Should I Accept the Offer that the Insurance Company has Given Me?

If you have been injured in an accident, your personal recovery, and recovering the money that you have lost has probably taken up a good deal of your time. If you followed proper protocol, you waited at the scene of the accident for a law enforcement officer to arrive and reported the accident to your insurance company. You saved your medical bills, documented the time you lost from work and provided them to the insurance company. If the insurance company has come back with an offer, they have probably lowballed you. Although it may be tempting to accept the offer and move on with your life, you should make an appointment with a personal injury law firm like : personalinjurylawnewyork.com.

Why Hire an Attorney

Insurance companies are staffed with teams of lawyers whose entire job it is to keep the company’s money in house. They are trained to use the evidence you have provided to cheat you out of the money you are owed. An experienced personal injury attorney will be able to negotiate with an insurance company. A trained attorney will be well versed in New York law and will be able to anticipate the arguments the insurance company will employ and how to combat those arguments.

How Insurance Determine Settlement Offers

New York is a no-fault state when it comes to auto insurance. In a no-fault state, a person’s own insurance company pays their accident-related medical, repair and transportation bills regardless of who was at fault in the collision. When an insurance company comes up with a settlement offer, they will often not only offer you much less than your accident is worth but if you accept that amount of money, you will have to waive your right to sue the company. An Insurance company will base what they offer you upon a percentage of your medical expenses.

Although there is not an official formula for calculating the offer in a settlement, there are a few basic things an insurance company will look for when coming up with an amount of money to offer you.

If a car is damaged in an accident, the insurance company will pay for repairs and replacement of parts that were destroyed in the accident. If the car is inoperable, the insurance company is supposed to pay for the value of the car prior to the accident. The price would normally be determined by the Blue Book Value.

The insurance company will not consider what the car was worth to you personally. If the car was a mode of transportation you needed to get to work, or if you used your car for work, it may be worth a lot more than the company offered you. A good attorney will be practiced in how to establish a car’s true value to an insurance company.

Pain and Suffering

The insurance company may not offer you anything for pain and suffering. They may not take your need for future medical treatment into consideration. You need an experienced attorney to assist you in coming up with a reasonable settlement amount that is based not only on what medical expenses you have had, but what medical expenses you are likely to incur based on your accident. An attorney will have years of experience dealing with personal injury bills and will be able to determine a fair amount of money for which to settle.

An accident can interrupt your life, but with good planning and a great lawyer, you can get back on the right path.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes.