Lawyer May Be Lowballing My Claim

[mega325]

My question involves an injury that occurred in the state of: nc

Think my Lawyer is low balling my claim do to
the insurance company he is facing.

car accident= other driver was at fault, cited and insured. head on at 60+ mph. he was sighted for failure to yield right of way and improper tires. he was driving 4x4 dodge ram i was in a mustang. state troopers found no fault on my side of the accident. middle of the day clear sky's and no visual obstructions on the roadway. 60,000.00 max on his coverage.

Have permanent damage to my right hand( i am right handed). 10,400.00 in medical bills. my car was totaled. multiple bones in hand were broken and there is mild deformity and loss of mobility with the hand. I may have to go back in and have the bones re-broke and pinned to fix the deformity if the doctor thinks it will improve my quality of life. right now i can't work in my field do to not being able to manipulate tools with the loss of dexterity and grip strength.

Lawyer shooting for 50,000 from Allstate.

[KeyWestDan]

Most lawyers and clients want the most money possible, but they all want to settle too as quickly as possible. I would assume you want that too to pay off your bills, etc.

At the same time, if he asks for the limits of the policy, why should the insurance company settle? So he is giving them a little break asking for 50k in the hopes they will settle. Chances are the insurance company will come back with a counter offer that is less.

If he asks for the policy limit, the insurance company is going to tell him to go screw himself. Why would they pay that? They might just as well go to court and make you prove all the damages. Insurance companies hire attorneys literally in bulk and get really good rates. Most insurance companies today will NOT settle unless they get a really good deal. They would rather fight you and take their chances in court, and keep the money in their pockets for another couple of years.

If it goes to court, you are not suing the insurance company, you are suing the insured but the insurance company will defend their customer. The only time it really pays is if you have big damages and the insured has lots of assets to go after.

Unless there is a really solid case legally and factually, and a very very big payoff at the end of the road, lawyers do not want to go to trial, especially in contingency cases. The insurance lawyers don't care, they are on a pretty much endless gravy train.

[Mr. Knowitall]

The reason you believe this is "lowballing" is that you... want more? What do you think your claim is worth? What are the at-fault party's policy limits?

You are free to consult another lawyer for a second opinion, based upon the entire court record, medical records, etc. - stuff we don't have.

[mega325]

policy limit for him is 60,000.00. i think 50,000 is to low for these reasons.
1 lawyer gets 1/3 of settlement
2 taxes
3 medical bill payoff
4 paying off another car ( my car was paid off and I had to take out another loan to get another car {used 10,000.00}).

this comes out to around 10,000.00 free. this will keep me from getting foreclosed on for a bit. but I'm still permanently crippled on my hand.

last once you sign on with a lawyer no other lawyer will speak with you unless you have a letter of release. Also going into a lawyers office a lot of them say we can do the best we can but Allstate is one of the worst insurance companies to fight.

But, in jury selection, jurors often mention that if the injuries are real, the case should have settled with the insurer. That is exactly what the insurance company is hoping for. It doesn't matter if they offered $0.50 on a claim worth $500,000. The jury will never know, because the lawyers are prohibited from ever mention the settlement negotiations during the trial.

McKinsey & Company counted on this when they told Allstate Insurance in the mid 1990's to quit treating people with “Good Hands” and instead treat them with “Boxing Gloves.” When Allstate forced more litigation and posted record profits, the rest of the insurance industry followed their lead. It is now standard operating procedure in the insurance industry to spend multiple times what a reasonable settlement would be to fight the claim, simply to prove to injured people and their lawyers that filing a claim for injuries is more trouble than it is worth.

Insurance is available in at least 99% of all auto accident cases that go to trial. But, the insurance industry has lobbied the legislature so diligently that it has created a set of court rules that absolutely prohibits the lawyers representing injured people from telling the jury a lot of relevant facts

jurors often mention that if the injuries are real, the case should have settled with the insurer. That is exactly what the insurance company is hoping for. It doesn't matter if they offered $0.50 on a claim worth $500,000. The jury will never know, because the lawyers are prohibited from ever mention the settlement negotiations during the trial.

these exerts were taken from another site.

[www.utlawhelp.com]

The big question I have about your claim is the deformity and the loss of work. You state that you are out of work for quite some time because of your injury. I would guess defense will claim you are out of work due to the economy being poor. To get full value of your case, you need to back that up. That probably means hiring an vocational rehabiliation expert who will examine your hand and give an expert opinion on past and future lost wages.

It is puzzling to me that your attorney would ask for $10,000 less than policy limits. When you get policy limits, the right of other insurance companies to receive subrogation is frequently reduced or extinguished. In effect, this means that you get policy limits, you end up with a lot more money in your pocket than if you end up with $0.01 less than policy limits. If you are that close to policy limits, it is probably worth hiring a vocational rehab expert. If your case is already at policy limits and the defendants have empty pockets, you are probably fine not hiring a voc rehab expert.

Don't include taxes in your calculation. Personal injury damages are tax free at the Federal level.

You also want to use some of your settlement on the car. If your car was damaged in the collision, a different policy limit should apply to property damage. Make sure you calculate your policy limits correctly.

[grandmawd]

May I ask just what the following statement means?

Insurance is available in at least 99% of all auto accident cases that go to trial.

[mega325]

it was part of a case study where they talked about how even though people had insurance when they went to court All State would bully people into taking lower sums of money. It also said that even if the person at fault decided that it was a fair claim that they are not allowed in any way of telling there insurance company to settle it. I didn't add all the quote. sorry. thank you for the input so far and his policy was liability only but i will look into the rest. my dr. wants me back as i said in a few months to see if he needs to go back in a re-brake the bones or just give me a disability rating. My Dr. had a vocational rehab person look at me when I was doing all my 6 months of rehab and there conclusion was I would never get back the dexterity or strength do to the severity of the fractures. i am down 50% of my grip strength and 20 to 30% on range of motion depending on which finger is measured