Car accident claims mostly settle out of court because people belonging to both parties want to avoid expensive and time-consuming arguments in the trial. They are likely to enter into a mutually agreeable settlement and rarely try to take the case to trial. If the settlement is not satisfactory then the plaintiff takes the case to trial with the help of a personal injury lawyer. If you want the best settlement then you need to explain your case to the insurance company in detail through demand letters and follow-up negotiations.
Demand letter
The best opportunity for the plaintiff to present his suffering through facts to the insurance company is a demand letter. The demand letter contains facts and circumstances of the accident along with medical treatment. The demand letter will represent events during accidents, medical treatments received, suffering, pain, lost wages, etc. The demand letter can be drafted so well that it could demand a higher amount than what the plaintiff expects to be compensated. After the demand letter is received and reviewed by the insurance adjuster, both parties come to a settlement. In the settlement, you and your attorney move on with negotiations with the opposite party.
Negotiating After an Initial Offer
The insurance company will review the documents in the demand letter and the insurance adjuster will try to confirm with the evidence from the police report and medical bills. After reviewing the demand letter, the insurance company will make an initial “low” offer. You might be shocked at such a lower offer than you expected. But it is their strategy to lower the amount for a profit of their esteemed company.
Your lawyer will demand a higher amount on your behalf in written response with the reasons along with an explanation. You can write the response letter politely declining their low offer with the help of a personal injury lawyer. If you didn’t explain your suffering in detail in the previous demand letter then you can include other medical bills, lost income proofs, degree of extent of suffering, pain you had to go through because of an accident, how injuries affected you in the response letter. Negotiations happen until both parties reach a final settlement offer.
If the settlement offer is not reached after negotiations, then they can take help of a neutral mediator. A neutral mediator is a professional injury attorney in Kingston that has had personal experience in settling cases and neutral to both the parties. This process is called mediation.
Thus, there are more than one way to settle the case before the dispute goes to trial in front of the judge and the jury. Most personal injury cases are settled out of court as it saves time and money for both the situation.
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