Full Answer
If you've been injured in a car accident, you should talk to a lawyer before you accept a quick settlement offer from the defendant's insurer. A lawyer can explain why it's important for you to reach " maximum medical improvement " before accepting an offer or reassure you that the settlement offer is fair.
In most car accident cases, the attorney only takes a fee on the personal injury claim. In other words, attorneys rarely charge a fee on a settlement for damage to the car. After a personal injury lawsuit, the attorney’s fee usually increases to 40%.
Before getting an initial offer, the critical first step to getting a car accident settlement check, three things must happen: Treatment is completed or the patient is at maximum medical improvement. The timeline on this is anywhere from 1 day to years.
If you decide to start a car accident lawsuit, chances are you’ll never get to court, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Make the most of your claim. We've helped 225 clients find attorneys today. Make the most of your claim. We've helped 225 clients find attorneys today.
about six weeksHow long does it take to get a settlement check? The answer depends on the various processing steps and payments required before you get the check, but in most cases, you can expect to receive your funds in about six weeks.
Cashing in Your Settlement Check With Your Bank Generally, a bank can hold funds: For up to two business days for checks against an account at the same institution. For up to five additional days for other banks (totaling seven days)
Depositing a big amount of cash that is $10,000 or more means your bank or credit union will report it to the federal government. The $10,000 threshold was created as part of the Bank Secrecy Act, passed by Congress in 1970, and adjusted with the Patriot Act in 2002.
Personal injury cases usually take quite some time to settle or resolve. The reasons a case can progress slowly can be summed up into three general points: Your case is slowed down by legal or factual problems. Your case involves a lot of damages and substantial compensation.
Step 5: The trial occurs. A car accident trial usually only takes a day or two to complete. Step 6: Potential appeal. If one of the parties isn't happy with the result of the trial, an appeal is possible.
All you want to do is heal, get your car back on the road, and get on with your life feeling whole again. Especially when filing a personal injury lawsuit is the only way to achieve this goal, you may wonder how long it will take to resolve the matter.
Step 1: The plaintiff files the complaint and the lawsuit officially begins.
Step 3: The defendant answers the complaint. Depending on the specific court where the lawsuit is pending, the defendant will have about one month to file its answer to the plaintiff's complaint.
A case can settle almost immediately after the plaintiff files the complaint, or it can settle even after a trial finishes.
Step 6: Potential appeal. If one of the parties isn't happy with the result of the trial, an appeal is possible. There are several levels of appeals. Even just one level of appeal could add several years to the length of a case.
Most car accident cases settle, and do not result in litigation (the civil lawsuit process). However, if there is a dispute as to who was at fault for the crash, or the scope and extent of an injured person's damages, a car accident lawsuit becomes a distinct possibility.
The number of car accidents tends to rise. Due to the increasing traffic and the growing number of cars, car accidents have become a very common thing nowadays. However, most people are still not familiar with claiming a settlement check after a car accident.
The answer to this question may vary a lot. Unfortunately, there’s no definitive answer to predict how much time your settlement check claiming process will take.
The general principle is that when you’re involved in a serious car accident for which you’re determined not to be at fault, you’re entitled to compensation for any expenses incurred as a result of the event. Such costs might include:
The check must first clear the bank. The money is finally here, but you must continue to wait. Before your lawyer can disburse your share of the settlement proceeds to you, he or she must deal with any liens against your lawsuit. A lien is a legal right to someone else’s assets.
Once you and your attorney are ready to accept an offer, you’ll need to sign a release form stating you will not ask for any further money from the other party.
As the next-to-last step of the process, the settlement check is deposited into your lawyer’s trust account.
Remember, though, that time can be on your side in terms of holding out for a fair settlement. A settlement is final, so make sure all your injuries have resolved before accepting one.
They know a quick settlement (even if it’s for far less than you need and deserve) will sound awfully good to you at first. Yes, you need to pay bills, but what you most need to buy is time.
If a case is going to be settled fast without a lawsuit for top value, a car accident lawyer will need to obtain all of the medical records and bills for the client. At our law firm and many personal injury firms, it is the lawyer’s job to collect the medical bills and records.
When victims ask why their call accident settlement is taking so long, they are often implicitly asking if their car accident lawyer's neglect is the reason for the delay. The answer? Maybe. There are bottlenecks in the settlement process that no amount of hustle can speed up. So it may be there is nothing your accident lawyer can do because the attorneys is waiting on medical records or waiting for the insurance company to respond. But there is no question that the delay is often the result of a plaintiff's lawyer who is not staying on top of the case.
Most injury claims should not take more than three weeks. But it often does. Your accident lawyer needs to be following up with the insurance company to keep your case at the front of the line.
The second inflection point is at the pre-trial conference after the discovery phase of the litigation is over (or at a private mediation).
Getting a response to the demand package. This takes between 15 and 90 days. (We look at all the major insurance companies and take a look at the average time of how long they take to respond.)
The best time to settle is often right after the lawsuit has been filed. The insurance company now knows you are serious. With many insurers, this can often lead to an immediate and meaningful increase in the offer (GEICO, Nationwide. Liberty Mutual, and Progressive come to mind more than State Farm and Allstate).
Treatment is completed or the patient is at maximum medical improvement. The timeline on this is anywhere from 1 day to years.
It saves time, money and unpleasant surprises.
Depending on the study, statistics show that about 95% of personal injury lawsuits will reach a settlement before trial, and since a significant number of personal injury cases arise from car accidents, those numbers hold true for car accident lawsuits as well. So, why do most car accident cases settle?
