If you just got involved in a car crash and by bad luck, your child got injured, you may wonder how much is the Average settlement for a child in a car accident claim. Will your car insurance settle your claim quickly? What should you do to force your insurance company to settle your claim quickly? Under what circumstances could your claim be denied by your car insurance company? Are child claim settlements higher than adults?
For a quick answer, there is no specific amount as an average settlement for a child who got involved in a car accident. Your attorney will evaluate your case and professionally determine how much your injured child is entitled.
However, claim settlements differ depending on location, severity, and other accident-related health problems this article examines further.
Well, this article answers several questions our website visitors have been asking on this space. If you have any questions about car accident claims and settlement, or how to quickly get a payout from the insurance company, go through the contents of this article and jump to sections of your interest.
Page Contents
Which car insurance company has the highest claim settlement?
The answer here depends on so many factors like your country of origin, your state, preferences, and others.
I guess everybody has different tastes and preferences but according to U.S.news, USAA followed by State Farm has the highest customer rating. These insurance companies are rated highly just because these companies offer the highest claim settlements.
What is claim settlement ratio in car insurance?
Not all insurance companies exhibit the same performance excellencies. whereas it is not uncommon to find people swearing by their insurance, I have seen many people talk ill about their past insurance companies while others have nothing to say other than good experiences. We can not say a certain insurance company is the best unless its customer ratings are higher.
Some of the qualities of good insurance companies include:
- Honesty
- Attentive customer service
- Community involvement &
- Vast industry expertise and knowledge
Many people rate insurance companies based on the following factors:
- Number of a claim processed in a certain period
- How fast claims are settled
- Ease with which claims are settled out of courts.
- Claim settlement ratio and others.
The claim settlement ratio is the number of settled claims out of the total number of files processed. For instance, if the insurance company receives 200 claim files and only 50 claims are settled, then the claim ratio = 50/200 = 0.25 (25%).
The best insurance claim ratio is a number near 1. This implies that most of the claims received by the company are settled. If you are looking for a better insurance company based on settlement ratio, go with any company whose claims ratio is above 50% or a ratio of above 0.5.
What to do if Not happy with car insurance settlement?
If you chose to settle your claim without an attorney, chances are that you may not love your first or subsequent settlement offers. The truth is that dealing with an insurance company is never easy. Insurance companies only aim at maximizing profits and therefore to them, customer care and satisfaction are just secondary.
Whereas clients aim to squeeze as much settlement payout from their insurance companies, the companies on the other hand want to offer the lowest possible settlement to their customers. This is the reason why negotiating for a higher payout is never easy. Though you can successfully negotiate and have your claim settled, hiring an attorney could help you get a reasonably higher settlement.
According to my independent research, your settlement will be 4 times high if you hire an attorney to go after your car accident claim compared to when you hired no lawyer.
Do the following if you are not happy with your car accident insurance claim:
- Talk it over with your claims adjuster. Submit new evidence to support your figures, do some research and see if your claims adjuster changes their mind.
- Let your insurance provider know you are not happy with their offer. Speak with the insurance claims head office or contact the company’s consumer complaints department.
- Some insurance policies state clearly possible options in case a customer is not happy with the claim settlement. Check if there is an option of trying arbitration or appraisal services offered by the company.
- Every insurance company in the USA or any other country is controlled. If you are living in the USA, contact your state’s insurance department in case your insurance offers you a not-fair claim settlement. Compile a good summary of your complaints and let the controller know.
- Well if the claim settlement is less, consider mediation or arbitration services. Your company could suggest options for you. You have a right to accept their suggested arbitration services or not.
- Consult an attorney. Though some people say this should be your last resort, I recommend you think about this as early as possible. Speaking to an attorney does not mean automatically filing lawsuits. People who were wise enough and had their attorneys negotiate on their behalf usually ended up with the highest payout.
Who pays for car accident settlement?
Well, who pays for car insurance settlement differs from state to state, and also depends on the laws of the land. Who pays for the accident settlement also depends on who is at fault for the accident or not. It is best to contact an attorney or someone well-informed otherwise you could end up messing up.
Who pays for car accident settlement depends on the following situations:
- If you are living in a no-fault state like Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and others, your insurance company pays out the claim without investigating if their customer was at-fault for the accident or not. Such no-fault states require every driver to purchase personal injury protection (PIP). Every driver involved in a car accident files claims against this policy. You won’t go after the at-fault driver unless your own coverage is depleted.
- There are states in the USA where the at-fault driver, himself, or the insurance company representing him pays settlements. If driver A is involved in an accident where driver B is at fault, B pays the settlement from his pockets or from his liability insurance coverage.
- In some states, both drivers A & B pays. if driver B is 75% at-fault while driver A is only 25% at-fault, both pay a settlement fee that is equivalent to how much each driver is responsible for the accident.
