In a personal injury case, the careless party’s insurance company may offer you $10,000. You may think your case is worth $20,000. (I choose these two amounts because most cases aren’t worth more than $20,000.)
Yes, I’m aware that many cases settle for over $20,000. However, if you look at 100 personal injury cases, the odds are that most of them will settle for less than $20,000.
So why are some cases worth $10,000 and not $20,000? Here are the most common reasons.
1. Minor Injury
Your injury drives the value of your case. The bigger the injury, the higher the full value of your case.
If a claimant has whiplash or a soft tissue injury from an accident in Florida, there is a good chance that the case isn’t worth more than $10,000.
Examples of soft tissue injuries are neck pain, back pain, shoulder pain, etc.
This is particularly true in most Florida car accident cases, where the injured person must have a threshold injury in order to be entitled to get compensation for pain and suffering.
Once you start dealing with fractures and/or surgery, the full value of the case typically increases past $10,000. The case is more likely to have a full value closer to $20,000 (and above) than $10,000.
2. Limited Insurance
Personal injury claimants miss out on billions of dollars (in total) each year because the at fault party is uninsured or underinsured. This is common in claims for personal injuries from Florida car accidents.
In Florida, bodily injury insurance is not required on private passenger cars. My clients (in total) have missed out on millions of dollars because careless drivers were uninsured or underinsured.
Here is an example.
Driver’s Settlement for Knee Surgery Limited to $10,000 Insurance Limit
Mike (not real name) was driving a car. A driver hit his car in the rear.
Our client’s doctor diagnosed him with a knee injury (meniscus tear). He had arthroscopic surgery, in his native country, to fix it.
Infinity Auto Insurance insured our client with PIP. Allstate insured the careless driver.
Allstate paid their $10,000 limits to settle the case. If the driver would’ve had a $20,000 policy, Allstate likely would’ve paid $20,000.
3. Low Out of Pocket Medical Bills
If you have a soft tissue injury and small out of pocket medical bills, the settlement may be closer to $10,000 than $20,000.
On the other hand, if you have big out of pocket medical bills, the case may be worth closer to $20,000 instead of $10,000.
I’ve had cases where my clients had soft tissue injuries, but they received so much medical treatment at the hospital that their out of pocket medical bills were over $10,000.
This gave those cases a better shot at settling for $20,000 instead of $10,000. Without health insurance, out of pocket medical bills are higher.
All things equal, not having health insurance results in bigger settlements.
4. Health Insurance Pays Your Bills
Health insurance pays your medical providers at a contracted rate, which is usually much less than the total billed charges. Your health insurer likely has a right to get paid back from the total settlement. The same is true for Medicare and Medicaid.
Part of your personal injury claim against the careless party is to recover the amount that your health insurance pays. Since health insurance pays at a reduced rate, you’re generally able to recover a smaller amount from the at fault party.
This results in a smaller claim.
5. Little Medical Treatment
All things equal, the less medical treatment that you get, the lower the full value of your case. This is because insurance companies (and juries) equate less medical treatment with less serious injuries.
They think that you should get a good amount of medical treatment if you’re in pain.
With just a little medical treatment, an insurance adjuster may think that you’ve had a small amount of pain, suffering and loss of enjoyment of life.
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