“Should I settle?” is the most pressing question when you’re involved in a personal injury case. There isn’t a simple solution. It depends on the situation and how you want to proceed. Accepting an offer should only be done if you are convinced that it will cover your medical bills, lost wages, and other expenses. Read on for a few tips on if and when you should take a settlement for personal injury.
Don’t Make a Decision Until You’ve Healed
When renegotiating a low settlement offer, keep in mind that you should never accept a settlement until you have fully recovered from your injuries, often known as maximal medical improvement (MMI). If you haven’t fully healed from your injuries, or to the best of your ability, you may not have all the information you require. Do you have a long list of doctor’s appointments, prescription prescriptions, or physical therapy to look forward to? You won’t know how much your past medical treatments cost or how much medical care you’ll need until you’ve reached your maximum recovery.
Contact a personal injury attorney
Your personal injury lawyer has received considerable training and real-world experience, allowing them to assist you in calculating and pursuing the full value of your claim. Current and expected future medical expenditures, Current and estimated future pay losses, Property damage, Emotional pain and suffering, and whether or not blame for the accident is shared or in question are all elements that might influence how reasonable compensation is calculated in a settlement. As you may expect, some of these considerations are rather simple (for example, previous medical costs), while others are significantly more subjective.
You should negotiate
Whether or not you should accept the current offer may be determined by whether or not you have negotiated it. You might think it’s adequate if you’ve gone back and forth with an insurance company to arrive at the current price. However, if this is your first offer, consider again before accepting. The majority of insurance company settlement offers are low. The average amount collected by injury victims who accepted the first offer was $11,800. Negotiating victims received an average of $42,500.
Is Accepting the Offer Better Than Taking the Case to Trial?
Most personal injury cases are settled for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it is generally preferable for both parties to avoid a lengthy trial. However, not every settlement offer is preferable to going to trial. This is especially true if there’s a potential a jury will award you a larger sum of money (though we can never guarantee what a jury will decide). Your lawyer can advise you whether accepting a settlement offer is a better option than going to court, or vice versa, based on years of experience.
Another important consideration is liability, as the amount of compensation you might receive will be lowered if you share some of the blame. An competent attorney can assist you in preserving and organizing essential evidence, as well as protecting you from making avoidable mistakes while dealing with claims adjusters, allowing you to avoid receiving more blame than you deserve. Your lawyer will level the playing field between you and the insurance company by having the required knowledge and training to deal with insurance companies and their lowball proposals.
If you have been injured in an accident you may be considering a personal injury claim for damages to help pay for the costs related to medical care, lost wages, or repairs to material possessions. There are thousands of personal injury attorneys out there – how do you choose the one who is best suited to handle your claim? We’ve compiled a list of 6 things to keep in mind when choosing a personal injury attorney to represent you.
Personality
It may seem like an odd thing to consider when choosing a personal injury attorney to represent you in your quest for compensation. However, it is important to choose an attorney with whom you can be 100% open and honest. Failure to communicate openly with your attorney can lead to disaster. Most of the time, we tend to be open with people we are comfortable with.
If you are fearful of your attorney or don’t trust them, what are the chances of establishing transparency and good communication? The more comfortable you are with your personal injury attorney, the more successful your case will be.
Experience Matters
A personal injury attorney’s record and experience are great indicators of whether they’ll be well-suited to handle your claim. While experience should by no means be the only factor you consider, it is helpful to gauge whether or not they are equipped to handle your claim. Attorneys with experience understand what to look for, which details can make or break a case, and how to best apply the facts of your specific case to general legal concepts.
New attorneys with little to no experience may have a general idea of how to approach a case, but may not have had the opportunity to really fine-tune their approach. Many times, however, new attorneys will practice under the supervision of older, more experienced attorneys, so it is important to take this into consideration.
Specialization Within Personal Injury
“Personal injury attorney” is a broad title that really captures a great number of areas of specialization. While many personal injury attorneys will be open to handling just about any “personal injury” case, others have specific areas of focus. For example, some attorneys may specialize in slip and fall/premises liability/negligence cases, others focus on medical malpractice claims, while others specialize in claims stemming from car/motorcycle/truck accidents.
