If you’ve been injured in an accident, you get to meet lots of new people: police, doctors and nurses, and rude insurance adjusters, if the accident wasn’t your fault. You may even meet a personal injury lawyer who just might become your new best friend.
No matter the cause, accidents aren’t a lot of fun. You’re angry. You’re in pain. You’re stressed out, especially if you can’t work due to your injuries and you are your family’s only support. You have to deal with the at-fault party’s insurance company where you may be assigned an adjuster who thinks you’re malingering.
Enter the personal injury lawyer. He is there to get you through this complex process called an insurance claim. As soon as you retain an attorney, you no longer have to deal with insurance adjusters. The attorney is now their point of contact, and you’ve just lost one source of stress.
Settling an insurance claim is a complicated process, involving a myriad of documents that result in a report called a demand package. Sure, you can put this package together by yourself or let the defendant’s insurance company do this, but is it in your best interests to do this? Probably not.
You don’t know the type of information the insurance company wants. A lawyer who specializes in injury cases will, and will ensure it‘s all included in your demand. Since insurance companies may want the demand packages structured in different ways, your attorney can tailor your demand package to the specific company. This may seem like a little thing, but it can make a difference in the size of your settlement.
It all boils down to the settlement; that’s the compensation the insurance company offers you for the injuries you sustained in the accident. Your settlement depends on many things, including your injuries, lost wages and the circumstances of the accident. Adjusters may harass you, trying to get you to accept a low offer to settle your claim. They’re hoping you don’t realize the value of your claim. But an attorney who handles only injury claims will know what your claim is worth. She won’t allow you to settle for the peanuts the insurance company may be offering. She will work hard to get you the highest settlement amount possible.
Since a personal injury lawyer’s pay day depends on the size of the settlement, there is incentive to get the highest settlement possible. Such attorneys work on contingency, which is a percentage of the settlement proceeds. The bigger the settlement the attorney wins for you, the more money he gets. Studies show that injured people with attorneys get settlements that are several times bigger, even after deducting legal fees, than those who settle a claim on their own.
It doesn’t cost anything to find out if you have a viable claim, as the initial consultation is free. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to find out?