I am trying to determine what a fair settlement might be for an accident my wife was in about a year ago (she is still seeing doctors about it).
Situation:
Stopped in a lane, waiting to turn left and rear-ended at about 30mph, no skid marks. The other driver’s insurance company has accepted full fault.
No broken bones but lots of soft tissue injuries to back, neck, etc.
Roughly 2-3 doctor appointments every week for the past year (chiropractic, physical therapy, acupuncture, MRIs etc).
About $10,000 in medical bills.
About $4,000 in damage to the car.
As far as lifestyle changes, she can no longer dance, had to stop taking flying lessons, can’t sit for long periods of time and has been in fairly constant pain for the past year.
How much to settle:
We have obviously not settled yet with the other insurance company but our auto insurance will stop paying her medical bills one year after the accident. After that we need to run them through normal health insurance and get reimbursed from the other driver’s insurance.
At some point they will offer us a settlement. What is fair? We don’t want to get a lawyer if we can avoid it, but are certainly willing to do that if need be.
Does she have any indications about when her pain and need for additional medical treatment might end? If ever? I don’t know how you can even take a guess at a number without knowing that.
It’s hard to say. We hope over the next 6 months, but some of it may never go away. She’s better now than she was shortly after the accident, but is also not recovered yet.
There’s really no way to answer your question on a message board. Too many variables to consider–exact diagnosis, prognosis, future medical treatment, potential disability rating, her current age, typical jury verdicts for these injuries in your area, lost wages, loss of consortium, liability limits, etc.
Part of it depends on where you are. In NJ, for example, you generally cannot sue for pain and suffering for soft tissue injuries only. This was put into law to mitigate suits for whiplash.
It also depends on what kind of coverage you have and what kind of coverage the other driver has, and what kind of “no-fault” rules are in effect.
When I was injured in an accident that was 100% the other driver’s fault (she had a stop sign), my insurance covered all expenses, no time limit as long as I was continually in treatment. Once I had gone a year without treatment, no further medical expenses would have been covered. The other driver had the minimum required liability insurance. My insurance company then went after the other driver and their insurance company to get their money back. They also recovered my deductible.
I did see a lawyer regarding this whole process, and he got about 30% of the pain and suffering award as I recall. I was paid about $60,000 for pain & suffering under my own insurance’s PIP – Personal Injury Protection to cover costs due to another driver’s limited (or lack of) coverage. We had to go through an arbitration process.
The lawyer advised me that one way to look at the money award is this: You cannot really be made whole if you have permanent injury; all that can be done is to give you money. Think of it in terms of what injury you would voluntarily accept in return for $X.
You are almost certainly going to be better off with a lawyer.
If your objection to having a lawyer is that you want more money - you are almost certainly going to do better with a lawyer than without. As Oakminster points out - there are many things to consider - and the insurance company will be HAPPY to pay all the medical bills and damage to the car. But would you know how much to ask for loss of consortium? Most people probably wouldn’t. Your layer would - and if it is a big insurer - would know how much they have paid in the past - and can be assured he/she is getting you a fair deal. Even after the fee - you are almost certainly going to do better.
If your objection is that you don’t want one as one isn’t needed - clearly that isn’t the case. Our justice system only works because it is done on an adversarial basis. With each side having a zealous advocate for their respective points - only then does it truly work. If you have no advocate for your side - you aren’t being fairly represented and therefore can’t expect to get a fair shot from the system. You are entitled to fair representation and you won’t have to pay up front.
A lawyer can hire the type of experts needed (if needed) to truly and fairly figure out what the full extent of damages to your wife are likely to be. It is a complicated math equation that takes into account all sorts of things. The insurance company isn’t going to tell you about everything you are entitled to - your lawyer is.
Most insurance companies have learned not to be jerks to people that their insured have hurt. They often don’t show up and try to settle right away as they did in the past - and will seem very reasonable. And they most likely will be for the things like the $4,000 damage to car and $10k in medical bills, but don’t think they are going to rack their brains figuring out how to give you as much money as possible.
I will echo Oakminster’s post: this is not the sort of question which will get a useful answer on a message board.
Well, not necessarily. Unless the other driver is independently wealthy the limits on recovery are likely to be the other insurer’s policy limits. If the insurer offers them, no lawyer is going to get the OP more (unless there is a bad faith issue) and all a lawyer is doing is eating part of a finite pool of money.
I had hoped to avoid a lawyer because our justice system is just full of too many lawyers. I guess living overseas for so long, I’ve lost touch with just how ingrained in the system lawyers are to life in the USA.
Good point - however I’d like to point out that you don’t need to be independently wealthy to have good insurance. You can get umbrella policies for relatively little money that cover you up to $2-5 million. And there are people that are by no means wealthy that have houses paid off and/or are otherwise sitting on assets in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollars (which is why insurance companies exist of course).
I am not sure what % of people have just the minimum, but it doesn’t sound like the bills of the OP would automatically trigger most states minimum caps.
I still think if you took 100 people in the OPs situation against 100 random insured - and used attorneys in have of those - that the average amount recovered would be less in those that chose to represent themselves. Even granting you the point that there may be cases where having an attorney would hurt.
I will chime in to repeat that this is a good idea. It has been shown that insurance companies don’t take you nearly as seriously if you don’t have a lawyer and will offer you less, sometimes substantially less. The problem is getting a good lawyer. There seems to be an inverse correlation between the quality of the lawyer and the amount of advertising the lawyer does. I would check the trial lawyers’ association in your state to find a decent lawyer.
While this is true, there are a number of lawyers here (Florida) who have eschewed direct advertising in favor of accident referral services (1-800-ASK-GARY, etc.) which offer “turn-based” referrals for a flat fee. I gather these have been clamped down on in many states but they’re not subject to bar advertising regulations here yet.