Should I Accept the Accident Settlement or go to Court?
You are the victim of an accident: should you accept the compensation offered or go to court?
This doubt always arises at some point during your claim to an insurance company for the damages suffered.
As the injured party you have the right to decide, but….
How do I know if the compensation is correct or not?
Is there a way to know when it is best for me to go to trial?
When to accept the company’s offer and when not to accept it?
What can happen if I decide to go to trial?
These doubts are just an example of what you may think when you are a victim and claim damages.
In this post we explain when and why you should decide whether to accept the offer made to you or, on the contrary, you should defend your rights in court .
Remember that you should never make this decision on your own without first consulting with lawyers specializing in traffic accidents who can help you make the best decision for your interests.
What you should know before accepting compensation or deciding to go to trial.
If you find yourself in this dilemma, it is because it has become clear that you are not responsible for the accident and you have the right to claim compensation.
You’ve gotten past that “tricky” part of your claim where you may run into the classic “who’s to blame” problem.
No insurance company will make you a motivated payment offer if it is not clear about its obligation to compensate you.
And for you to be offered compensation, it must be very clear that the accident was NOT your sole fault.
From here, the second part of the claim process begins: obtaining the maximum compensation that you are entitled to for the damage suffered.
It is fair and the law says so; the compensation must “ compensate” the victim for all damages and losses.
This is the theory.
Because in practice things are not so simple.
We put you in the situation:
➡️As a victim, you most likely have no information on how to act.
➡️You also don’t know how to apply the Traffic Scale to calculate your compensation for the traffic accident you suffered.
➡️Of course, you have no idea how your damages are valued .
In this scenario, it is virtually impossible for you to decide on your own whether to accept compensation or go to trial.
If you add to this the fact that you don’t know how insurance companies deal with victims, the result is clear: there is a good chance that your claim will not turn out as you expected.
The role of insurance companies and how they respond to your claim
Many victims are unaware of how insurance companies operate.
In many cases they rely on:
“If I pay for insurance, now that I have had an accident they will help me…”
“No one better than my company to tell me what I should do…”
Thinking like this is a big Mistake.
You may find it hard to believe that insurance companies are NOT on your side when you have an accident.
They never are, whether you are the victim or the culprit.
We do not dispute that insurance companies must exist and play an important role in dealing with risks and accidents.
But when it comes to traffic accidents, no insurance company will help you.
You’re not going to have any information.
They are not going to explain to you what this whole claiming your damages thing is about.
Not what belongs to you either.
And much less will they offer you fair compensation for the damages you have suffered.
The explanation is simple: insurance companies are businesses, and their goal is to earn as much as possible and lose as little as possible.
You are on the “losing” side, because compensating you means paying you money, and no insurance company is compensated for paying you.
So don’t expect them to put themselves in your shoes.
This translates into two key points that you should keep in mind before deciding whether to accept compensation or go to trial:
✔Whenever possible, insurance companies will try to prevent you from consulting a private lawyer, to prevent you from having information.
✔In 99% of cases, the possible payment offer you are given will NOT correspond to what you should really be paid.
From here you have two options:
- Go your own way, make your own claims and settle for what they offer you (which will always be less than what you are entitled to).
- Outsource your claim and seek specialized legal help to guide you , provide you with information, and help you decide whether to accept the payment offer or file a claim in court.
And another important thing:
In terms of civil liability arising from traffic accidents, not everything is white nor is everything black.
We explain it to you.
Phases of your compensation claim
From the moment you have an accident with injuries and damages, the process to claim your compensation begins.
There are several phases in this process and each has its consequences:
➡️You make a claim and the insurer does NOT want to pay you because they consider you guilty : if you are not satisfied, you have to go to court.
➡️You file a claim and the company makes you a payment offer: you can accept it or discuss it if it does not correspond to the actual damages you have suffered (which is usual).
➡️You negotiate and they may or may not raise the offer : if they don’t raise it, you can go to court to demand that they pay you what really corresponds to your damages.
➡️They argue about guilt and damages: you have to go to court directly.
This is the generality.
From here other scenarios may occur.
In all of them you will need legal help.
It is the only way to face an insurance company on equal terms.
