How Do You Successfully Negotiate Personal Injury Settlements?
Our success at negotiation is due to skills we’ve developed for more than 20 years while representing clients injured in accidents and by asbestos-related illnesses. We’re trained to do it, and we’ve studied it, but experience is the best educator for any complex skill, especially one that involves working with other people with different goals and interests.
You can learn a lot about negotiating. There are courses at the college and graduate levels on the topic. Many attorneys attend seminars and trainings on negotiation. But they’re only a good starting point when it comes to negotiation.
What are Important Factors in Negotiating Settlements?
The recipe for a favorable settlement has many ingredients, including the following.
Supporting facts are the most essential part of negotiations.
Strong evidence that the insured is liable for the accident and your injuries are the result the foundation. An insurance company may be more willing to risk a trial if they think there’s a good chance a judge or jury will dismiss the case, so they will reduce their offer. Solid evidence of your injury and its effect on you is icing on the negotiation cake.
We must be thorough and organized.
Negotiating a settlement doesn’t make sense if you don’t fully understand what’s going on. There may not be a complete report on the accident’s cause and your degree of fault, if any. We may discover facts that strengthen or weaken your case late in the investigation. Ideally, you’ve also reached your maximum recovery, so if you haven’t put the injury behind you, we have a good idea of what you’ll face.
Patience is a virtue.
You don’t want your case to drag on, and neither do we, but there may be medical or procedural reasons we’re not racing out the door. This can be especially tough for clients facing financial hardships, but settling early often means settling for less.
It may take some time to gather evidence and decide the case’s settlement value before making a settlement demand on the insurance company. That usually starts negotiations.
The insurance adjuster or attorney may want additional information or their investigation’s findings. A lawsuit may need to be filed, and the defendant may try to narrow down or dismiss the claim. The discovery process forces both sides to put all their factual and expert opinion cards on the table so both sides should understand what the case is worth. Nearly all cases are resolved before a trial takes place, and that could take some time.
Settlement negotiations are about numbers and storytelling.
We’re trying to reach an acceptable settlement figure, and we try to get there by telling your story in a compelling way. Insurance adjusters and attorneys work every day on claims by people suffering horrible injuries. We need to cut through that clutter by making you more than a claim number.
You’re a human being dealing with something terrible and trying to get your life back on track. We give concrete facts about the accident and your injuries while attempting to provide a glimpse of who you are. We try to generate as much empathy as possible, but it’s a hard sell for some in the insurance industry.
Professionalism matters.
Helping clients get the compensation they deserve is part of our profession and is very important to us. Insurance company attorneys’ jobs are to protect the insurance company and their insured, and it’s imperative to them. We have conflicting interests, but we’re adults and handle these matters as professionals.
There should be no yelling, theatrics, or insults. Conversations can be strained, and we can become frustrated, but this isn’t reality TV or a daytime talk show. Neither side advances their clients’ interests by being hotheads. There are companies and people we prefer to work with, but we’ll negotiate with anyone to help our clients.
Sometimes we negotiate with our clients who have inflated ideas about what their case is worth.
Our attorneys work with our clients to determine a case’s settlement value. We want our clients to collect the most compensation possible, but that’s set by the facts, applicable laws, and what local juries are willing to award. Ultimately, the client decides to settle or not. But we won’t work with unrealistic clients who refuse fair if not favorable settlement demands. We’re working on a settlement, not a revenge fantasy.
We’ve obtained very high settlements and awards for our clients, and you may read about blockbuster cases in the news, but that doesn’t mean your case is worth seven figures. Most of those cases involve people severely disabled for the rest of their lives, possibly living in constant pain, and that’s not what you want.
Speak To a Satterley & Kelley Personal Injury Lawyer Today
Negotiation is a critical part of our job, one we take great pride in. Given that nearly all cases settle, successful negotiation is key to the success of most cases.
If another’s negligence caused injuries to you or a loved one, Satterley & Kelley, PLLC lawyers can protect your interests and legal rights to compensation for the harm you suffer.
Call our Louisville office at 855-385-9532 to schedule a free initial consultation so we can talk about your accident and injuries. If it’s more convenient, you can complete our contact form.