How Can You Tell Whether The Settlement That The Insurance Company Is Offering Is Fair?

In a memorable scene in the novel A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, set just before and during the French Revolution, a nobleman’s horse-drawn carriage strikes a child in a crowded street, and the nobleman throws a coin into the crowd, thinking that this will appease the child’s family.  In other words, the nobleman assumes that the family is so poor that one coin improves their situation more than the loss of a child makes it worse.  Of course, the child’s father is not willing to go away quietly, and he confronts the nobleman.  Dickens includes this scene in the book to highlight the ways in which the wealthy have an unfair advantage over the poor when it comes to the pursuit of justice.  One can see the same dynamic at work when insurance companies pay unfairly low settlements to people injured in accidents and try to convince the injured people that they are lucky to get any money at all.  Most people simply accept the insurance settlements unquestioningly, even if the money the insurance company offers is not enough to cover the claimant’s medical expenses.  Once you agree to accept the settlement, you cannot seek any additional compensation relating to the same accident, so if your injuries are severe and your medical bills are costly, it is worthwhile to review your settlement offer letter with a Columbia car accident lawyer before you sign to accept the insurance settlement.

How Do Insurance Companies Decide How Much Settlement Money to Offer You?

The time between a car accident and the arrival of a settlement offer from the insurance company is usually several months, during which time you have paid for vehicle repairs out of your own pocket and paid as much as you could afford to on medical bills in the hopes that the hospitals and physicians’ groups will not send your account to collections.  What were the insurance companies doing all that time?  They were calculating your settlement, based on your accident-related losses and your percentage of fault for the accident.  The catch is that the insurance companies prioritize their own financial interest, so they try to pay you as little as possible, and they have tons of resources to spend in pursuit of this goal.  They are spending those weeks looking for pre-existing health conditions that could take dollars off of the “accident-related expenses” subtotal and any possible excuses to increase your percentage of fault.

A Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help You Get a Fair Settlement

If you contact a personal injury lawyer before you sign the settlement offer letter, your lawyer can negotiate for a better settlement for you.  The ideal time to contact a lawyer is before making a recorded statement to the insurance company.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you negotiate for a fair settlement with your insurance company so that you do not have to take your personal injury claim to court.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Sources:

cliffsnotes.com/literature/t/a-tale-of-two-cities/summary-and-analysis/book-2-chapter-7

findlaw.com/state/south-carolina-law/south-carolina-car-accident-settlement-process-and-timeline.html