Accepting compensation: in which cases and what you should take into account
Let’s assume that you are already at the stage where your private lawyer makes the payment request to the insurance company and the latter responds with the so-called “motivated offer of compensation.”
If you receive that payment offer you will not understand anything at all:
➡️ You don’t know what you’re really getting paid.
➡️Nor how they have calculated your compensation.
➡️You don’t know if the offer is correctly or incorrectly calculated .
➡️You don’t know how to check it either because you don’t understand anything about the Traffic Scale.
➡️As if that were not enough, you are unaware of the concepts to which you are entitled.
You can find out if you’ve been gossiping on the internet that you’re entitled to a few days and some after-effects.
You may have even used one of those compensation calculators floating around.
But don’t fool yourself: you have no idea whether that offer is right or wrong .
Now you ask yourself:
How am I going to accept the compensation they are offering me if I don’t know what I am entitled to?
And here’s the problem.
Our recommendation is that you NEVER accept the compensation offered by the company without making sure that it is correct (we insist: it almost never is).
What should you consider before accepting compensation from the company?
✔First, it may be incomplete (this means that you are entitled to more than what you are offered).
✔Second, the greater the damage, the more difficult it is to assess it and the easier it is for the insurer to leave items behind.
This is especially true when you are claiming compensation for serious injuries , where there are many factors to claim.
The situation becomes more complicated with serious injuries , where for an insurer NOT including certain concepts means saving thousands of euros , while for the victim it means losing a lot of money that is owed to them.
So… in which cases should I accept compensation?
This is very simple: you must accept when your lawyer confirms that the amount offered to you is fair and covers all the concepts that you are entitled to claim.
And we say “when your lawyer” because you will have already realized what happens if you handle the accident on your own.
NOTE, you are free to do so and accept the offer they make you if you feel like it, if you want it or if you don’t care what they pay you.
You can also decide to claim through your insurance company, but then your company and the other company will apply the Agreements they have between them and you will receive a lower compensation than what they should pay you.
By this we mean that there are a thousand ways to process a claim to the company for a traffic accident.
But not all of them manage to get you the compensation that they really owe you.
Conclusion: If you have outside legal help and your lawyer confirms that the compensation is correct, go ahead.
Otherwise, you move on to the next phase: deciding whether to continue filing a claim to defend your interests.
Legal process to decide whether to accept compensation or go to trial
Payment cannot be requested from the insurer until you have reached the so-called “injury stabilization”, that is, you have been given medical discharge.
Once your damages can be assessed from an economic point of view, you can file a claim against the company.
When the insurance company on duty receives the claim, it can do two things:
- Send a motivated payment offer , with the requirements established by law, and breaking down each amount offered to you one by one.
- Sending a “reasoned response ” when they do not want to assume responsibility by refusing to offer you compensation.
In this case we focus on the first option, that is, when they send you the compensation offer and you have to evaluate it to determine whether it is fair or not.
We have already explained why they tend to be lower: the less a company pays in compensation, the more its profit and loss account improves.
To evaluate the offer, you need your lawyer to help you decide the next step: whether to accept or not what is being offered.
If the offer is not correct (that is, almost always), before entering into legal proceedings there is an intermediate phase: trying to negotiate to increase the amount offered.
Because?
Because this way you can avoid getting into legal proceedings , which will cost you more and take more time.
We cannot stress enough: a good lawyer can get the insurance company to increase its offer and you can receive your compensation without having to go to court.
The negotiation phase, key to deciding
This is the intermediate phase between the company’s offer of compensation and your decision to go to court.
Friendly negotiation often works.
An insurer may not want to get involved in a lawsuit if it has a high probability of losing.
That’s why they often prefer to raise the initial offer.
The success of the negotiation depends on the agent or lawyer with whom you have to negotiate, the amount discussed, which company it is (some facilitate negotiation more than others), and a series of other factors, in addition to the expertise of your lawyer .
From here two things can happen:
➡️The negotiation works, they raise the offer , your lawyer evaluates it, and if it is correct and fair, he will recommend that you accept the compensation .
➡️The company does not want to negotiate or the increase is insufficient , in which case it is time to consider going to court .
