A traumatic brain injury is one of the worst outcomes of any accident. Brain injuries affect each victim differently, and you might experience profound cognitive, behavioral, and physical impairments that affect nearly every aspect of your life. Every day can seem like a battle with a brain injury.
Unfortunately, your fights are just beginning on many fronts. On the health front, you will need to fight to regain as much of your function as possible in light of the serious injury that you have suffered. On the legal front, you will need to fight the insurance company with a legal obligation to pay you full financial compensation.
The insurance company does not make things easy on claimants, even if you have a severe injury and seemingly clear legal entitlement to settlement money. Nothing comes easy in any type of personal injury case.
The worse your injuries are, the harder your case may become. Brain injury cases are particularly difficult because you may be due a substantial settlement check for your injuries, but the insurance company will make you work hard for it.
Always hire a brain injury lawyer to lead the fight on your behalf. They can spare you from having to become overly involved in your case at a time when you lack the capacity. Your brain injury attorney will know how to determine how much your case is worth, and then they can fight for you to get every penny. If you cannot make the call to a brain injury lawyer yourself, you should have someone you trust to do it on your behalf.
Brain Injuries Are Always a Serious Matter
There is no such thing as a minor brain injury. There are only serious injuries and those that are even more severe. Any time that your brain has been impacted by an accident, you run the risk of permanent damage.
Even if you fully recover from your injuries, you can experience significant effects during your recovery, including not working, cognitive struggles, and more. You can incur many financial costs and suffer in other ways.
Statistics show that 80,000 people are released from the hospital each year in the United States with some form of disability from a traumatic brain injury. Many others are hospitalized for treatment, and they face a long road ahead of them to recovery.
Over five million people live with the long-term consequences of a TBI, and many of them suffered their injuries due to the actions of others in an accident.
You Need to Know the Value of Your Claim and Must Support It
In any fight, you need to come armed with information and data supporting your argument. In a brain injury case, this means you know the exact value of your claim and are prepared to support it when necessary.
You can expect the insurance company to have their own numbers in mind from the outset of your claim. They have their own medical experts who have carefully looked over your records, and the insurance company claims to have certainty about the amount of your damages.
You must have your own data and back it up when the insurer challenges you.
The key is that you work with a brain injury lawyer with experience handling cases like yours. One of the first things a brain injury attorney will do is hire experts who can get to the bottom of your case to quantify your damages and are prepared to explain them.
Your brain injury attorney may enlist the following experts to scrutinize various parts of your case:
- Medical experts can help your brain injury lawyer understand the extent of your injury and the extent of any possible recovery you might make.
- Vocational experts can inform your brain injury attorney what work you may be capable of doing now and in the future in light of your condition. They may also give their opinion about how much you should have earned had your brain injury not damaged your career.
- Life care planning experts who will put a value on the amount of care that you may need to help you with the activities of daily life
- Economic experts who can determine what your costs and lost earnings may be in the future
After consulting all the necessary experts, your brain injury attorney will come up with a monetary figure to seek on your behalf in your case. Remember that a brain injury settlement should cover both your past and future damages. You are expected to know now how much money you will need in the future and be ready to support this number.
You do not get a second chance at a brain injury settlement because you sign away your legal rights in a release clause as a condition for taking the insurance company’s money. Even if you later realize you accepted far too little, it is next to impossible to request more later once the case settles.
How the Insurance Company May Respond to Your Brain Injury Claim
The insurance company will review the evidence that you provide with your claim. Their first task is to determine whether to accept liability. The insurance company may realize that their policyholder was responsible for your accident, and they may decide to try to settle your case.
Alternatively, the insurance company might deny your claim or unreasonably try to blame you, forcing you to take your case to court (if you have not already begun the legal process there).