- There are instances where only in accidents where the driver with 100% at fault pays. If driver A is 75% while driver B is only 25%, no one gets compensated. A driver is compensated only when he is 0% at fault for the car accident.
Drivers who purchased car insurance coverage have payments covered by their insurance companies, whereas those without insurance coverage pay directly from their pockets. I need to remind you that as I have always said in previous articles, your insurance company will not pay a settlement that exceeds the limit of your insurance policy.
If you purchased a liability policy of $30,000, your insurance company will only pay a figure that is either equal to or below $30,000 for an accident you caused. To avoid scenarios where your insurance coverage is insufficient to cover all damages you are at fault for, I recommend you buy full insurance coverage or buy higher insurance limits than what is mandated by your state.
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What is the average time for a car accident settlement?
It’s not so simple task to estimate the average time for a car accident settlement because car accidents differ from each other and also insurance companies carry different terms and conditions.
According to my insurance broker, the average time for car accident settlement is anywhere between 8-17 months but of course, there are differences between settlements for major and minor car accidents.
From my own experiences, some of the reasons insurance companies will delay settling your claim are:
- They want to make you lose hope and maybe give up.
- You are playing mind games to make you accept their lower offer.
- The company is delaying your payout just to make interest (profit) on your money.
- Want you to give up making additional claims.
Insurance companies know cases where they can not win in courts of law. If you need a quick settlement payout, just hire an attorney to go after them even if you intend not to go to trials.
Most law firms work on contingency plans whereby you pay nothing till you win the case and received your settlement. You lose nothing by hiring a lawyer to squeeze the maximum damages from the insurance company.
What is the auto accident settlement formula?
I do not know how many times I have talked about how tough it is to deal with insurance companies. Claim adjusters are highly skilled and well trained on how to cheat their customers by offering them the lowest possible offer.
If you asked any attorney, he/she would tell you never to accept the first offer. It will be very foolish of you if you accepted the first or second settlement offer because there is still much more room for negotiations.
Yes, claim adjusters use a special formula to compute a settlement you are entitled to but then choose an amount that is very low well knowing you could force more negotiations.
The auto accident settlement formula used by insurance companies is as follows:
Settlement amount = Your special damages x a number reflecting your general damages + wages lost
Special damages are losses caused by the at-fault driver which can be assigned a monetary value. Car accident special damages include:
- Property damages
- Lost wages and
- Medical expenses
Once your claims adjuster has totaled up special accident damages, he/she will multiply the special damages total with a figure (weight) that represents the seriousness of the car accident and injuries.
Car accident general damages are losses due to the at-fault driver whose monetary value can not be easily estimated. Examples of general damages include:
- Stress and depression.
- Lost of fun and enjoyment
- Damaged relationships.
The multiplier (weight) that represents how serious the accident and injuries are is a number between 1 to 5. The higher the number, the more the severity of the accident. For instance, if there were brain damage and fractures, they could assign it a 4 or 5. The adjuster could assign a 1 or 1.5 for minor injuries.
Next, the adjuster adds your lost wages to the equation. For instance, if the accident victim lost a month’s wages, then that amount of money will also be added in to come up with a fair settlement.
So here is an example of how claim settlement is calculated:
Assume your special damages = $25,000
Severity of accident (property & injuries) rating = 2
Lost a 3 months wages = $4500
Claim settlement = ($25,000 x 2) + $4,500 = $54,500
What are the steps of a car accident settlement?
Steps for claim settlement differ case by case because road traffic accidents differ in many ways. However, what you should do immediately after an accident follows the same principles for almost every car accident.
If you just had a car accident, do not hesitate to do the following:
- Safety is key. Make sure everyone who is involved in the accident is safe and avoid additional injuries. If there are injuries, do not move your car, call 911, or ambulance services, and inform traffic officers immediately.
- If you can, take pictures of the accident scene, your car, the other car, pictures of the surrounding areas in relation to the accident scene, and pictures showing the extent of the car damage.
- Do not leave the scene unless you exchanged personal information with the other driver. Get information like names, addresses, Telphone numbers, insurance policy numbers, etc,
- If you are injured, accept to go to the hospital in the ambulance.
- Inform your insurance company about the accident. You may need to upload accident pictures on your car insurance App to the kick-start claim process.
- Leave the scene with a copy of the police car accident report or get the details of the police officer who compiled the report.
- You may also need to speak to your attorney.
- As I have always said, do not accept fault for the accident right on the scene. Let authorities declare you the fault driver.
- While at the scene, do not make statements like ‘ I am fine, ‘sorry I am at fault’ etc,
- Get statements from witnesses or bystanders. Ask them to narrate what they saw, and by their permission put those statements on record.
By collecting all that information, you will have sufficient evidence to support your claim settlement from your or the other driver’s insurance company.