BE CAREFUL because as lawyers we will always give you our opinion based on our legal knowledge, trial experience, and chances of success.
But the last word will always be yours:
- If you decide to accept the final offer , that’s it.
- If you decide to go to trial , you do so to defend your right to be paid in full for your damages.
This is the process when you do not accept the compensation and decide to go to trial
As accident lawyers for almost 25 years, our recommendation is always to try to avoid legal proceedings whenever possible.
But as you may have noticed, this is not always possible.
You can go to trial for two main reasons:
- The company refuses to compensate you (usually disputes over fault).
- You do not accept the compensation because it is not what you should be paid (discussion about injuries and damages).
To get to this point, it is assumed that you have had legal help, that you are receiving advice, and that the time has come to take legal action.
When you have had an accident, your compensation may include material damage, personal injury and/or financial loss (loss of earnings and consequential damages).
The insurance company may have made you a good offer for injuries, but may not want to pay you, for example, financial losses.
In other words, the discrepancy may be in part or all of the compensation offer , and for that reason it is decided to go to trial.
It is obvious that in judicial proceedings the assistance of a lawyer and attorney is mandatory by law.
However, these processes also require prior study work and a strategy focused on obtaining the maximum compensation to which you are entitled.
The procedure begins with a claim , along with which you must provide all the documents, reports, invoices and supporting documents that prove what you are asking for and why you are asking for it.
Among these documents, the medical report stands out , issued by an expert in assessing bodily injury, who will defend the extent of your injuries against the company (which also has its own expert).
Remember that at any time from the filing of the claim until the day of trial it is possible to reach an agreement with the insurer.
Everything will depend, to a large extent, on the strategy and negotiating ability of your lawyer.
Is it worth it for me to go to trial?
If you ask us this question we would answer with a big “it depends”.
It is not always worth going to court .
Imagine that the difference between the offer made by the insurance company and what we estimate they should pay you is 1,500 euros, and you are going to spend more or less the same amount on the lawsuit between the lawyer, solicitor and expert.
Well, it’s obvious that it’s not worth it for you .
This is how we are going to explain it to you, although we insist, you are always the one who decides.
It is another thing when you have after-effects from the traffic accident .
The consequences are assessed in the Traffic Scale by type of consequence, the points each one is worth and your age at the time of the accident.
Companies always undervalue consequences (sometimes they don’t even pay for them).
If the insurer offers you 1 point of sequel in its payment offer, but we estimate that they should pay you 3 points, the economic difference is about 1,500-1,600 euros on average.
To do?
Well, you will have to assess whether the rest of the offer is correct and determine whether it is worth it or not in this case to demand or accept the offer.
It would be another thing if you had several after-effects from the accident and the company only assessed one of them (or none), because in this case it will always be worth it for you to go to court.
Another example to consider is when you claim compensation for cervical sprain , cervicalgia or any other spinal injury.
Many of these cases end up in court because insurance companies do not recognize minor neck and back injuries.
Especially when the material damage is scarce or of little importance.
But when they admit their liability, you can be sure that they will make you a minimum offer for injuries , without taking into account the reality of your damages, because they use statistical criteria.
Here it is more than likely that we will recommend that you go to trial.
Finally, there are cases of serious injuries , such as spinal cord injuries, paraplegia or amputation.
These claims are very delicate because there are many concepts and factors to be assessed , especially in the area of compensation for after-effects in serious accidents .
Insurers often make insufficient payment offers here : either they underestimate the situation or they do not take into account the true reality of these victims and their needs, not only present but also future.
That is why in the vast majority of these cases it is necessary to resort to legal proceedings.
Do you have any doubts or questions?
Remember:
➯ There is no fixed criterion for deciding whether to accept compensation or go to trial.
➯All the circumstances of each particular accident must be assessed , the pros and cons of each option, always taking into account the defense of the victim’s interests.
➯To decide between one option or another, you always need legal help , because insurance companies have knowledge and information that you do not have.
➯As a victim of a traffic accident, the free legal aid that you can use allows you to have a private lawyer whose fees may be free in whole or in part , thanks to your legal defense coverage.
