How We Got Client at Least $19,000 More for Car Crash

Hiring an Attorney For a Personal Injury Case Will Net You More in Your Case

We see a lot of confusion from people who think that they are better off trying to resolve their case alone with an insurance company. Often times these individuals are focused on how much they will have to pay us to help them on their case. Unfortunately insurance companies will do everything in their power to pay you the least amount possible regardless of how hurt you may be. They will use every excuse in the book to pay less than they should and take advantage of the fact that they have way more experience than the average person as well as resources to fight your claim. In a car crash the burden is on you to prove your injuries and hold the insurance company accountable. A recent example of a settlement we reached for a client helps illustrate how vital an attorney is in negotiation with insurance companies. 

In that case, our client was hit by a driver who was going the wrong way on an entryway to the interestate. A witness stated that the other driver had drifted into the wrong lane and that our client tried to warn the other driver by flashing her lights and honking her horn. The collision resulted in significant damage to our client’s vehicle and she went to Sarasota Memorial Hospital on the date of the accident. Our client neck pain, back pain, and a TBI injury.

Soon after she hired us to help with her personal injury case. We immediately helped in making recommendations on medical doctors who are familiar with car crash cases and that would be able to assist her in her recovery. Throughout the course of her treatment as a result of the accident she incurred significant medical bills to a surgery center, pain management doctor, neurologist and chiropractor. 

After preparing a demand letter to the insurance company we received an initial offer of $64,500. We advised our client that this amount was not enough value for her case and recommended that we negotiate with the goal of getting at least $90,000. 

After weeks of going back and forth with the insurance company over the facts of the case we finally obtained an increased offer of $103,399.00. This took several separate demands and offers before both sides found the proper amount of compromise and was over $10,000 more than what we estimated the insurance company would pay and what our client felt comfortable accepting!

If our client had tried to handle the case on her own, the insurance company likely would not even have opened the initial offer at $64,500 because they would not be worried about a lawsuit or the cost associated with defending a lawsuit. That is $38,899 than what we settled the case for. Since our firm was involved they had to play fair or risk a lawsuit being filed thus incurring increased costs for defense attorneys. Let’s assume that our client was able to obtain $64,500 on her own. She would still be responsible for paying her medical bills and the amount of bills she owed vastly exceeded that amount. In fact, the hospital bill alone was over $17,000.

Let’s say that she was able to successfully get all of the medical providers to take a total of $50,000. This would leave the client with $14,500 out of the overall settlement of $64,500. This is after going through her case and spending all the time, stress and energy of handling the case herself. She also would have been at a tremendous disadvantage negotiating and communicating with insurance companies and medical providers with more resources and experience.

On the other hand, with our help, we charged the standard one-third fee of the amount we recovered for our services. Thus we made $34,121.67 on the $103,399.00 settlment. Our client still needed to pay medical bills but we were able to reduce the bills through negotiations with each separate provider to 1/3 of the settlement total amongst all of the providers. This again would be $34,121.67. This left our client with a net total of $34,121.67 after paying all of her costs.

That amount is over $19,000 more than had she settled the case on her own assuming an initial offer of $64,500. Remember the insurance company likely would have given her a much lower initial offer. Based on our experience we would estimate the most the company would offer her would be $5000 or so and it is possible in that case that we actually made the client about $30,000 more than she would have made on her own. 

Not only did our client ensure that her case would be handled with the care and experience that only an highly qualified attorneys can bring, she also made at least over $19,000 more than she otherwise would have. Again, this is just an example but you should always be aware that good attorneys will bring more value to your case. It is important to not try to save money upfront by handling something yourself that could quickly spiral out of your control. As attorney’s we deal with these problems everyday on a routine basis. Some people would have focused on our fee of $34,121.67 as opposed to the over $19,000 to $30,000 we recovered for our client after all expenses.