The insurance company has a number of tactics that they may use to make things challenging in your case, including:
- Disputing evidence in your case regarding liability
- Taking issue with the severity of your injuries that is demonstrated by your medical records (the insurance company is known for having their own doctors, who have never examined you personally, reach their own conclusions about your health and prognosis)
- Dragging out the process by taking a long time to respond to your claim in general and any communications from you
- Playing hardball in settlement negotiations by making very low offers and only slowly raising their offer to you
The Insurance Company May Play Hardball in Settlement Negotiations
The insurance company has its own strategy when it tries to settle your case, and it is rarely to put the full amount of money in your pocket that you deserve immediately.
Never accept the initial settlement offer that the insurance company tries to make in your brain injury case. The first offer is almost always extremely low unless the insurance company offers you the policy limit immediately to settle your case (then, you may need to be concerned because the policy limit may be just a fraction of the true amount of damages you have suffered).
The insurance company fully expects you to reject the initial settlement offer because it is often no more than just a placeholder to let you know that they accept liability and want to resolve your claim.
You Can Play Hardball Right Back with the Insurance Company
Your lawyer should continue to negotiate with the insurance company until they step up to the plate with all the money you deserve. The insurance company often expects a lengthy negotiation.
In fact, that is often their strategy in a brain injury case. Not only do they want to wear you down with the passage of time, but they also want to hold onto their own money for as long as possible.
Brain injury cases often result in large settlement agreements, and the insurance company wants to wait as long as possible before taking the money out of their account.
The insurance company does not get to unilaterally determine how much you may receive in compensation because the claim is a negotiation process between two parties.
You have the legal right to this money from the insurance company, and they cannot simply refuse to pay it to you. If the insurance company refuses to cooperate in the claims process, your recourse is that you can always file a brain injury lawsuit in court. Then, a jury will be the one who decides both liability in your case and your amount of compensation.
Insurance Companies May Not Want to Fight Too Hard in Court
Insurance companies are often afraid to go the distance in court with brain injury victims. They know how the jury will perceive and react to someone who has suffered a severe injury by their policyholder’s negligence.
After all, jurors are human beings with emotions. When they have reviewed the evidence and see a fellow person whose life has been forever changed, they may be tempted to throw the book at the person or company responsible for the injury.
That is the last thing that the insurance company wants when they have already had a chance to settle the claim. Then, they can end up paying out even more money than they may have had to in a settlement agreement.
Even the threat of litigation can bring the insurance company into line when they have difficulty in the claims process.
If you file a lawsuit, and the insurance company still will not settle, the prospect of a jury calling them to account can cause them to raise their offer.
You Need a Brain Injury Lawyer to Effectively Fight on Your Behalf
The first step to effectively fighting the insurance company after a TBI is to hire a brain injury lawyer to represent you in the legal process. There is little that you can do on your own after you have suffered a brain injury.
Not only are your capacities limited because of your injury, but you never could go toe-to-toe with the insurance company in a fair fight, even before your accident.
Insurance companies take notice of the fact that you intend to fight when you hire a brain injury attorney. This action sends an unmistakable signal to the insurance company that they are not to take your legal rights for granted. The insurance company might treat your claim much more seriously because they know they can get away with far less.
If they try to push their luck too far, your brain injury lawyer can skirt around the insurance company and go straight to court and a jury.
Although you should be worried about your financial future, and many things are outside your control, you do not have to spend as much time on the legal process when hiring a brain injury attorney for your case.
Your brain injury lawyer will lead the battle with the insurance company. There may be times when you need to make key decisions in your case, and you will do so with the help of your lawyer, who will give you sound professional advice about your courses of options.
Call a Brain Injury Lawyer Now to Begin Work on Your Legal Case
Now is the time to get legal help from a brain injury lawyer. Any moment that a brain injury attorney does not represent you is one of high risk because the insurance company can compromise your legal rights. If you are worried about the cost of a brain injury attorney, the contingency fee system can help put those fears to rest.
You only have to pay a brain injury lawyer anything if you win your case, and you do not have to pay them anything before that point. If you do not win your case, you do not receive an invoice from your attorney seeking payment for their time and services.
The legal system wants you to get help from a Bronx personal injury attorney, and you should take full advantage of your opportunity to do so.
