How Does the Amount of Damage to the Vehicle Affect the Value of a Personal Injury Claim?
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Insurance
companies consider the degree of visible damage to a motor vehicle as a significant
factor in evaluating personal injury
claims. Insurance companies and defense
lawyers for insurance companies always argue that if the car is not badly
damaged, then the occupants of the car could not be hurt, or at least not
seriously hurt.
At first
glance his may seem like a valid argument.
However, a further reflection will show that this argument (if the car
is not hurt, the occupants can’t be hurt) is totally fallacious.
We all know
of instances in which a car is horribly mangled after a collision, but the
occupants walk away without a scratch, totally unhurt. We also know of many instances in which the
victim of the motor vehicle collision is killed seriously injured when riding
in a car which showed little or no visible damage after the collision.
Why is this
so?
Doctors
tell us it is indeed possible to be seriously injured in a car that does not
show visible damage after the collision. The cause of those injuries, are
varied and complex. A lot has to do with
the position of the victim’s body immediately before the collision and whether
the victim anticipates that a collision is about to occur. Of course, the age and physical condition of
the victim plays a large part.
Unfortunately,
insurance companies do reduce the value it places on a personal injury claim if
there is little or no visible damage to the car in which the victim is injured.
This makes it very difficult and usually impossible to settle a low property
damage case for full fair value with an insurance adjuster without filing suit
and asking a jury to set the value of the personal injury claim.
At trial it
is also hard to achieve full fair value from a jury for a personal injury claim
when the car in which the victim was riding was not significantly damaged.
The first
thing insurance defense lawyers do at trial is to place in front of the jury a
blow up photograph of the victim’s car. Again, the argument is “how can the claimant be
hurt when the car is not injured”. This is an argument which appeals to the
superficial off-the-cuff logic of the jury.
It is difficult to get a jury to seriously
consider the testimony of medical doctors and other experts whose testimony
clearly proves that a victim can be seriously injured in a collision in which
the car is not seriously damaged.
In summary,here is the short answer to the question of whether the extent of damage to the victims vehicle makes a difference in the value of the personal injury claim : yes, it does make a big difference, but it should not!