Injury Legal Compensation: Insurance vs Personal Injury Lawyer

Getting seriously injured can be scary. Dealing with physical and emotional pain, helping your family cope, and then trying to come to grips with what just happened can stretch you thin. Relationships can become strained and money can run tight. Chances are that if you’ve just been in a serious accident, and it was someone else’s fault, you’ll be contacted by their insurance agency. You might even find the insurance agency very interested in getting you a settlement. While this may seem like a stroke of good luck you’ll need to be careful. You see, it is in an insurance agency’s best interest (and not necessarily yours) to get you to agree to a settlement before you have a chance to talk to a lawyer. In a landmark research paper released by Allstate Insurance it reads that attorney “represented claims settle for 2-3 times more than unrepresented claims.” According to Allstate’s own research we can see that if you become injured and acquire legal representation an insurance company could end up paying you 200-300% more than what they’ve likely offered you! If you peek into the claims manual for Allstate you’ll see that it specifically instructs employees to have regular follow-ups with individuals who have submitted a claim to “reduce the need for attorney involvement.” Now why do we think that is? Unfortunately, this type of behavior isn’t isolated to Allstate alone. After the publication of this report it has become standard practice for nearly all insurance companies to offer quick settlements at a heavily reduced monetary value. Insurance is a numbers game. They understand statistics better than your college professor you swore ate and drank the stuff. When you get an offer to settle from and insurance company you can bet they understand the potential monetary threat you represent to them. It is this author’s opinion that the dollar amount they offer you should be multiplied by 2. Then you will have a fairly strong statistical understanding of what your case is really worth.rnOf course, every situation is different. A personal injury in one person’s occupational field or location could represent a larger potential payout than another’s. In the end if you have suffered a personal injury you should always contact a personal injury lawyer. These attorneys have been trained and have often had decade’s worth of experience in the field. I would highly suggest contacting a lawyer who has specific and measurable experience in personal injury law and who has practice this area of law in your state. Many employer, auto, and injury related laws vary by state so finding a lawyer who understands your particular situation is always a must. No one can promise you a dollar amount for legal compensation but since most attorneys function on a ‘pay on settlement only’ method you are almost always better off finding legal representation to help you get the personal injury compensation you deserve.