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At some point in your life, you have probably signed a liability release or waiver so that you can participate in some sort of activity that can be dangerous for the consumer. These are very similar to the release of liability contract that you will be signing when you finish negotiating your settlement. Once the terms of the settlement have been agreed upon, then you will sign the settlement as well as sign a document that releases the negligent party from any further liability from the injuries you sustained during your accident. This means that once that document is signed, they no longer have any responsibility to pay for your medical bills, treatments or any other economic or non-economic damages that were a result of your lawsuit.
Many times in injury lawsuits the insurance companies will present a low ball settlement offer in hopes that the injured person will accept it before they know the full extent of their expenses from the accident, such as medical bills from ongoing treatments. Their intention behind this is hoping that they can get away with paying a lower amount to the injured party because when they can do this with thousands of injury lawsuits every year, they end up saving the insurance company a lot of money over time.
As stated above, waiting until you achieve Maximum Medical Improvement (MMI) is when you want to start negotiating your settlement agreement. If there are other outstanding economic damages or non-economic damages that still need to be proven and/or calculated after you reach MMI, then make sure to wait for all of those calculations to be final as well. You always want to put yourself in the best possible situation to receive the largest compensation package available and waiting for all of your final expenses to be known is how you do that.
The one situation where you can renegotiate is when you have not yet signed the release of liability contract. This contract states that the negligent party is no longer responsible for any damages that were caused due to the accident and releases them from any further liability. So no matter where you are in the process of the lawsuit, as long as you have not signed the liability release yet, or agreed to sign one in a formal mediation, then you can renegotiate your settlement and ask for more compensation.
Getting a fair settlement is always the goal, but if you don’t have all of the details needed then you are likely getting lowballed. What we mean by that is that if you are leaving out any economic or non-economic damages from your settlement, then you are not getting a fair settlement. You should always have proof as well as reasonable valuations for anything you are asking for compensation for. As long as you have that and you weren’t partially at fault for the accident, then you should be able to get full compensation for each thing that cost you as a result of the accident. This is how you’ll know that your settlement is fair, or you can work with an attorney that knows all about injury lawsuits and they will be able to explain each and every detail of your settlement agreement and let you know exactly what parts are fair or not. For more information on different types of settlements, check out this article comparing structured settlements to lump sum payouts.
We serve clients injured anywhere throughout the state of Colorado, but we focus on residents of these areas: Colorado Springs, Manitou Springs, Fountain, Briargate, Monument, Black Forest, Pueblo, Canon City, Larkspur, Security-Widefield, Peyton, Castle Rock, Teller County, El Paso County, Elbert County, Park County, Douglas County and beyond.
Consultations are always free and available 24/7 over the phone.