by James Chapman
Many personal injury claimants want to know what their claim is worth. And plenty of injury law firms offer online tools that seem to provide answers with just a few inputs.
These calculators are really sales tools, not true calculators of the value of an injury. They encourage claimants to consult with — and eventually hire — the lawyer.
What they leave out is how much of the claimant will get after paying the lawyer. How much they will put in their pocket is what they really want to know.
These websites do not calculate the attorney’s fee or the costs that will become the responsibility of the claimant when an attorney is hired. But those deductions are critical to understanding the “in your pocket” number.
Insurance professionals know this. So do claimants. And it often comes up when negotiating settlements before an attorney is hired by the claimant.
Negotiating multi-party settlements is more difficult for claimants — and adjusters. It can be complicated to put together a “package deal” with offers from more than one insurance company. That’s one of the reasons that claimants hire attorneys, and the claim ends up in a lawsuit.
To help adjusters explain — and help claimants evaluate — claims involving multiple responsible parties, along with the legal fees and costs of hiring an attorney, ClaimEdge developed a multi-party settlement calculator. All the formulas are built in. To try it out, just download the workbook here:
Let us know if you have any questions!
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