Personal Injury Settlement Amounts

Personal Injury Settlement Amounts

How much will I get from the insurance company? That seems to be the first question that anyone asks when you speak to them after the shock of being involved in a auto wreck has gone. The honest answer is that no one can tell you how much any insurance company will pay out as they all seem to have their own set of rules

Were You Hurt
If you were physically injured then you will most likely get a larger payout.  However just saying you were injured on a form you fill in is not enough, you have to actually show it. More accurately you have to be able to supply a report from your Doctor showing there was real injury, if you had scans or xrays the insurance company may well ask for copies of them so they can have their own experts assess them.

The money that you are given is meant to cover your hospital bills as well so don’t think you can go crazy with whatever money is given to you as you will have to pay the hospitals.

Don’t Spend Before You Have It
One regular thing that happens is people rush out and sign for a loan on a new car and just think that they will pay the loan off when they get the check from their insurance company. Since you do not know how much you will be getting for your personal injury settlement it seems crazy to start spending money assuming you can use the settlement check to clear the debt.

Be Honest
Times are tough, we are all broke, and your car is wrecked. It is tempting to expand the truth a little when filling in the list of what the auto accident has cost you. Do not be sucked into any thing that could even vaguely be construed as fraud. You may think (and friends may tell you) that it is only an insurance company and they are used to it. Trying to reason away why you are involved in fraud doesn’t stop it being fraud.

You may think that calling it fraud is strong, but that is what it is. If you put anything on your claim forms that is not true it constitutes fraud and Car Insurance companies are very good at finding out about it. Your insurance assessor will have many years of experience and will have seen just about every trick you could possibly imagine, once they suspect fraud you will be very lucky if they do not pass you over to the police.

Being involved in a auto wreck is bad enough without ending up having to attend court on charges of fraud. Insurance is meant to recompense us for real loss, so you should push to get enough to pay for your medical bills and pay for a car (not a new one) but there is no reason you should expect to become rich from an auto insurance claim.