If you are ever involved in a personal injury accident, you need to hire a personal injury lawyer. You then need to ask him or her how the insurance adjuster working on your case will calculate your final settlement value.
If you ask your personal injury lawyer how your insurance adjuster will calculate your final settlement value, it will help the two of you (you and your personal injury lawyer) draft a strong demand letter. Your lawyer will tell you that the insurance adjuster will thoroughly investigate the merits of your claim before calculating anything. The investigation consists of this process:
Getting the defendant’s story
Personal injury lawyers know that the insurance adjuster will interview the defendant to get his or her side of the story. The information gathered will greatly assist the adjuster when determining how much value to calculate for any pain and suffering you may have endured. This is an intangible loss that can’t be quantified easily.
Investigating the plaintiff
The insurance adjuster will dig into your past to try to obtain any information that could weaken your claim. He or she will also research if you have filed a personal injury claim in the past.
Requesting formal documents
Your personal injury lawyer in Poway will inform you that the insurance adjuster will contact you and ask you to submit formal documents relating to your personal injury accident. These documents can include photographs and/or a police report. They will serve as evidence for your personal injury claim.
Calculating settlement value
The insurance adjuster will consider how likely your claim would be to win in court. He or she will also consider the monetary value the jury and judge would award you if your case did win. If your case is likely to win and the payout would be very high, the insurance adjuster would calculate a very high settlement value for you. The adjuster will tally up all tangible expenses like medical bills and other related expenses. He or she will then multiply these expenses by a factor to determine intangible expenses like pain and suffering. Your final settlement will consist of these two expenses added to each other.
You may need to hire a personal injury lawyer
Since the final settlement offer is completely up to the insurance adjuster, he or she may not offer you what you really need and deserve in terms of a settlement. This is why you need to hire a personal injury lawyer. This professional will work with you and the insurance adjuster to obtain the settlement that you need, want, and deserve!