After a car accident, the walk to the mailbox can make your stomach turn. Every day, you might find more bills—unwanted reminders of an accident that wasn’t your fault. Like many people, you probably hold off on paying these bills, hoping the settlement from the accident will come through soon. But then the delays start to pile up, and before you know it, debt collectors begin calling. They’re relentless, and their calls can threaten your financial peace and even your credit score. It’s a stressful situation, waiting for a settlement that always seems just out of reach.
Regrettably, some auto accident claims encounter obstacles that prolong the settlement process. Factors that can delay a victim’s compensation after an auto accident include:
Accident Complexity
When an accident happens, things often get chaotic quickly. Drivers might be speeding, ignoring signs, or distracted, and some may even lie about what happened. The situation can be made worse by other factors like more cars on the road, bad weather, or problems with the road itself. Issues inside the car, such as broken signal lights, engine or brake problems, and the mood of the drivers can also make things worse. All these factors make it hard to figure out who is to blame for the accident. This shows how complicated and common these problems are in car accidents.
What Would be Considered a Complex Car Accident?
When an accident involves many factors, it becomes more complex. The fewer factors there are, the simpler the accident tends to be. For example, if an accident happens in a construction zone, that’s one factor that adds complexity. If it also rains during the accident in the construction zone, that makes it even more complicated. Adding more vehicles into the mix, like if four cars crash in that rainy construction zone, increases the complexity further. In contrast, an accident on a clear, dry street involving just two drivers is much less complex.
How Exactly Can a Complex Car Accident Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
Complex car accidents can really slow down the process of settling claims because they require a lot of investigation. This is especially true when many vehicles or serious injuries are involved. There’s a need for detailed analysis of the crash, input from experts, and careful evaluation of the damage, all of which takes extra time. When multiple people and insurance companies are trying to figure out who is at fault, it makes negotiating even harder and sometimes leads to legal battles. Things like bad weather or poor road conditions, as well as issues like dealing with drivers who don’t have insurance, also add to the complications. All these challenges can make the settlement process take much longer, sometimes even needing court cases that can go on for months or years.
Severity of Injuries
When an accident victim suffers severe injuries, determining a fair compensation amount becomes challenging, it also adds to the complexity of the legal claim. In cases of permanent disability, compensation must also cover the victim’s future medical expenses. Establishing a fair settlement for severe injuries can be time-consuming, as insurance companies and the victim’s attorney may disagree on an appropriate offer.
What Types of Severe Injuries Can Delay a Settlement?
Severe injuries can cause significant delays in settling car accident claims because they require thorough medical evaluations and prolonged treatment. Here are some types of injuries that often lead to settlement delays:
- Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI): These can have long-lasting effects that take time to fully assess.
- Spinal Cord Injuries: These may lead to paralysis and require extensive rehabilitation.
- Severe Burns: These need multiple surgeries and have a high risk of complications.
- Multiple Fractures: Complications like infections or improper healing can prolong recovery.
- Amputations: Loss of a limb involves major adjustments and determining costs for prosthetics and lifestyle changes.
- Internal Organ Damage: This can cause long-term health issues that are complex to evaluate.
- Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS): This pain condition is unpredictable, complicating the assessment of its long-term impact.
How Can a Severe Injury Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
Each of these injuries requires detailed medical and financial evaluations to determine the full extent of damages, which can slow down the settlement process.
Length of Medical Care
Serious car accidents often result in extensive treatment, including prolonged hospitalization and multiple surgical procedures. Recovery may take weeks or even months. It is advisable to wait until treatment is complete to assess the full extent and costs of the injuries. Consequently, victims with severe injuries might experience delays before pursuing a personal injury claim.
How can the Length of Medical Care Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
The length of medical care can significantly delay a car accident settlement because it extends the time needed to fully assess the impact of injuries. Settlements usually wait until the injured party reaches “maximum medical improvement” (MMI) to accurately evaluate long-term needs and potential disabilities. Ongoing treatments make it difficult to precisely calculate future medical costs, and changes in the patient’s condition can necessitate further negotiation and adjustments. Moreover, extensive medical documentation and evidence collection is time-consuming, and disputes over treatment costs between insurers can prolong settlement discussions. These factors collectively delay agreement on a settlement amount, ensuring it fairly covers all medical expenses.
Difficulty in Determining Fault
In some car accidents, identifying the responsible party is straightforward, such as when the other driver admits fault or receives a traffic ticket. In these cases, the compensation process may progress quickly. However, if fault is unclear, insurance companies might try to shift blame onto you to offer a smaller settlement.
