How Soon To Make An Offer?
I'm going to answer the question: How long will it take for the insurance company to make me an offer in my injury case?
This is a common question. I will be honest with you. The myth is, that people who get hurt at work or in a car crash or a fall down or however they get hurt, the myth is that they're all money hungry and they're going to lie to get more money and they can't wait to go to court because it's like the lawsuit lottery and they're going to get rich off it.
The truth is the vast majority, like I'm talking about almost all people who call me up with an injury case. They did not want to have to call a lawyer, they're nice people, they're not trying to get rich, they have reasonable expectations, and they're just getting treated terribly by the insurance company. Whether it's the workers comp insurance company or a car accident insurance company or even worse than that, the insurance company is nice to them, butters them up makes them lower their guard and then they deny the claim or cut off benefits.
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Insurance Company Delay You
They stop calling you back or you call them and say "I need to see the doctor, the doctor wants pre-approval so I can go see the doctor". And they delay you. They do it because they know that in an injury case, the longer you delay seeing a doctor, the harder it is to prove in front of a jury. Because most people, judges and juries are like "look, if you were hurt, you need to go to the doctor, if you didn't go to the doctor, we're going to assume you weren't hurt". Is that harsh? For sure it's harsh, is it true?
I guarantee at least half of the people, especially the guys reading this article, I know I'm this way. Going to the doctor is the last thing in the world I wanna do. I've been very sick and injured before and I put off going to the doctor just because it's a disruption, you're busy, you want to see if it'll just go away, you don't want to get stuck in treatment, and you're interrupting your life go into therapy. That's how people are, it's just the way people are.
The Maximum Medical Improvement
If the question is, do you have a perfect case and did you do everything perfectly? No one does everything perfectly. Everybody screws something up here and there and if we judge each other harshly because everything's not storybook perfect, we're gonna do a lot of judging. My point is that, these sorts of things are not always perfect, they go sideways sometimes.
Why am I talking about medical treatment so much? When is your case going to settle? Your case is going to settle usually when you have reached maximum medical improvement or MMI in a worker's comp case. In a third party case, they don't really use the term MMI or maximum medical improvement, they just say "Okay I'm going to release you, you're as good as you can get, you can return as needed if you have problems in the future".
The Injury Plateaus
When you're released or let's say you have an injury that doesn't get completely better or your injury plateaus. That is a special time in an injury case. Because when your treatment wraps up or you are not getting any better, that's a signal to your lawyer to order all of the medical records, summarize them, do a demand letter. A lot of lawyers don't summarize the records they just write a one-page demand letter and try and settle your case.
Detailed Demand Letter
In my in my circumstances we write a very detailed demand letter. Some of my demand letters are almost 20 pages long because we spoon-feed and breakdown your injuries in a way that very few injury law firms do and it gets us great results. My point is usually, an insurance company will contact you at the very beginning and offer you garbage money before you or they know what the injury is. Once you settle your case, the case is over. I always tell people don't take that money. Talk to a lawyer first.
When You Are Done With Treatments
The second time is, when you are done treating, when you're done going to the doctor or right after a surgery, that is a good time to reach out to the insurance company and attempt to settle it. Because you're aware of what the injury is, you've had your surgery, if you're recovered, your treatment's plateaued meaning we know what your medical outcome is. Maybe you're completely better or maybe you're not ever going to be better or maybe you're going to have a permanent limp.
As long as we know what your permanent outcome is, we can start negotiating. The reason for that is, let's say you break your leg, you don't have surgery and after the bone heals, you're awesome, you're running a marathon, you're squatting 300 pounds on your back or you're doing your job where you have to squat down and crawl around all day, that's one outcome.
Same fracture, a different guy gets surgery. Now he's got a limp and he can't crawl around and he can't run, walking is painful same injury completely different outcomes. One is worth a heck of a lot more money than the other one. That's why we need to know what your medical outcome is before we settle your case. So don't ever let anybody settle your case until you know what you're going to be left with.
Settling A Case After Filing A Lawsuit
When your treatment plateaus, when is another right time to settle a case when insurance companies settle? Right after you file a lawsuit. Why? Because in most insurance companies, they have a different insurance adjuster handling your claim before you file a lawsuit, then it gets transferred to another insurance adjuster after you file a lawsuit.
