How Do Accident Injury Lawyers Reach a Settlement?

If you suffered injuries in an accident, you might wonder how to work with an insurance company to get a fair settlement. Your experience with the insurance company may leave you feeling unsettled. You may wonder how to push your claim forward. But how do accident injury lawyers reach a settlement? How do they manage to do what so many are unsuccessful in doing on their own? Let’s look at how accident injury lawyers reach a settlement with insurance companies and successfully handle your case.

Insurance Companies Have Their Own Best Interest at Heart

The bottom line is that most injury victims feel less than satisfied with their encounters with insurance claims representatives. Working with insurance companies, you may wonder if they have your best interests at heart, or if they are looking at their bottom line instead. 

“Insurance companies in Texas make the big bucks. They earn more than $2 billion in revenue each year, and have assets of $8 billion.” (1) 

You don’t make that kind of money without stepping on a few toes. Their policies are to pay out only when the policy explicitly covers the problem you’re having and only when you have the proof that they owe you. 

In other words, if you can prove to the insurance company that you would win in a court of law, they will stand up and take notice. Otherwise, claims adjusters for insurance companies pay out just enough to keep their actions legal.

Negotiation Skills Necessary

Going it alone trying to ask for a settlement check may not work well. Personal injury attorneys understand that being polite and agreeable with an insurance representative does not get results. 

Attorneys specializing in personal injury law use negotiation tactics to debate your case with insurance representatives. They also know how to defuse dirty negotiation tactics that insurance companies may use against you, such as these from Harvard Law School:

• Extreme demands followed up by small, slow concessions
• Commitment tactics: a rep saying her hands are tied or that she has only limited discretion to negotiate with you
• Take-it-or-leave-it negotiation strategy
• Inviting unreciprocated offers from you without giving you a counteroffer
• Trying to make you flinch with demands
• Personal insults and feather-ruffling: making you feel insecure and vulnerable
• Bluffing, lying, exaggerating, or misrepresenting facts throwing you off guard 
• Threats and warnings
• Belittling your alternatives
• Good cop, bad cop: a two-negotiator team with one reasonable and the other tough

A personal injury attorney knows all of these tactics and counters them in debate. The negotiation is a back and forth process where each side argues their position using social and legal tactics to gain ground.  A knowledgeable attorney knows when to ignore a bluff and when to counter offer for a settlement figure. 

Over time, working with many insurance companies gives an attorney the edge when negotiating a settlement. The fact is that they know the negotiation process and how to win a fair settlement.

Knowledge of the Case

An excellent personal injury accident lawyer reaches a settlement by showing proof. Without proof, the case is dead in the water. An attorney knows that a winnable case gets must have the proof to get the offer of a fair settlement.

Your attorney may use 

• Charts or graphs showing statistics or other proof in easily accessible ways: A good chart can prove a point easily to a jury. Anything that can prove your case to a jury will make an insurance company willing to come to the negotiation table. 
• Personal injury worksheets: There are different ways that courts calculate your personal injury settlement value. Your attorney goes over these figures with you to reach what you can agree is a fair settlement. Going from this data, your attorney argues your case, knowing how much your injury is worth in a judicial environment.
• Previous Cases: Your attorney will research and understand how previous cases similar to yours settled and for how much. They may find similar cases by looking at where the accident occurred, whether there was negligence on the other party’s part, or the extent of your injuries.

Experience Brings the Know-How

An experienced attorney brings all of their past cases and court encounters to the table. Every negotiation with attorneys, judges, and insurance reps is part of the package they offer to your case. Because they’ve done insurance injury settlement cases before, the negotiation process comes naturally to an experienced attorney. 

If your case reaches a courtroom, because they’ve been in the courtroom many times, they are not rattled when it comes time to prove your case to a jury.

Your attorney also understands civil procedure fully. They know what will win a case in the courtroom. Taking this same proof to the negotiations with an insurance company brings your case success. Your injury accident attorney brings an entire court case to the negotiations table. The intense preparation for negotiations wins you the fair settlement you deserve. 

We Can Help

At Jarrett Law, our legal focus is on accident injury settlement cases. We work with you as a victim of negligence or an injured party in a car accident to win the settlement you deserve. Our successful negotiation tactics stand up to an insurance company’s hardball tactics to strong-arm you. We investigate your case thoroughly to understand the complete picture of your case. With that knowledge and our previous experience, we go to bat for you and bring results. 

Bringing our legal team on to represent you doesn’t cost anything unless you win a settlement. Contact us today for your free initial consultation. Find out how we can help your case move forward and how you can get your life back.

 

Footnotes:

1.10 Hard-Bargaining Tactics to Watch Out for in a Negotiation