Video Transcription
Hello, my name is Roger Ghai and I’m an attorney practicing in the area of injury law in the Acworth, Marietta, Kennesaw in Atlanta areas. I often get questions from clients asking why the insurance company has offered such a low amount to settle the case? This is a very good question, it’s a common question, but it’s something that we face in the practice of law in this particular field on a daily basis. Usually, what will happen is you’ll see a wide variety of offers being offered by different insurance companies for the same injury. For example, there are insurance companies, which I won’t say on this video, that are very difficult to deal with. We could have some client who’s got an injury. If you’re struck by the wrong person who has a bad insurance company, you might get a 3 or $4,000 offer on a typical case.
But it could also if you were struck by a driver with a different insurance company, with a better, what I would like to say, a better insurance company, a fairer insurance company, you may get an offer of 10 or $12,000. Those are some of the factors. Now, the other factor would be some of the insurance companies, just simply put, they play hard ball. Sometimes clients need money, the insurance companies know they need the money, and ultimately, it is the duty of the company that is the corporation, the insurance company, to protect the interest of their shareholders. If they can pay out on a claim, 3000 to $5,000, versus paying out $10,000, that’s exactly what they’re going to do. They’re going to make their shareholders happy, there’s going to be more profit for the company.
So, at the end of the day, it’s really all about business. Sometimes you have to have a lawyer who’s going to be aggressive that is not gun shy about filing a lawsuit to protect your rights and take the case all the way through trial, if necessary. The insurance companies know who those lawyers are and who those lawyers aren’t. Some lawyers are simply known as settlement lawyers and they tend to get lower settlements on average than the lawyers who actually follow suit and litigate the cases to take them to court and take them to the jury trial. There are a lot of factors on why sometimes your offer can be low. Another factor would be whether you had any preexisting injuries. For example, if you had a preexisting injury versus somebody who was asymptomatic, didn’t have any problems whatsoever, no previous injuries, that person is likely going to be given more money to settle the case than somebody who didn’t have any of those injuries.
Many times jurors and the insurance companies know this. When there’s a preexisting injury, the jurors just don’t have a tendency, for the most part, towards significant sums. They totally discount the fact that the person was injured in this particular accident. If you have questions about your case, the value of your case, why is the insurance company treating me unfairly? Why is the offer so low? What can we do about it? Feel free to call me at 770-792-1000.