How Can the Difficulty in Identifying Who is At-Fault Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
Determining who is at fault in a car accident can greatly delay the settlement process due to the need for comprehensive investigations, such as examining the accident scene and analyzing evidence. When multiple parties are involved, the complexity increases as each party may present conflicting accounts, complicating fault determination. Legal principles like comparative negligence, which allows for shared fault, add to the complexity and lengthen the legal assessment process. Negotiations often stall when fault is disputed, leading to extended discussions or even legal proceedings if no agreement is reached. Additionally, insurance companies may intentionally slow down the fault determination to reduce payouts, further delaying the settlement.
Insurance Coverage Limits
Insurance companies may be more inclined to offer higher settlements if their policyholder has low coverage limits, fearing a potential personal injury lawsuit. Conversely, if your injury costs are low compared to the policy limit, the insurance company may not rush to settle, knowing a jury verdict is unlikely to exceed the policy limit if you sue for damages.
How Can the Insurance Coverage Limits Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
Insurance coverage limits can significantly delay a car accident settlement in various ways. If damages exceed the at-fault party’s policy limits, the injured party may need to seek further compensation, leading to additional legal actions and extended negotiations. In cases with multiple victims, limited coverage may need to be divided, causing disputes and delays over how to distribute the funds fairly. Insurers often scrutinize claims closely as they approach policy limits, prolonging the negotiation process to avoid excessive payouts. Furthermore, disputes over policy details and exclusions can complicate understanding what is covered, further delaying the settlement process.
Insurance Company Stalling Tactics
Insurance companies may use various strategies to delay potential settlements for personal injury claims. Since their primary goal is to minimize spending and maximize profits, insurance companies might prolong personal injury cases, hoping the injured party will succumb to pressure and accept a lower offer.
What Stalling Tactics do Auto Insurance Companies use to Delay a Settlement?
Auto insurance companies often use various stalling tactics to delay settlements, which can benefit them during negotiations. Here are some common methods:
- Requesting Excessive Documentation: They might ask for more paperwork than necessary, slowing down the process as you gather the required information.
- Slow Responses: Companies may take their time responding to claims or communications, using busy schedules as an excuse to prolong the process.
- Questioning the Claim: Insurers frequently dispute claims by questioning the severity of injuries or the need for treatments, leading to additional reviews.
- Lowball Offers: They often propose much lower settlements than what the claim is actually worth, hoping claimants will accept out of desperation.
- Changing Adjusters: By frequently changing claims adjusters, each new one might restart the entire evaluation process, causing further delays.
- Claiming Fault: Insurers might suggest that the claimant was partly responsible for the accident to complicate fault determination.
These tactics can exhaust claimants, potentially making them settle for less than they deserve.
Involvement of Medicare or Medicaid
If Medicare or Medicaid partially or entirely covered your medical bills after a car accident, you may need to reimburse them from your personal injury settlement. Reimbursing these entities could reduce your compensation, and negotiating lower payments may delay your ability to receive compensation.
How Exactly Can Medicare or Medicaid Delay a Car Accident Settlement?
Medicare or Medicaid can delay a car accident settlement due to their legal right to be reimbursed for medical expenses they’ve covered related to the accident. This reimbursement process involves notifying these programs about the settlement and determining how much they are owed, which can be time-consuming. Medicare makes conditional payments that must be repaid upon settlement, and resolving these amounts can prolong negotiations. Additionally, Medicare and Medicaid place liens on the settlement, and resolving these liens, especially if there are disputes or errors, adds complexity. Delays are often compounded by slow bureaucratic processes within these government programs, extending the overall timeline for settlement.
Evidence Collection Delays
The evidence you present to the at-fault driver’s insurance company significantly impacts settlement negotiations. Accidents with severe injuries require more evidence, which might not be immediately available. Delays in collecting additional evidence will consequently postpone your compensation.
Defense Lawyer Payment
In personal injury cases, private law firms representing the defendant charge hourly fees, which can be costly. However, if an insurance company has in-house counsel, they won’t pay expensive outside attorney fees, making them less inclined to settle your claim quickly.
Compensation Amount Disagreements
In some instances, a car accident victim’s attorney and the insurance company’s legal department cannot agree on a reasonable compensation amount. When negotiations stall, the victim’s attorney must file a lawsuit against the insurance company to recover compensation for the injuries.
