How Long After a Demand Letter Can I Expect Settlement?

If you are looking for an answer to this question, the bad news is that you have been seriously injured. You wouldn’t be trying to make a claim against another party if you hadn’t suffered an injury bad enough that it was worth your time to hire a lawyer and go through the claim process.

The good news, though, is that someone else is responsible for your injury. This means that you can file a claim against them and seek compensation that could cover your expenses and costs resulting from this injury. It is always good when you don’t have to pay medical bills out of pocket.

The even better news is that you made the right decision and contacted a skilled personal injury lawyer to help you with your case. Now you have reached the point in your case where a demand letter has been sent or is about to be, and you want to know how long it could take to receive a settlement.

The best people to answer this question for you are the personal injury lawyers at Morgan & Morgan. Contact us today to schedule a free case evaluation, where we’ll discuss the details of your situation and explain what you can expect when we send a demand letter on your behalf.

Demand Letters and Personal Injury Cases

If you are injured due to the actions of another party, and you aren’t represented by an attorney, you will follow the traditional claims process, which is fully controlled by the insurance company. This will start with you filing a claim and will continue until it is denied or until you receive compensation.

Typically, this process is extremely complex. The insurance company makes the claims process as complicated as possible because that lets it pay you as little money as it can.

When the process is complicated, you are more likely to make mistakes. You might forget a step or provide the wrong information, and that will allow the insurance company to deny your claim or send you back to the beginning of the process. If the process takes long enough, you will probably drop your claim or accept a small settlement.

It is an effective way to limit how much insurance companies pay to claimants, and it has been used for years. This is why lawyers shortcut the process and don’t let the insurance company have full control.

When you are represented by an attorney, you don’t follow the normal process. Instead of allowing the insurance company to investigate the claim and then make an offer, your personal injury lawyer does the investigation instead.

Then, using the results of that investigation, your attorney will send a demand letter. This letter fully explains your case, describes the severity of your injuries, predicts the expected consequences of those injuries, and provides evidence for all of that information.

Most importantly, after the letter fully describes your situation, it demands a specific dollar amount from the insurance company to compensate you for all expenses (both past and predicted) that are due to the injury. This demand is carefully calculated and takes into account the coverage of the insurance policy.

How Long After a Demand Letter Can I Expect Settlement Offers?

That depends on how the insurance company proceeds after receiving the demand letter. Unfortunately, even with all the supporting evidence your attorney has provided, the insurer can still deny your claim. Thus, the amount of time you should expect to wait for a settlement offer depends on how the insurer responds to the demand letter.

The Insurance Company Accepts the Demand

The best response you can hope for also happens to be the fastest response. If the insurer agrees with the points your attorney made and accepts the demand, you will get paid every dollar you requested.

However, the insurance company isn’t likely to agree immediately. Typically, it will investigate each of your claims and confirm they are true. This may involve consulting with experts or speaking to witnesses.

Regardless of what approach the insurance company takes, it will usually spend a few weeks confirming your claim, at which point, it will respond by accepting your demand. Once the claim is accepted, it will usually take anywhere from two weeks to a month to actually send you the money.

The Insurance Company Counters Your Demand

Unfortunately, when the insurer investigates to confirm the claims made in your demand letter, it doesn’t always come to the same conclusions you did. Often, it will determine that some of your claims are overstated or that the policy doesn’t cover a portion of your claim.

When the insurance company makes this determination, it will respond with a counteroffer. And as you might expect, the counter-offer is always less money than you requested in the demand letter.

If you accept the counteroffer, the only remaining delay is how long it takes the insurer to pay you compensation, which, as previously noted, is often two weeks to a month.

However, that isn’t the only option. You can also counter the counter by providing additional evidence that disproves the points made by the insurer. These back-and-forth counter offers can go on for quite some time, depending on the complexity of your case and the diligence of your attorney.

It will only stop if one side eventually accepts one of the offers, the insurance company denies the claim, or you drop the case. If you accept the original counteroffer, it will usually only take slightly longer to get your money than if the insurer accepted your demand. Negotiation, however, can take weeks, months, or even years.

The Insurance Company Denies Your Claim

The worst-case scenario is one where the insurance company denies your claim outright. This can happen after some negotiation but is most likely to happen when you make the initial claim.

If you are lucky, the denial was due to a procedural error that can be easily corrected. But even if that is the case, you will usually lose a few weeks waiting for a response and then correcting the problem.

However, if you were denied for any other reason, there probably is no option to negotiate, and there may not even be an option to appeal. In that case, your only meaningful option is to file a lawsuit.

While a lawsuit may result in you getting more money than you ever could have received from a settlement, it is the worst option in terms of time. Most lawsuits take at least a year to resolve and may take multiple years for complicated cases, especially if judgments are appealed.

The Insurance Company Doesn’t Respond to Your Demand Letter

This is a frustrating situation because you often won’t even be aware the insurance company isn’t responding for a few weeks. Due to the way bureaucracy works, the insurance company might take weeks or months to respond, even when it is cooperating.

Typically, your attorney will follow up after getting no response for about two to four weeks. And then they might not expect a response to that follow-up for at least a week. Depending on the circumstances, it could be one to two months before you know for certain that the insurance company is intentionally not responding.

Once you know the insurance company is not responding, you should treat the situation like a denial. Unlike a normal denial, though, you probably won’t know why the insurance company is giving you the cold shoulder. That usually makes it more complicated for your personal injury lawyer to move forward with your case.

Thankfully, though, the lack of response and complications only add a few months at most. Compared to the year or more you should expect to wait to get paid after a lawsuit, those extra months don’t meaningfully change the timeframe.