Rear ended, settling early? experienced advice please.

by fam » Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:05 pm
Posts: 4
Joined: 21 Apr 2010

Me, my wife, and my 2 yr old son were rear ended by a progressive insured driver in a truck at 35mph while we were stopped at a light in my 2008 mazda3 hatch(100 percent his fault) I also bumped the car in front of me lightly. I had bought 2 days prior. Wife and son were taken by ambulance to hospital since her neck was burning, son was perfectly fine, wife had a cat scan, nothing wrong. They prescribed her pain meds etc and after the weekend of basically being overly tired and then restless at night (she missed one day of work) then on the monday after the weekend I got checked out by my family dr. She saw my muscles were so tense I couldnt move fully and she wanted me to get PT, but after about a week the pain and soreness faded, now its been 12 days after, my wife is perfectly fine now, Im pretty good overall, all my injuries were flesh.

Progressive offered to pay all my bills (some I havent gotten yet) and she says that all I have to do is send them to her if I get more and she will take care of them, they are fixing my car 11k worth of damage, only paid 136 for it but books for 15-17 so they arent totalling it (should get a DV for the difference in value but thats a seperate issue), and so far my bills add up to 6 for what ive gotten with progressives estimate on the total to be about 8 grand in medical costs, so on top of medical progressive offering 4k after bartering her up from 2250 yesterday. She says they can only pay up to 1k for my 2 yr old son since hes a minor and he was fine, and 1500 each for me and my wife.

Whats your attorney or experienced take on this? Should it be a min for my pain and suffering settlement to equal or better the medical bills? And also, is her promise of send me any bills from that time period (not new treatment) be trusted to be paid after we settle?


Thanks so much everyone.

Total Comments: 8

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:20 pm Post Subject:

Hard to follow the way that was written.

As far as taking care of any additional bills after the claim is settled, this would need to be worded into the release and it's rare that an insurance company would do this.

In order to be paid for your medical loss Progressive is going to require you to sign a release. Almost always this release is going to be for a set amount. After its signed and the payment made, Progressive no longer needs to pay anything. Sometimes they might send out a release stating that they will pay up to $xxx for any additional outstanding medical bills. This is called an open ended release. Again, they are rare. Read the releases before you sign.

Posted: Wed Apr 21, 2010 11:40 pm Post Subject:

sorry im on my notebook and it looks like some things got a little messed up. (mostly where i said 136 i meant to type i only paid 13600 for the car but it is worth 15-17100 on kelly blue book. When I said DV, I mean diminutive value on my car (which
is a concern but thats seperate from my pain and suffering.


I guess Ill have to wait until a few more weeks until all the bills arrived. Ive called the hospitalambulanceradiologists for bills, and the only one not processed was the radiologist (cat scan was billed under hospital). My family dr visit is probably only a couple hundred.

My only surprises should be a fireman bill for the firetruck maybe and a few smaller bills from 3rd party hospital things.

Thanks for the advice on the set amount and open ended amounts on what theyll pay, I should wait until I have everything and a month afterwards should be a good time if their max payable is a few k over what the bills we have as a precaution. THanks again ill take your advice on the bills.

Also, anyone know anything about pain and suffering for 8kish on med bills and 10k car damage with 3 people in the car?

The top secret thing would be to peak at the progressive screen to see what their max pay on this is that shes approved to give (although I doubt ill bargain anything near that) but I do think the 4k offer would allow her coworkers to high 5 her as they laugh when we leave?

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 12:05 am Post Subject:

Difficult to understand what the meds are for everyone. If I understand correctly, all the the meds were about $8k with your son's bills being very minor.

Settlement is based on a lot of information but mainly the type of injury, medical treatment and location. Age to a minor degree. In this case it appears most of the med treatment was diagnostic in nature. Not much on top of the medical bills would be paid toward this. But you were sore for several days... I understand that. I'd say based on this info, $4k on top of $8k is pretty good. But yes, make sure all of the bills are considered.

As far as looking at the top dollar the adjuster is allowed... it's a good thought but I'll tell you... the adjuster usually comes up with a high and low amount and sometimes they need approval on this. Not usually, unless it's way off. When I set limits I'm petty conservative. But I'll say this... there was little point in capping myself with a low high amount. I might as well set an amount much higher then I'd ever settle for and when I come in lower then that... I look pretty good. Of course I'd not put an upper limit of $100k on a $10k claim but you see what I mean. I'd also be up front with people. I'd certainly not tell them the max I'd settle for but on minor claims I'd pretty much offer what I felt was fair. If the person came back at double that amount, I'd simply explain I could move off my number but not double it. If I offered something like $2000, I might put an extra $500 or $700 on top of that in order to settle. To be honest, what is an extra $500 to close the claim. That is the adjusters job... spend a _reasonable_ amount to close the claim.

