Are insurance adjusters calling you with settlement offers? Are you wondering if you should settle you personal injury claim? What follows are few things to consider before accepting any offer from an insurance company and releasing them from their obligation to compensate you for your injuries.
Insurance companies can be very persistent in trying to persuade you to accept their offers and settle your claim. They may even try to convince you that they are working in your best interest and that you don’t need a personal injury attorney. But this is far from the truth. The reason they do this is because they want you to sign an early release and absolve them of the responsibility to pay for your injuries … forever.
As general rule you, should not settle your case until a reasonable amount of time has transpired after you have been released by your doctor and have attempted to do all of the things that you did before your accident. This is recommended though most accident victim without major and life threatening injuries do get better, in many cases, you will find that you are not as good as new and still have some lingering problems. If you settle your case before you know the full extent and nature of your injuries, you will have lost the opportunity to be adequately compensated, because once you settle your case it cannot be reopened.
Before settling your personal injury claim, you should also sit down with a personal injury lawyer and analyze the benefits of settling your claim. First get an idea of what kind of settlement amount you can expect. Then ask your attorney to look at similar cases and advise you on how much you may possibly receive if you go to trial. Taking that into account, you should then decide what is in your best interest. If you decide to go to trial, you may be looking at a delay of one to two years before receiving any compensation and you have to be ready to live with that decision.
Going through the whole trial, dealing with appeals, and everything else, can be time consuming and emotionally draining. On the other hand, it can be extremely rewarding. Some of the most satisfied injury victims are people who didn’t want to go trial but for whatever of reasons, had no choice. Often they received larger awards than they had expected and because of this are able to enjoy better qualities of life, despite their injuries.
The appropriate time to settle a personal injury claim will vary from case to case. However, timing is always very important and settling early is not always the best thing to do. You often get the best settlement through litigation. You won’t likely get far in litigation without a qualified personal injury attorney, who knows how to find experts qualified to rebut an insurance company’s case. So if you settle early you could be leaving a substantial amount of compensation on the table. You may even receive far less than what would be considered fair compensation for your particular injuries.
Initial Claim Consultation with Personal Injury Attorneys in Tulsa
So, before you settle your personal injury claim, contact a Tulsa personal injury attorney who can help you decide if it is in your best interest to settle or not. A good personal injury attorney is one who is ready to go the distance and maintain a relationship with you for a couple of years in order to make sure that you receive the maximum amount of compensation possible.
For a initial consultation about your personal injury claim, call today at (918) 924-5528, toll free at (888) 447-7262 or send us your question using the form above on the right side of this page.
