money for, it’s not something that belongs in the release. So, I would ask for them to take it out or if they don’t want to take it out, ask them how much more they are going to pay you to secure the confidentiality or to secure the non-disparagement agreement.

I’m attorney Ben Schwartz. If you have settled a personal injury case but you haven’t yet signed the settlement documents and you want a lawyer to review them like Jennifer and Smyrna, I’ll be more than happy to take a look at your settlement documents at a free consultation.

If you have had an accident and you have settlement documents, you know when you look at those documents and you think to yourself this is highly complicated and it’s not something that a normal person would read and understand and be able to digest, that’s true.

I just want to say, not that I’m trying to advertise to you, I just want to say that’s why you get an attorney from day one. In a car accident or slip-and-fall or other personal injury cases. I’m attorney Ben Schwartz, thanks for watching this video. Hopefully, you enjoyed the video. Hopefully, you found it informative and interesting. If you have questions for me about the law, personal injury law, personal injury litigation, etc. Send me an email, thanks for watching.