Going from $2250 to $4000 is a pretty big jump. Either the adjuster was low-balling (I don't think this was the case) or I'm betting it went back and forth for awhile to get her to come up to this amount. Perhaps you mentioned more bills so she increased her amount.

I don't see this as a low settlement amount. Seems reasonable on both ends to me.

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 02:20 am Post Subject:

Be content that you, your wife, and your child have no lasting injuries. If someone lost an arm or a leg, then maybe you'd have something to go after.

They are paying your doctor/hospital bills, repairing your car, your wife missed a day of work, you apparently did not, your child . . . well. I think Progressive is being very fair to you. $4000 for a lost day of work and some minor aggravation is very generous on top of $20,000 of other losses.

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 02:55 am Post Subject:

I guess I over summarized and need to expand a little more.

I did miss a day of work for the next business day (monday). Accident happened on a friday right after work. It pretty much destroyed our weekend and a few days after that as well. We were abnormally tired and them restless at night while being extremely sore. Knowing my kid and wife were ok was the main thing to me, thats why I didnt get treatment because I had to keep track of both of them in both rooms at the hospital. My wifes neck was burning so she got a cat scan. I never expected to be mentally affected by it but oddly I am, im overly nervous of cars behind me as well as still uncomfortable in my back with occasionally sharp muscle pains especially when sitting at my job.
On to my car

2 days prior to the accident, I had researched the net to find my perfect car and bought it over an hour away, theres no identical car to that under 300 miles away, it was a one owner car, still smelled new, now the rear end is destroyed, frame on the rear is mangled ( i used to do frame repair) and the estimate so far is over 10k and I know from experience this car will creek, sitting in a shop without the rear end on the car guarantees it will never smell new again. The diminutive value they are only offering 1k on when i know if I were to sell it I would lose 2500 easily since it has a major frame repair on the carfax record.



On to the medical, I was ok with 4, seemed fair. Then the wife talks to her friends, one who is a lawyer and does this kind of work. She convinced her that pain and suffering should at minimum, be as much as the medical bills (8k) and we both know of examples of single people uninjured in rear end accidents that received 7500ish for pain and suffering. The lawyer said if we had settled for 4 the claims rep for progressive would be getting high 5's and laughing about how well they did.

My wife's friend is a decent lawyer and my wife is now putting the pressure on me to "make it fair", and your opinions make sense to me, thank you (im going to be content especially if my diminutive value gets worked out to be more fair from what I know about the resale of wrecked cars). Maybe some of this extra explanation gives you some more insight on why I felt the need to ask you guys to compare sides as Im stuck in the middle.

I dont want to get a lawyer, Im not here to get rich. Partially i was scared to get stuck with future medical bills and I wanted your idea on fair or optimistic pain and suffering.

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 03:58 am Post Subject:

She convinced her that pain and suffering should at minimum, be as much as the medical bills (8k) and we both know of examples of single people uninjured in rear end accidents that received 7500ish for pain and suffering.

I won't go into how wrong I think this attorney is but I will put it this way.... even if the settlement was for $8,000 on top of the meds, this would only yield you an extra $2700. If my math is correct, anything less then $7000 above the meds means you've lost money by using an attorney. This only gives you $1000 of wiggle room. According to your statement, this attorney has told you that the minimum should be $8000 on top of the meds. Is this attorney willing to put her money where her mouth is and guarantee you at least $4000 in top of your meds, waiving part of her fee if needed? This sounds fair me... as people who are uninjured get this much, at least... right? Also keep in mind that this is how the attorney makes a living... obtaining injured clients. How willing is she to back up her statement? If nothing else her response would put this into perspective.

Do I think you might get more using an attorney... perhaps. But in my professional opinion, I think the $4000 _might_ increase slightly but I really doubt its going to go above $7000.

I've heard the "double" and "triple" the meds argument time and time again. I can tell you that this applies to people who have lasting injuries. With what you describe, I really don't think the adjuster is going to go to $7000 above the meds.

Posted: Thu Apr 22, 2010 04:23 am Post Subject:

Im not disagreeing with your logic at all. Id trade it all to have never have happened. Ill update when its over with the results which im guessing will not have changed.

thanks.

Posted: Sat Nov 10, 2012 02:04 am Post Subject: interesting

this is very interesting to me as my ex-husband and 11 yr old son had an accident where they had been rear ended. The person who hit them has already admitted fault no worries there. today i recieved a call from progressive informing me that my son would have a sepreate claim for his injuries which were a mild concusion and headaches that do not seem to go away. he is now on medication for it. all his meds will be coverd as well as doc bills and i am seeking a chiropractor to insure no head neck or spinal injury that will hang around for rest of his life. once this is done i was told we can discuss settlement and that any future bills due to this acciedent will be covered as well. I am very interested to see how this turns out as i never heard of a minor child having their own case in a wreck.

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