After a car crash or any kind of accident, the liable party’s insurance company may try to pressure you into an early settlement. However, these offers are notoriously low. While the insurance company may want to settle a personal injury case quickly, this is rarely in your best interest. In this video, attorney John Jefcoat explains that the timeline of a personal injury lawsuit depends on the nature of your injuries.
Video Transcription
Generally, when someone is in an accident—specifically, I’ll talk about a car accident—they can usually settle the claim immediately. The insurance company is going to come to them really quickly. Swoop and settle is what we call it. They’ll actually come in, offer $500 or $1,000 from the sign the release and immediately, the case is over. The the insurance company has put that to sleep on their books and they don’t worry about it again. Whereas the client is going to have longer-term implications over time. I had a gentleman I represented a few years ago. That did a quick settlement, he thought, with the insurance company. The insurance company paid him some medical bills of about $12,000. About $3,000 in what we would call pain and suffering. The gentleman ended up with a traumatic brain injury and he came to see us. The claim had not been settled. They had just made a payment on the claim. He was very lucky. And he’s still on medication today about seven or eight years later. And so, his claim probably was somewhere worth about 30 times what they initially paid him.
We have our main phone number, which is 337-984-8020. For more information, go to www.GallowayJefcoat.com.
Lafayette Parish