What will happen a lot of times is, I'll be trying to settle a case for somebody with an insurance adjuster who's completely unreasonable. And I'm like "Alright, forget it. I'm filing a lawsuit". I file the lawsuit it gets reassigned the new adjuster, looks at it looks at my demand and says why is this case not settled this is crazy. I'm like, I agree and then we settle the case.
After A Plaintiff's Deposition
Another hot time to settle cases after a plaintiff's deposition. Now usually you don't have depositions in workers comp cases, but in other kinds of cases like car accidents, a ripe time to settle a case is after a plaintiff's deposition. A deposition is like a statement. In Illinois they can ask you three hours worth of questions and they can ask you background questions, how the accident happened and medical questions. So they're discovering the facts of the case. But they're also seeing how good of a witness you are, how good your memory is, how truthful appearing you are, these sorts of things.
If you do a great job at your deposition, many times the defense lawyer will report to the insurance company that you're a really good witness and that they should get out of the case and they should settle the case. Sometimes that works. I'll usually call the defense lawyer or the adjuster and just say "Hey, what's the story? I think my client did a great job. Can we resolve this thing?".
On The Trial Date
Then after the plaintiff's deposition, honestly once a trial date is set or a trial date is coming up, that's really the next time that is a hot time to settle an injury case. If your case is set for trial and a lot of these cases settle on the day of trial, like on the morning it's set to go to trial. Part of that is, because judges look at these cases and they know most of them should be settled.
They know most of them shouldn't be going to trial. But it's because the offer stinks or maybe the injured person or their lawyer has an inflated sense of what the case value is from the judge's perspective obviously. The Judges usually try to settle the cases if they can. And if they can't settle them then they go to trial. But when you have a judge or somebody like that pushing to resolve the case, then it is what it is, it's a good time to settle your case.
No Way To Make An Insurance Company Make An Offer
The one thing you should be aware of is, there's no way to make somebody settle a case. There's no way to make an insurance company make an offer. Now in my office, we're very aggressive pre-suit to try and get cases settled. We do an excellent summary, do an excellent demand letter on almost all of our cases.
And then we call and call and call, squeaky wheel gets the grease at the insurance company. We want them to look at the letter, really read the file, look at the medical, pay attention to the parts that we've highlighted and shown them.
Talk To Your Adjuster
We want them within 30 days to give us an offer. If they're not willing to do it within 30 days, then we want to know who would be willing to do it? Get it to a different adjuster or call your supervisor, whoever we need to look at it to evaluate it accurately. I settled the case a couple of months ago where that exact thing happened. The adjuster was a younger guy. I could tell he was a younger guy and he just wasn't getting it. And I said
"Listen, free advice to you my friend, if we can't settle this case within the next 30 days, I'm filing a lawsuit and this is a million dollar case. So my advice to you is to talk to your adjuster, let your adjuster know it's such and such kind of case and he or she should probably call me".
Well, they called me and I got the entire insurance policy for the client. It's not just the demand letters, it's the experience in finesse and negotiating that really makes a difference. Readers Digest, summary of this is, you can't force anyone to settle a case. You can't force anyone to make an offer. They can sit on your demand and never make an offer, you could call them a hundred times, it's not going to matter. Or they can make you a crummy offer and they can decide not to come up with it.
It Has Nothing To Do With Your Lawyer
Many times, it has nothing to do with your lawyer, your lawyer's reputation or your lawyer's professionalism. It's literally just you're either dealing with a crummy insurance company or you're dealing with an insurance company where the company itself is a reputable company, but you just got an adjuster with you know a b in their bonnet or you know some other thing in some other part of their body where they're like crabby and or whatever it is. You get people like that even at the good insurance companies.
Then from there, really our only option is surrender or fight. I don't like to surrender. The good news for you is, the lawyer does all the fighting. You mainly have a harder kind of job in its own way, you have to wait, and waiting is very frustrating. That's kind of how that works. No way to force demand, but those are the times when you can settle a case.
Never Take A Crummy Offer
Sometimes you'll get a crummy offer right away before you even talk to a lawyer. I don't think you should ever take it. Then after your treatment plateaus, after you file a lawsuit, after the plaintiff's deposition, and then when a trial date gets, set those are the hot times to settle a case.
That doesn't mean that you can't pick up the phone and settle a case at other times, but those are the hot times. All of them mean that the insurance company has more information than they had before. Sometimes it flips the light switch for them to get them to settle the case.
So that's how all that works. I hope that information helps you. I hope you and your family are well. If you need a lawyer or somebody who needs a lawyer please send them my way.