The claim adjuster usually reviews all the evidence presented and does independent investigations toward your claim settlement. Depending on the findings, your car accident claim could be accepted or denied with good reasons well explained to you.
The insurance claims adjuster investigates your claim by looking at the following pieces of evidence:
- Photos of the car accident scene, your car, and the other party’s car.
- Car accident police report.
- Car accident witness statements
- The other driver’s testimonies
- Your medical records
- Car accident reconstruction expert
- The area where you had the accident. Engineers could be called upon to offer expert advice.
Your claim usually is settled very fast but others drag on for a long time. You may consider going to court if the insurance company denies you a settlement or if the offer in the settlement is not what you expect based on your total losses.
Dealing with the at-fault driver’s insurance company is not an easy process. Sometimes you may need to claim through your own insurance company if the other driver has no or inadequate insurance coverage for all damages.
Average settlement for a child in a car accident
Just like a settlement for an adult in a car accident, there is no specific amount of settlement you should expect if a child is injured in a car wreck. Your attorney will review case by case and be able to come up with the fair cost of all damages.
In every car accident lawsuit, you will need to prove beyond doubt that the defendant breached a duty and this negligence caused your injuries. This is the reason you should hire an experienced car accident attorney otherwise you could end up with the lowest amount of settlement.
According to this site, around 300,000 to 500,000 personal injuries are filed each year in the United States. According to the same source, just 5% of these cases go to trial. It is also estimated that at least 52% of the registered personal injury cases are due to car accidents.
What to expect from a car accident settlement?
For the same reasons, there is no ‘average car crash’, determining the average car accident settlement is hard. Finding 2 car accidents with exact damages or injuries is not a possible thing.
From my simple research and attorney consultations, if you had a car accident, you should expect somewhere between a few thousand dollars up to $1,000,000 as your car accident settlement damages. The wide range is because car accidents vary from each other and also negotiation skills of the claimant or attorneys are not the same.
What you should also expect from any car accident settlement is that the first offer from your insurance company will a very low amount, quite different from what settlement you expected. Insurance claim adjusters are trained to offer you the lowest settlement possible. They just want to kill your hopes at the earliest contact, a reason hiring an attorney becomes the best option.
The average settlement for car accident pain and suffering
Many attorneys use different methods of computing average settlement for car accident pain and suffering. Since car accidents vary in severity, determining this average settlement is again tougher.
According to this site, expect anywhere around $15,000 as an average settlement for your pain and suffering. This amount increases rapidly if there is prolonged pain, and if doctors can not easily estimate how long you will stay in pain.
According to an attorney I consulted, the easier formula to calculate a rough estimate of the average settlement for pain and suffering is by multiplying the $180 rate by the number of days of pain and suffering.
For instance, if the person had pain and suffering since 5 months ago. 5 months x 30 = 150 days of pain and suffering. in this case, the average settlement for car accident pain and suffering = $180 x 150 = $27,000.
How much should I settle for a back injury?
key parts of your back are:
- The spinal cord
- Intervertebral bones and
- The discs.
Car injuries that affect the back are very hard to treat and in some people, pain and suffering could last a lifetime. The average claim settlement for back injury is anywhere between $10,000 and $11,000 of course depending on the severity of your back injuries. According to this site, the median back injury claim settlement is $22,000.
How much do you get for neck and back injury?
Just like other cases already talked about, no exact amount can be taken as the average settlement for neck and back injuries. Your case is different and will be looked upon taking into consideration how bad are injuries.
Some data reports average neck and back injuries claim settlement to be somewhere between $10,000 and $50,000. Other attorneys suggest this range to be between $10,000 and $100,000. Expect a small offer if you had minor injuries or a relatively higher settlement if your injuries that are disabling or life-threatening.
How much is a pinched nerve worth in a car accident?
Nerves are very important body structures that control activities like:
- Coordination
- digestion
- Breathing
- Feeling
- sight
- speech
- and other many body processes.
Nerves form your nervous system which acts as the central body command. Touching and feeling however trivial are also controlled by your nerves.
If your nerves are damaged in a car accident, you may find difficulties with passing stool or difficulties in passing urine. Because nerves are such important body structures, claim settlement for such injuries will be high.
Though compensation for pinched nerve injuries varies from accident to accident, the injured person should expect somewhere between $105,000 and $505,000. But the settlement will depend on the severity and location of the injuries. Injuries affecting the back, or neck usually pay more money compared to let’s say injuries to the lower limbs.
In summary, if your child has just been involved in a car crash and you were thinking about filing a lawsuit or filing a claim through your insurance company, I recommend you speak to experts like car accident attorneys or a friend who has been through such experiences. There is no average settlement for a child in a car accident because injuries suffered differ in location and severity.
