To the uninitiated, figuring out what a car or truck accident claim is worth can be quite mysterious.
We set out to explain this process on this website in various ways but today the focus on how and why medical bills are actually an important measure or mechanism, is the goal.
Yesterday, this author confronted this phenomenon twice on one claims negotiating day. The first instance involved an auto accident case where the client had discharged his former lawyer and hired our firm. Communication had broken down with the at-fault insurer and the client had undergone surgery as a result of the collision.
We had requested all the pertinent medical records for the client as well as their bills. Often medical records and bills are slow to come by and the client was understandably impatient to resolve his claim as the policy limits of the at-fault driver were limited.
I called the insurance adjuster with whom I had successfully worked with before and he informed me that he had $17,000.00 in crash-related bills and told me he could put up his policy limits if we could provide the surgical bill.
I called the client and informed him that if he could lay his hands on the surgery bill his wait would be over. Needless to say the client was relieved.
The second case involved a client who had been in a bad wreck while in the military. She had received almost three years of medical care while in service and was still symptomatic. Unfortunately efforts to get bills for this care had been fruitless and as the date for the statute of limitations was upon us thus necessitating the filing of a lawsuit, we were in a bit of a pickle.
The at-fault driver's insurer, Geico, had assigned an experienced adjuster who had reviewed the thousand or so pages of medical records and agreed that the client had endured quite a lot as a result of the crash but proceeded to offer $33,000.00 to settle the case.
The reason, absence of medical bills! There is no way around it, insurers put an inordinate value on medical bills in their claims valuation. They can be unduly quantitative and miss the forest for the trees. The militray client has likely sustained a permanent injury but somehow the absence of large medical bills limited their sense of the claims value.
We see it everyday. Clients can sustain the same injury, with virtually identical symtoms and yet the one with higher medical bills gets paid vastly more.
So the lesson is make sure you keep track of and get copies of all accident related medical bills and provide them to your attorney. You will benefit.
