Car Accident Neck Settlements

Name: Legal Services
Brand: Morgan & Morgan
Rating: 5.0 (55000 reviews)

5 min read time

Neck injuries are a common result of car accidents. When you suddenly stop after traveling at a high speed, your back and neck have to withstand the enormous change in momentum. All too often, this is more than your body can withstand, and you suffer long-term neck injuries as a result.

After sustaining a neck injury in an automobile accident, you will have to deal with a car insurance company to get compensation for that injury. The claims process can be frustrating and filled with red tape. But assuming your claim isn’t denied, eventually, the insurance company should make a settlement offer.

Unfortunately, car accident neck settlements tend to be much lower than they should be. If you find yourself on the receiving end of a lowball offer, you may think that if you don’t take it, you will get nothing. That isn’t true. You can hire an experienced car accident attorney to help you get the money you deserve.

If you have suffered a neck injury in a car accident, you should speak with an attorney as soon as possible. Contact Morgan & Morgan immediately to schedule a free case evaluation and learn more about car accident neck settlements.

Identifying a Neck Injury

If you have just been in a car accident, there’s a chance you won’t even realize that you have a serious neck injury. While some neck injuries are obvious, others may take days, weeks, or months to become apparent. But just because a neck injury isn’t immediately obvious, that doesn’t mean it isn’t serious.

The most obvious sign of a neck injury is paralysis below the neck. This means you have likely suffered a catastrophic neck injury. If you have any paralysis, you should avoid moving and prevent others from moving you unless absolutely necessary. Paralysis will require immediate hospitalization.

The other obvious sign of a neck injury is severe neck pain. If you can feel pain and still move, once again, you should remain still. The wrong movement after a neck injury can aggravate the injury more, resulting in paralysis. In this case, you’re likely still looking at a long recovery in the hospital, possibly due to torn muscles or similar damage.

The tricky neck injuries are those that come with little to no pain. Immediately after a car accident, you will probably feel a rush of adrenaline, which can hide minor pain or minimize significant pain. The best option is to limit your movements until medical professionals have had a chance to give you a thorough examination.

Even if doctors don’t find any damage during an initial examination, you should probably return for a follow-up within a week. Often, after the immediate stress has resolved, your injury will become more apparent.

Signs of a Neck Injury

A doctor is the best person to identify whether you have a neck injury. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t look for signs as well. The following symptoms may be apparent immediately after an accident or later on:

Numbness, usually in extremities like fingers, toes, hands, or feet
The sound of grinding bones when you move your neck
Tingling sensation, potentially anywhere in your body
Cramps or spasms in your neck muscles
Dizziness or loss of balance
Difficulty moving your neck
Pain in or near your neck
Bruising near your neck
Severe headaches

If you identify any of these signs, you should get evaluated by a doctor as soon as possible. Even if your symptoms don’t indicate a serious injury, they could result in long-term disability if not treated early.

How to Deal With the Insurance Company?

At Morgan and Morgan, we understand that insurance companies rarely make fair car accident neck settlements. They have lawyers and doctors working on their side to minimize the value of your injury. To counter this, we work hard to establish the severity of your neck injury to get you the most appropriate settlement possible.

The first step to establishing the severity of your injury is ensuring that you get evaluated by a trustworthy doctor who specializes in neck injuries. Our attorneys are acquainted with the best local doctors and can help you find one who will properly diagnose your injury.

Next, we need to be able to provide evidence of the severity of your injury to the insurance company. You can help with that by carefully storing all medical records and receipts you get from the doctor. The insurance company can’t ignore such direct evidence.

Having proven the severity of your neck injury, we next have to estimate the monetary effect it will have on your life. This is complicated, but our experienced attorneys are adept at making good estimates. The value of your neck injury case will include:

Emotional pain and suffering
Current and future medical costs
Loss of professional opportunities
Current and future wages lost due to injury
Costs for any long-term care and accommodations
Punitive damages if the responsible party was reckless

We can estimate these values both by comparing your case to previous cases we have handled and by talking to experts. Insurance companies will often try to minimize these categories of compensation or ignore them completely. We won’t stop fighting for your compensation until you are paid every penny you deserve.

Even with all of this evidence in hand, we frequently still need to negotiate with the insurance company. Initial car accident neck settlements are typically thousands of dollars less than they should be and may not even get close to covering a lifetime of expenses.

We will never accept a lowball offer, and we are always ready to go to court if necessary.

What Steps to Take After a Car Accident?

As previously noted, if you have any reason to believe you have suffered a neck injury in a car accident, you should try to move as little as possible and get medical attention quickly. The only reason you should move without the assistance of an EMT is if you are physically in danger of additional harm where you are after the accident.

However, this doesn’t necessarily prevent you from doing other important activities. For example, you should be able to exchange information with the other driver without moving. When exchanging information, take pictures of all documents and avoid talking about the accident.

The latter is particularly important because anything you say after an accident could be used as evidence against you by the insurance company. For example, if you say something like “I think I’m okay,” that could be used to show you didn’t get as injured as you claim.

Also, while you shouldn’t move, you should be able to use your phone to contact emergency services. This will get medical attention to the site and alert the police to come as well. You can report the accident to the police once they arrive.

Finally, if there is someone you trust to do so, have them take pictures of the accident scene and any injuries you suffered. That evidence could be essential for your attorney. They should also get the names and contact information of any witnesses to the accident. The more witnesses you have, the stronger your case will be.

There are two more things you need to do, and the order in which you do them is very important. First, contact a car accident attorney at Morgan & Morgan, and schedule a free case evaluation. The sooner you talk to an attorney the better. We can also help you with the next step.

The last thing you need to do is file a claim with your insurance company. The other driver’s insurance company may compensate you, but you should file with your insurance company until you know otherwise. This move will start the process of compensation so that you receive it as quickly as possible.

You should be able to start your claim with a phone call or online. Almost every insurance company has fast processes for starting a claim. Just as you need to be careful what you say to other drivers, you also want to avoid saying too much to the insurance company. Just report the facts.

What Is the Average Payment for Car Accident Neck Settlements?

The average payment depends largely on the nature of your injury. If you have a relatively minor injury that requires physical therapy and keeps you out of work for a short time, you will probably receive a few thousand dollars in compensation.
However, if you suffered a catastrophic injury that paralyzed you for life, you may receive as much as a few million dollars in compensation. Less serious injuries often result in compensation close to $100,000.

How Do Insurance Companies Get Away With Paying Low Car Accident Neck Settlements?

One of the main ways they get away with it is that the average person simply doesn’t know how much their injury is worth. If you don’t hire an experienced attorney to represent you, the insurance company can easily fleece you without you even realizing it.

Additionally, because neck injuries often have long-term consequences, compensation needs to be estimated over years or even decades. Doctors may differ in their estimates of how much impact a neck injury will have on your life. Insurance companies will usually accept the word of whichever doctor gives the lowest estimate.

Can I Sue an Insurance Company if It Won’t Offer a Fair Settlement?

Yes. The insurance company is required to fairly compensate you for the injuries that you suffered. If it tries to undervalue your claim, you have the right to take civil action against the company to get better compensation.

How Long Will It Take Me to Get Money After an Accident?

This depends on whether you receive a settlement from the insurance company. If the insurance company agrees to a fair settlement, you will usually get paid in a few months. You may even get paid in a few weeks if everything goes smoothly.

However, if you are forced to go to trial to collect fair damages, you won’t get money for quite a bit longer. The typical civil trial takes at least a year to arrive at a verdict.