Insurance companies might offer low-dollar settlements that do not cover your damages in full. While getting some cash back in your pocket quickly can seem helpful, settling blocks your chances of getting any more money later. Because of this, it is vital to maximize your settlement.
This is nearly impossible without a lawyer. Your lawyer can help you calculate damages and find all the areas and amounts the insurance company might be neglecting. Then, your lawyer negotiates with the insurance company and rejects bad offers. If your settlement cannot be maximized this way, then going to court is the only way to get full damages, and you should never try to file a lawsuit without a lawyer.
For help with your case, call Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ South Carolina personal injury attorneys at (803) 451-4000 right away.
Can You Accept a Settlement Without a Lawyer?
You may, but you should not. It is rare that insurance companies offer full damages on the first try, and most offers they make are designed to favor the insurance company, not you.
While you can sign on to a settlement without a lawyer, it ends your case, and probably for too little money. Work with a lawyer to push that settlement amount up and get what you actually need.
Calculating Damages
One of the first things your lawyer will do is find all of the damages in your case. The insurance companies may miss some of these – in part because they tend not to ask about them in the first place. Others, they may calculate differently and try to push down to settle cheaply.
Calculating Economic Damages
Economic damages consist of expenses you pay and money you miss out on because of your injuries. This includes things like
- Medical bills
- Lost wages
- Lost future earning capacity from disabilities
- Lost services around the house
- Childcare costs
- Property damage and repairs
- Home adaptations for long-term disabilities
- Ongoing physical therapy and rehab
- Medication
- Crutches, wheelchairs, and prosthetics.
This list might already reveal the kinds of damages you didn’t know you could claim in your case. Our South Carolina personal injury lawyers know where to look to find many of these damages that insurance companies try to leave out.
Calculating Non-Economic Damages
On top of these, you can claim “non-economic” damages for things like pain and suffering and emotional distress. These are generally based on the overall severity of your injury, which insurance companies will downplay.
Methods
Our lawyers can use two major methods – or a combination of them – to arrive at a general pain and suffering estimate:
- The Multiplier Method uses a multiplier based on how severe your injuries are and multiplies the rest of your economic damages by that number. More serious injuries can even be more than double or triple the economic damages.
- The Per Diem method sets a per-day cost for your pain and suffering, usually using your daily income as a starting place. Under this method, we essentially determine how much you should be paid per day for being an injury victim.
Don’t Trust the Insurance Company’s Calculations
Insurance companies are biased. They want to pay as little as they can to save themselves money. Their calculations are also biased.
They will often leave out areas of damages, saying that they are not connected to the injury. They may also downplay your injury’s severity, saying you get less in pain and suffering, or they might refuse to acknowledge your non-economic damages entirely.
Negotiations
Insurance companies, on their own, might offer low-dollar settlements. But these do not cover your expensive damages and just end the case quickly and cheaply.
Goal of Negotiations
Through negotiations, we can often raise the demand and get you paid at a higher value. Our goal, if we can, is to avoid trial and end the case quickly, but without sacrificing the money you need to move forward with your life.
Methods
Much of negotiation comes down to recognizing what you need and supplying the proof that those demands are reasonable.
Once the insurance company sees the evidence we have against them and the evidence of the bills and expenses you face, they should see that their chances in court are poor. If we can convince them they should pay now instead of going through the trouble of trial only to lose and pay later, we can maximize your settlement.
Is Settlement Best for Your Case?
Not every case should settle. If the insurance company’s offers are all too low, or they are playing games, there may be no way to fairly settle.
Assessing Your Needs
You need your damages paid in full – or as close to full as possible. If the insurance company will not budge, then the only way to settle would be to accept lower damages, which might not be reasonable at all.
Why Won’t Insurance Settle?
Insurance companies often refuse to settle for a few reasons:
- They don’t see enough proof that their insured was at fault, so they’d rather fight it in court.
- There are damages or amounts they do not see enough proof of, so they’d rather fight the amounts in court.
- There are internal communications issues or inexperienced lawyers/insurance adjusters on the case, and they do not think they are authorized to settle.
- Insurance bad faith – they are not even making a good-faith effort to hear the claim and pay appropriate damages.
Alternatives
While most cases do ultimately settle, that might not be possible in your case. When that happens, there are a few alternatives:
- Look to Other Insurance – For example, if the defendant’s car insurance won’t pay, you might have first-party coverage (e.g., collision coverage) that can pay in the meantime (with a deductible payment from you). If you recover later, the damages your insurance already covered get paid back from the winnings.
- Mediation – Sometimes judges will push parties to mediate a claim before scheduling trial. Mediation is non-binding unless you sign a settlement, but it may help highlight the issues blocking a settlement.
- Trial – If we cannot reach a fair agreement, we can fight it out in court before a judge and jury.
Call Our South Carolina Personal Injury Lawyers for Help Today
Call the Columbia, SC personal injury lawyers at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers at (803) 451-4000 for a free case evaluation.
