That’s the most common question I hear when first meeting a client, and it is a difficult question to answer right after an injury. There are still too many unknowns at that point. The most important thing you can do after an injury is to focus on recovery and following your medical provider’s counsel so that you can get back to normal as soon as possible. We are in a better position to estimate the value of your claim/case after you have completed medical treatment and been given your long-term prognosis. You should always wait to see if any complications arise and whether your body heals as expected before putting a dollar amount on your case.
Most automobile and trucking cases are resolved through the insurance coverage of the at-fault party. Many insurance policies contain pitfalls that a skilled attorney knows how to handle. While recovering from an injury, you should allow your attorney to handle the insurance aspects of your claim/case. Insurance companies have trained and skilled adjusters working for them. You should have a trained and skilled attorney working for you to deal with the insurance company.
There are many factors at work in determining how much a claim is worth. Georgia state law requires all drivers to maintain a minimum of $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident in bodily injury liability coverage for automobile accidents. Truck drivers have much higher insurance policy requirements under state and federal law. In most automobile accident cases, $25,000 in liability coverage is usually available to an injured person. In many cases, the injured person has his own insurance that may offer additional coverage beyond the $25,000 limit. This insurance is typically called medical payment coverage and/or uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage.
Your insurance policy is a contract. One requirement of this contract is that, to receive this type of compensation, an insured person is typically required to provide her insurance company with notice of the loss at the earliest opportunity and, in many cases, not later than 30 days after the incident. Failure to provide this notice could substantially impact the value of your case.
Cases also range in value depending on the type of injury suffered. Soft-tissue injuries do not usually have the same value as broken bones and other more severe injuries.
I typically tell people that if their case has a high value, then that means something really bad has happened to them. In those cases the injured person’s focus should usually be on recovery and not valuation.
A catastrophic injury to yourself or a loved one is devastating. It is our mission to get victims of these types of injuries and their families the highest valuation in the fastest time possible, either through settlement or trial, and making sure that we never undervalue their case.
