Advice for Car Bodily Injury Victims on Increasing My Net Settlement by Cincinnati lawyer
by
Anthony Dean Castelli on Apr. 25, 2012
Accident & Injury Personal Injury Accident & Injury Car Accident
Summary: Bodily injury victims should be made whole by their personal injury settlement. A personal injury lawyer can do these things to increase the net proceeds the client takes home with them. This article explores how Cincinnati Ohio personal injury lawyer tries to put more money in his clients pocket.
As a Cincinnati bodily injury attorney my goal is to put as much money in my client's pocket as possible. Of course diligently preparing my client's case to maximize the settlement value is the first thing I can do. This is the most important thing any good personal injury lawyer will focus on.
However once a settlemnt is reached there are still several things that I try do to get my client a greater net recovery. Virtually all medical insurance companies that pay medical bills related to a bodily injury caused by the fault of another have clauses in their medical insurance policy that requires to pay them back out of your personally injury settlement.
However I always attempt to negotiate the amount my client pays back to medical insurance down as far as possible.
There are several arguements to use. I always start by asking for their policy so I can examine the language. In a recent case since my client was not made whole by the settlement ( the value of her injury was greater than the liability coverage available) The medical insurance policy did not have the right language to cause them to be paid back in this scenario and they waived their full interest. It was over $50,000.
I was also able to collect medical payments from my client's own policy and got them to waive their subrogation (legal term for pay me back) claim. My client really got a break here as we picked up and additional $88,000.00. So instead of my client going home with less than $20,000. for a serious neck injury as the liability poliicy coverage was only $100,000,
my client went home with about $130,000. This of course does not happen in every case and this particlar situation was something of a rarity.
Finally any bills that are owing after medical insurance and med pay can be attempted to be negotiated down. So assume ther was $1000 bill owed to a hosbital that was uncovered mecause of deductibles. I would seek to get the hospital to take less than $1000 as full payment, thereby leaving more money in my client's pocket.
by Anthony Castelli Attorney
Cincinnati, Ohio
513-621-2345
