It's not rocket science. But accurately understanding the value of your Maryland car or truck accident claim is more complicated than you might anticipate. Also the gross settlement amount is not as important to the injured victim as what they net.
But, isn't the net purely a function of the gross? No, not necessarily. So lets take a crack at the variables that come in to play in case valuation and see if we can provide some useful information.
The Nature of the Injury is the most important consideration in case valuing. Crashes that break bones, herniate discs and necessitate surgery are simply of greater settlement value than ones that result in soft tissue injuries. Obviously accidents that result in paraplegia, quadraplegia, loss of limb function and fatalities are in a whole different group of case values above broken bones and herniated discs.
Numbers matter.. After one handles a few thousand such cases, it becomes obvious that crash victims who terminate their medical treatment prematurely or hurry to settle before they are well, get less money. You can have a soft tissue back or neck injury that takes months to go away and if your healthcare provider feels you need therapy judges, jurors and even insurance adjusters will generally award you its cost and also pain and suffering for that time period. Which is to say as long as you are undergoing medically necesssary treatment Maryland District Court judges will award you pain and suffering damages while you are under treatment and not after you are done unless there is evidence of a permanent injury.
Crash location matters. Which is to say cases have greater values in suburban and urban locations than in rural areas. One can have virtually identical accidents one in Prince George's County and one in Worcester County and every insurance company will offer more in Prince Georges. This is a function in large measure of the cost of living varying considerably in different places but is highly important.
Crash severity matters. Graphic pictures of vehicle damage make insurance adjusters willing to pay more for injuries identical to those suffered in less vehicle damaging accidents. Theoretically this same rule applies to judges and jurors alike on the assumption that vehicle damage equals bodily injury.
Permanent injury matters. If there is a medically justifiable claim of permanent injury it can dramatically increase the value of a claim.
Amount of insurance matters. It ultimately doesn't matter if the insurance is that of the at fault driver or the uninsured coverage of the victim, the highest amount is what matters. We see many crashes with bad injuries and large numbers. Sometimes the at-fault driver has substantial liability coverage which is helpful but truthfully it is often easier to obtain a prompt and fair settlement where the at-fault driver has limited insurance and the victim has higher uninsured motorist limits.
The process involves inducing the at-fault driver's liability insurer to pony up their limited coverage and then the victim's unisured coverage is triggered. For more on this go to: https://www.maryland-law.com/blog/maryland-uninsured-motorist-accident-cases.cfm
