Accident Injury Settlements in Arizona
Soon after you recover from the shock of an accident, the first thing you should think about is, “how do I go about settling with the insurance company without being taken advantage of.”
You should consider settlement as two separate transactions. One for your property damage and the second for your injury.
Settling property damage claims is relatively straight forward. Your vehicle needs to be repaired or replaced and the cost of each can be determined by simply contacting repair shops and car lots to obtain estimates for repair or replacement costs for vehicles that are totaled.
Some property damage issues are in fact more complicated, such as the value of custom vehicles or the diminished value of damaged vehicle upon sale. These issues require special knowledge and negotiation.
The area requiring the attention of an attorney with investigation and negotiation expertise is that of a bodily injury claims attorney.
The value of these claims are mainly subjective necessitating knowledge of the insurance company tactics as well as local values of similar injuries.
For example, the value of an injury claim in Arizona is different than the value of an injury claim in California. The value of these claims are based, in part, on the amount juries award for similar injuries in local courts.
The likelihood of receiving the maximum value for an injury claim is substantially enhanced by a speedy investigation and an experienced negotiator.
I receive a lot of questions from people who have recently been involved in traffic accidents, and my first recommendation is always to "retain an attorney" if you have been injured.
A good attorney will know what types of orders to file, what questions (if any) to answer for the insurer, and what types of additional experts to retain for the initial investigation and memorialization of the accident.
All too often, people wait too long to speak with an attorney. And when they finally do, the evidence necessary for litigating their claim is long gone.