While each of these attorneys may advertise him or herself as a personal injury attorney, his or her area of specialization is more specific. Finding an attorney whose specialty aligns with your accident can help to maximize recovery. Attorneys will be familiar with nuances of the specific area of law in which they generally focus.
They’ll Stake Their Reputation on It
Personal injury attorneys develop reputations with clients, adversaries, courts, experts, and just about everyone else they encounter on a daily basis. An attorney with a better reputation will be more likely to be successful in negotiating a better settlement for an injured client. To find the right personal injury attorney for your case, try getting recommendations from friends or family.
Technology and the internet have really expanded our ability to research and learn about personal injury attorneys in our local area(s). Try checking websites such as Avvo, Martindale, Super Lawyers, and Nolo to see what others have to say about your potential personal injury attorney.
Client Load
Busy law offices can indicate a successful legal practice. However, if you have a seemingly minor personal injury claim that won’t generate much of a fee for the attorney you choose, your claim may not receive the attention it deserves if an attorney is overextended. Just because an attorney has a heavy client load does not necessarily mean that they will neglect your case. In many law offices, attorneys are able to assign legal tasks to paralegals or other attorneys in the office so that the caseload can be handled efficiently and effectively.
When deciding if an attorney is right for you, it is simply important to ask questions that will determine whether they have the requisite time to properly tend to your case. Fortunately, research about an attorney’s experience, reputation, and personality may help to shed some light on this ability.
Cost
Most personal injury attorneys work on a contingency fee basis. This means that they do not charge an up-front fee, but collect a percentage of your settlement or award at the end of your case. This allows injured clients to obtain necessary legal counsel without worrying about paying for unanticipated medical expenses, fixing a car or motorcycle, or dealing with lost wages due to missing work in addition to expensive legal fees. It is important, though, to ask personal injury attorneys for the exact percentage that they will take and whether this percentage covers court costs and fees.
Alternatively, some attorneys may request a small amount of money up-front to pay for filing fees, court costs, expert witnesses, and other expenses associated with a personal injury claim.
There are more than 700,000 compensation claims filed each year in America. Many people take this course of action to get the money they think they deserve. It can help them to pay for food and keep a roof over their head when they are recovering from the injury they sustained. But which are the most common types of personal injury claims?
Road Accidents
There are many road accidents, and many people get injured in them who have done nothing wrong. Anyone who gets injured on their road through no fault of their own is within their rights to pursue a compensation claim. There are about six million car accidents on US roads every year, and that leads to a lot of compensation claims. As soon as the driver or passenger has recovered from the injuries, they can use those medical reports as proof. That documentation can be very useful when it comes to securing compensation for the accident. It’s a long process, but the success rates are pretty high.
Work Injuries
When someone gets injured at work, they usually look for someone to blame. This is understandable because employers have a duty to look after their employees at work. If their workplaces are not safe, then accidents will happen, and compensation will have to be paid out. Contacting compensation lawyers and pursuing a claim is what the injured person will quickly do. Most workers don’t like their bosses, so they’re not going to shy away from taking their money. The only way to make sure that this doesn’t happen is for employers to make sure that workplaces are safe. Strong health and safety measures are vital to keeping everyone protected from potential harm and hazards.
If a patient can prove that they were injured by the actions of a doctor or medical professionals, they can claim medical malpractice. When this happens, and the evidence all checks out, the money that the victim can claim can be huge. The process isn’t quite as straightforward as that though. An independent medical professional has to look at the case and verify that the original doctor acted incorrectly. If all that goes to plan, the claim should be successful though. Any expert witnesses that were present can help your case if they’re willing to testify for you as well.
Accidents Caused by Negligence
There are millions of accidents every year in which people fall over or slip on a floor. These kinds of accidents often get attributed to someone’s negligence. If someone has cleaned a floor in a public place and failed to put up a sign making that fact clear, they could be negligent. This kind of thing happens each and every day. So, it’s not a surprise that this is one of the most common forms of personal injury claim in the US at the moment. Sometimes, the person who got injured is persuaded to sign a waiver or settle the issue out of court before they can take it further.
This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with EU GDPR 2016/679. Please read this to review the updates about which personal data we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated policy. AcceptRejectRead More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
