Injury Claims -How Long Do They Take?

Injury claims can be stressful. To begin with, there is the stress of the accident itself. Then, there is the galling fact that, through no fault of your own, someone else injured you.

It doesn’t matter whether you suffered the injury in a car accident, or in a slip and fall, or through medical malpractice, or by exposure to toxic substances such as asbestos, or whether a dog bit you.

Any way you slice it, you endured great pain and suffering. You had to go through many months of medical treatment. You may have medical bills that insurance does not cover. In severe cases, you may have permanent injuries that will never heal. Yes, injury claims are stressful.

Accordingly, you do the right thing and, immediately after the accident, you hire an experienced personal injury lawyer. But now you want to know exactly how long does it take for injury claims to settle.

INJURY CLAIMS TAKE 1 TO 4 YEARS TO RESOLVE – HERE’S WHY:

The answer is that the great majority of injury claims resolve within one to four years from the date of the accident.

Why do injury claims take so seemingly long to resolve? The answer is simple. Your personal injury attorney will not know exactly how much your case is worth until after your injuries heal. In many cases, it can take well over a year before the injuries heal. Or, in the case of permanent injuries, heal as well as they are going to.

Therefore, personal injury lawyers generally do not attempt to begin to settle injury claims until about a year or so has passed since the accident. They wait until all injuries fully heal to make sure that they know how severe any disability will be. This is how a good personal injury lawyer ensures that his client receives full compensation for all injuries.

Of course, if your injuries heal more rapidly, your personal injury attorney will start the settlement process sooner.

Typically, personal injury attorneys first try to settle injury claims out of court. That is, through negotiations, and without filing a lawsuit. However, sometimes the other side will not make a fair settlement offer.

If that happens, your personal injury lawyer must go to court and file a lawsuit. Otherwise, you will not receive adequate monetary compensation for your injuries.

I will continue this post next time, and describe the personal injury lawsuit process.