Insurance companies want cases completed so they can close claim files. Settling a case achieves this closure much more quickly. Not only is a trial avoided, but a potential appeal is off the table as well. It might take several years to get a case to trial, but an appeal can add another few years to the case's lifespan.
Because most plaintiff's attorneys get paid through a contingency fee agreement, the sooner a case settles , the sooner the plaintiff's attorney gets paid. All else being equal, a quicker settlement payment is more profitable for the plaintiff's attorney. This is because the longer a case goes on, the more time and work the plaintiff's attorney must put into the case, with no guarantee of an increased settlement offer.
If every single case went to trial, the attorneys would simply be unable to fully prepare for and try every case. This is similar to the criminal justice system, where plea bargaining is common. Without plea bargaining, there wouldn't be enough prosecutors to take each case to trial.
Litigation is expensive. Cases can go on for years, and the costs can really add up. The time and effort to attend and take depositions, produce documents, and hire expert witnesses can easily reach five figures before trial, with this cost almost doubling just for the trial itself. Both sides will incur these costs and would like to avoid or reduce them whenever possible. Settlement provides this opportunity.
While settlement offers often rise as the lawsuit goes on, that's not always the case. Even if a settlement offer goes up over the course of the lawsuit, there's no guarantee the increase will rise in proportion to the additional work the plaintiff's attorney must put in. Then there's always the risk that if the plaintiff refuses a settlement and the case goes to trial, the plaintiff loses and the plaintiff's attorney gets nothing.
Ideally, negotiations will go on as long as necessary, until a fair agreement is reached. The settlement negotiations could be completed in one discussion (or one exchange of letters), but, more likely, you will have to go back-and-forth with the adjuster several times before you get the adjuster's very best settlement offer. Some lawyers have a hard and fast rule: they won't settle an injury case without discussing the claim and exchanging figures with the adjuster at least three times.
The normal response from the insurance adjuster is an offer that is less than they are really willing to pay. The back-and-forth process continues until the claim is resolved or until it is decided that it can't be settled, that your views of the value of the claim are simply too different.
A lack of evidence can doom your case, or at least leave you with a settlement that doesn't cover your losses. (Use this Checklist of Records to Gather After a Car Accident .)
If the offer is less than your goal amount, you have to decide whether to invest the time and expense of going to court to try to get more. If the offer is far less than you think is reasonable, you should probably reject it and go to court.
You can't mention settlement negotiations at all. Keep in mind that the adjuster doesn't know for sure what will happen if you take your case to court, any more than you do. However, you should give some consideration to the arguments and to the evaluation of the insurance company in deciding whether to settle.
You can succeed in settlement negotiations in your car accident case, even if you don't have any experience.
No. Settlement negotiations in a car accident claim are much like the back-and-forth negotiation system that most car dealerships still use. (In fact, don't be surprised if, during the negotiations, the adjuster tells you she has to speak to her manager, just like a car salesman might.)
It depends on the state of the car accident. For example, in Florida, attorney’s cannot charge more than 33 1/3% of any settlement before a lawsuit. In most car accident cases, the attorney only takes a fee on the personal injury claim. In other words, attorneys rarely charge a fee on a settlement for damage to the car.
Within just 38 days of the motorcycle accident, I settled Pat’s injury case for the $50,000 limits.
(It is not always.) We generally do not settle until we have received all of your medical bills, records and the health plan lien amount.
Pat got 59% of the settlement in his pocket after my attorney’s fees and costs, and paying his medical bills and health insurance lien.
Most personal injury cases are worth under $1 million. If your case settles for an amount above $1 Million, our fees on any amounts above the first $1 Million are reduced according to the maximum amount allowed under the Florida Bar rules.
You usually want your doctor to say that the accident caused or worsened your injury. Of course, this assumes that it really did.
You would have to pay the defense costs if you choose to sue, and take the case to trial, and you lose at trial.
Hiring a personal injury attorney to represent you after a car accident means you will have a professional working for you -- one who is extremely knowledgeable about the relevant laws and procedural rules that may affect your case.
Perhaps the most important way an attorney can help you with your car accident case is by being your advocate. This means that your attorney acts on your behalf and for your benefit throughout the entire claims process (negotiating with the automobile insurance company) and even in court if a lawsuit becomes necessary. He or she will be your champion before the judge, jury and other attorneys, making sure that your side of the story is heard and that you are compensated for all of your losses.
Whereas this may be your first time dealing with the ins and outs of an accident claim, injury attorneys have dealt with all manner of claims and have faced the gamut of insurance company tactics. They have experience obtaining the necessary evidence to support your claim, including gathering police reports, witness statements, medical records and bills, and employment and lost wage information.
If you are unable to settle your accident case, your attorney can take care of filing the necessary paperwork to start a court case and can deal with the defense attorneys on your behalf. Having a seasoned professional navigate the day to day work of your case eases the burden on you so that you can focus on recovering from your injuries.
An experienced injury attorney can be extremely helpful in navigating the often chaotic and confusing world of insurance claims and injury settlements after a car accident. Here's what you need to know:
For instance, in many states you must file your lawsuit within two years of your car accident or be forever prohibited from filing your lawsuit. An attorney will also be able to inform you about any special exceptions to the statute of limitations -- for minors, for example.
Most injury attorneys work on a contingency fee basis, meaning your lawyer only gets paid if there is a successful resolution to your claim.