I know it can be frustrating how long it takes to get a fair and reasonable settlement offer in your car accident injury case. Insurance companies often do not make the claim process easy on you after you’ve been in a car accident due to no fault of your own. I’ve seen this countless times. You see, before I started representing injury victims following car accidents, I used to be a lawyer for insurance companies defending car accident injury claims in court. In this video, I will discuss four reasons why it may be taking a long time to get a fair offer in your car accident injury case and actions that can be taken to give yourself a shot at a fair and reasonable payday. To illustrate my points, let me tell you the story of my past client, Reed.
Reed was in a rear-end motor vehicle accident. He was rear-ended by a driver who was inattentive. After the accident, he went to the hospital, but not in an ambulance. He had a friend drive him to the hospital. Reed suffered injuries to his head, left knee, left hip, shoulder, and back. Diagnostic testing revealed that Reed did not sustain any broken bones and he was discharged. It was a short visit to the hospital. He later sought additional medical treatment, including physical therapy and pain management treatment. When it was all said and done, Reed’s medical bills totaled a little under $18,000. $10,000 of his medical bills were paid by personal injury protection benefits, which are also known as no-fault benefits, by the insurer of the vehicle he was in.
Reason 1: Maximum Medical Improvement
The first reason your car accident injury case may be taking time to get a fair settlement offer is that in most cases, it’s impossible to know the value of your case until you are finished treating or reach maximum medical improvement. Reed received medical treatment for a few months after his accident, but it’s not uncommon to have several months of medical treatment after a car accident, and in some cases, even years of medical treatment. You usually won’t want to try to initiate settlement negotiations in your case until you are done treating or reach maximum medical improvement and have obtained all of your medical records and bills, so you can send those to the insurance company.
Reason 2: Lowball Offers
The second reason why your car accident injury case can take time to resolve is if you get a lowball offer in your case. In Reed’s case, I sent a demand package on behalf of Reed to the at-fault driver’s insurance company, demanding that they pay out the insurance policy limits. In response to our demand, I got an initial offer of under $4,000 to settle Reed’s case. This was a lowball offer. If you get a lowball offer, you’re going to have to file a lawsuit in order to get a fair and reasonable settlement. The insurance company is going to make you work to get a fair offer in your case. Do not accept the lowball offer. The wait is usually worth it.
Reason 3: Difficult Insurance Companies
The third reason your injury case may be taking a long time to get a fair settlement offer is whether or not you’re dealing with a difficult insurance company. In Reed’s case, we were dealing with Liberty Mutual, a company known for making claims difficult on injury victims. Other insurance companies like Allstate, e-surance, and Safeco also fight injury claims hard and drag out the case before making a fair settlement offer. If you are dealing with one of these insurance companies, it is likely it will take a long time before getting a fair offer in your case.
Reason 4: Slow Litigation Process
The fourth reason your injury case may be taking a long time to get a fair settlement offer is the slow litigation process. Many courts are overloaded with cases, and it’s hard to get a case moving along during the litigation process. In Kentucky, we usually can’t get a trial date until after a significant amount of litigation has already taken place. Even when we do get a trial date, the courts are so backed up that we usually won’t get the case scheduled for trial on the court’s docket for at least eight months from the date we request the trial date.
Reed’s Case Resolution
In Reed’s case, after we got the lowball offer, I filed a lawsuit against the at-fault driver to show the insurance company we would not be backing down. After you file a lawsuit, it triggers the litigation process. During the litigation process, we answered written discovery questions on behalf of Reed that were sent over by the defense lawyer retained by the other driver’s insurance company. We also sent over written discovery questions to opposing counsel for the at-fault driver to answer. We produced Reed for his deposition. I also moved for a trial date, and we were ordered by the court to mediate the case.
Mediation is a settlement conference where a neutral party known as a mediator helps the parties try to reach a settlement. In Reed’s case, after we agreed on a date to mediate the case, I requested one of the doctors that treated Reed to provide me with reports outlining the nature and extent of Reed’s injuries related to the accident. We provided this doctor report to the defense lawyer prior to the mediation. This report was very favorable to Reed and helped significantly increase the value of his claim. Thus, at mediation, just a month prior to our trial date, we were able to settle Reed’s case for nearly $40,000, which was over ten times the initial offer on Reed’s case. After the $10,000 in no-fault benefits that went towards Reed’s medical bills are factored in, Reed’s recovery was nearly $50,000. Reed’s case took about two years from the date of his car accident to get settled.
Final Thoughts
While Reed did not have what I would call a big injury case, as he had no broken bones and no surgery was needed, the value of his case was still worth way more than the initial offer and was certainly worth fighting for to get a fair offer after the lowball offer initially given by the other driver’s insurance company. It’s been my experience that if you push your car accident injury case through the court system and work up your case, insurance companies will typically make you a fair and reasonable offer in your case in most cases.
The thing is, if you push your car accident case through the court system, like I said, you will usually get a fair and reasonable settlement offer at some point for your injury claim, but it’s certainly not always the case. In fact, in some cases, it may make sense to take your car accident injury case all the way to a jury trial. And in this video about to pop up here, I’ll tell you the circumstances you need to consider when determining whether or not you should take your injury case to trial.
Lastly, if you’ve been injured in a car accident, slip or trip and fall incident, or dog attack incident in Kentucky, remember: don’t wait, call Tate.
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