HOW QUICKLY ARE PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS RESOLVED?
After an accident involving an injury, your everyday life and routine can completely change. Medical care will help with the pain and set you on the road to recovery, but your injury concerns can quickly be replaced by worry over your financial wellbeing.
Hospital bills pile up, and your lost hours at work can leave you short on regular monthly expenses. Insurance companies might try to take advantage of your fears and frustrations by delaying a settlement offer and providing an offer that doesn’t provide coverage for what you deserve. On the other hand, if there is a large sum of money at stake, an insurance company might offer you a quick, lowball settlement offer in an attempt to entice you to quickly settle for a lower amount.
Hagens Berman attorneys understand how desperate an accident can leave victims. However, they work to guarantee victims not only get their support as soon as possible but also that they receive a fair and comprehensive settlement offer.
FACTORS DETERMINING HOW LONG PERSONAL INJURY VICTIMS WAIT
The amount of time you wait on compensation to arrive from an insurance claim will depend on the circumstances of your accident and your injury. There’s no established time frame for how long personal injury cases can take, but some factors can influence the timeline.
If you’ve suffered a severe injury, your recovery can complicate the settlement of your claim. Generally, three injury factors can slow the claims process and prolong the process.
- The severity of your injury.
- How much the injury changes your lifestyle.
- How expensive recovery and rehabilitation are.
Your injury could result in a physical disability that permanently affects your life at home and at work. Any settlement agreement reached over a serious injury could involve thousands of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation. Any time there is a large sum of money at stake, insurance companies will likely drag their feet.
Estimating the true cost of your recovery might require getting the opinions of doctors and specialists. These estimates can take time, especially if your recovery hasn’t been completed and rehabilitation has yet to begin. The outcome of recent surgeries can also affect final settlement figures.
It may be a difficult wait if you’re the injury victim. However, you’ll want to make sure that the final settlement is the right amount to protect you and your family.
INSURANCE STALL TACTICS
When injuries are considerable and the costs of recovery enormous, insurance companies can purposely delay paying support to victims. They may feel that it’s worth trying to shift some of the blame in an accident to you in an effort to reduce how much responsibility they bear. They could start to investigate your driving record or past injuries to see if they can use your history to discredit your claim.
Insurance companies can also place your file aside and not respond to you for weeks or months. They know that the longer you wait, the more desperate you are when it’s time to negotiate. They hope you become so frustrated that you are more open to accepting any lowball offer they present.
Your Hagens Berman Attorney is familiar with these stall tactics and makes sure insurance companies don’t get away with this “bad faith” behavior.
AVOID FALLING FOR A QUICK SETTLEMENT OFFER
The insurance representative for those responsible for your accident may try a different approach. If they see that you don’t have a legal representative safeguarding your interests in your case, insurance adjusters can send over a settlement offer almost immediately.
They hope you won’t know what your injury is worth at this early point in the negotiations. Any offer you sign off on immediately, without having it checked over by a legal professional, can provide you with much less than you need.
Signing off on this offer will also prevent you from pursuing more compensation in the future. You could have a relapse or require a follow-up surgery months or years down the road. Without being able to return to the insurance company for help, future payment would have to come out of your own pocket.
While a quick settlement might look like they are acting courteously, it might also be a red flag that you are leaving money on the table.
TAKING AN INSURANCE COMPANY TO COURT
Personal injury cases generally settle out of court. A long legal entanglement costs insurance companies a lot of money. However, when a court appearance is necessary for you to retrieve what’s fair, you will likely have to wait longer for resolution. Still, this option is sometimes necessary when an insurance company is fighting tooth-and-nail against providing you with a fair settlement.
Once you file a lawsuit to take an insurance company to court, it can take a year or more to get a court date assigned to your case. It should be noted that at any point during your wait, an insurance company can change its mind and make you a better settlement offer.
CONTACT A HAGENS BERMAN PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY
Our attorneys work tirelessly to keep insurance companies from delaying the payment of compensation to victims. Hagens Berman also safeguards victims by ensuring insurance providers can’t get away with short-changing victims in settlements.
We aggressively investigate your accident to and prepare a strong case if a courtroom trial becomes necessary. Victims should receive a fair offer without being subjected to insurance timing games.
Contact the attorneys at Hagens Berman in Seattle for a free and confidential case evaluation. We are ready to listen to you, answer your questions, and help you understand you legal options when it comes to your financial recovery.
