How Much Is Your Injury Claim Worth? (Demand Letter Explained)

What is a demand letter in a personal injury case and why is it so important? In this video, Colorado Springs personal injury attorney, Chris Nicolaysen, explains what a demand letter is, what to include, when to send it, and how it can help maximize your car accident settlement. Learn how a strong demand letter sets the stage for negotiations with the insurance company and helps recover compensation for your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. If you’re filing a car accident claim in Colorado and want to understand your legal options, this is the place to start. Get a free case review: https://springslawgroup.com/contact-us/ Learn more at: https://springslawgroup.com/ Watch Next: What Do Personal Injury Lawyers Look For In A Case? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Tjnuw3LSQE What Should You Do Right After a Car Accident? https://youtu.be/JUtvpH_xDm4 Stay Connected: Find us on Google → https://tinyurl.com/bdzypvsj Subscribe → https://www.youtube.com/c/SpringsLawGroup Read our blog → https://springslawgroup.com/blog/ View FAQs → https://springslawgroup.com/recent-faqs/?include_category=deposition-faqs Follow Us: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/springslawgroup/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/springslawgroup/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/springslawgroup LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/springs-law-group/ #CarAccidentLawyer #AfterACarAccident #CarAccidentInjuryHelp #ColoradoLawyer #AutoAccidentHelp Transcript: So what is a demand letter in a personal injury case? Hi, I'm attorney Christopher Nicolaysen. From Springs Law Group. And today I wanted to talk about demand letters and how and when they come into your case. And so a demand letter, or what I like to call it, a settlement opportunity letter is going to be a letter or an email that you're going to send to the other party. And it's usually to the other party's insurance and to that specific adjuster at the insurance company that you've been talking to, at a certain point in your case, when you're ready to start working on a settlement. And we call it a settlement opportunity letter, because it's giving them a chance to settle generally throughout, though they're known as demand letters. So that demand then is going to demand a certain amount of money, where you're requesting compensation for your injuries, both your physical injuries that you suffered, but also your non economic injuries, like your pain and suffering and things like that. Additionally, to within that demand or settlement opportunity letter, you're also going to bring up things like your lost wages, your inconvenience your quality of life, and you'll talk about those things. So demand is going to be a big encompassing document that will list out what happened within the accident itself as in the crash, generally, you'll have a medical summary. And then at the end, you'll give a you know, kind of a summary of how the crash has affected your life. From a non economic standpoint, not only your life, but maybe the lives of those around you like family member and friends. And then at the end, you'll have an ask, we always recommend having an ask if it's the ask of the policy limits as a whole, or if it's a specific dollar amount, but make sure that you have an ask in there, and then you're going to send that out and you want to give them a reasonable time. And whenever I say them, you want to give the outfield insurance company a reasonable amount of time to get back to you. Usually for us on average, it's around 30 days, you know, and I'd recommend either 30 days or a little bit more than that, so that they can review all of the documents because not only will you have the demand letter by then you'll also have all of the supporting documents, like your medical records and bills for the treatment that you received to give them a truth or an opportunity to look at everything. And then a lot of times they will either you know agree to the amount that you asked for, or they're going to come back with a different amount which will then start the negotiation process. So the back and forth. So a true demand letter is something that's going to really start or begin the negotiation process. We do recommend having that in writing. So either a letter of physical letter or letter that you're going to email or just an email itself. So that way to the negotiation is going back and forth, but it's going back and forth via a writing so that you have a track you know, you can track that and kind of show as the negotiations are moving forward. So if you're at a spot and working on a injury case yourself and you've been injured and are working on your demand letter or your settlement opportunity letter if you have questions about that, feel free to reach out to the attorneys here at springs locker if we'd be happy to help you along and discuss with you