After a collision with a big truck, you likely have equally big expenses that you may not be able to afford. Your vehicle may be totaled, you likely require extensive medical treatments, and you may be unable to return to work for weeks or months. Getting a settlement offer from the trucking company or their insurer soon after the accident may seem like a blessing, but it’s not something to celebrate right away.
Trucking companies and their insurers rarely offer injured victims’ fair settlements without a fight. If a trucking company is offering you a settlement soon after the accident, it likely means they’re trying to avoid paying you the full amount of money you truly deserve.
In this blog, we explore steps to take after receiving a settlement offer to protect your right to maximum compensation.
Take These Steps After Receiving a Settlement Offer
1. Don’t Accept the Settlement Offer Right Away
It can be extremely tempting to immediately accept it. You may need money right now for all of your accident-related expenses, but accepting a settlement means you become ineligible to seek more money later on for the crash, even if the money runs out long before the bills do.
It’s important to be 100% certain that the money in the settlement offer is enough to cover all of your current and future accident-related expenses as well as your pain and suffering.
2. Contact an Experienced Oklahoma City Truck Accident Lawyer
It’s not easy to determine if a settlement offer is fair or not all on your own. In addition to calculating whether it will cover your current costs, you also must factor in your future expenses when you don’t even know what they are yet. In addition, you may be owed a lot for your pain and suffering, but that’s hard to put a number value to, and rarely included in initial settlement offers at all.
An experienced law firm can review the settlement offer and compare it to all of the costs you and your family are facing over the coming weeks, months, and even years. They can advise you on whether the settlement will fairly compensate you for your damages, both financial and other, or if it’s only enough to cover your initial expenses.
3. Tell the Insurance Company to Contact Only Your Lawyer
Insurance companies know that they can’t get away with offering lowball settlements when claimants have attorneys, so they often try to contact victims directly to influence them into accepting settlements without their lawyers’ advice.
Once you have a lawyer advising you and working on your case, it’s important for the insurance company to contact them and only them moving forward. Ensure that all emails, letters, phone calls, text messages, and even in-person visits from the insurance company are directed to your lawyer—not you and your family.
4. Be Aware of the Statute of Limitations
In Oklahoma, the statute of limitations for receiving a settlement after an accident or injury is two years from the date it happened. While that may seem like a long time, it can pass quickly. If you have a settlement offer and don’t accept it or take further legal action (such as filing a lawsuit) within two years, you become ineligible for any compensation, no matter how badly you were injured.
Your lawyer will be aware of the statute of limitations on your case, but it’s important to contact one as soon as possible to give them as much time as necessary to prepare your case. In addition, contacting a lawyer soon after the crash also increases the likelihood of important evidence being available, including crash debris, skid marks, crash footage, and witness statements.
5. Discuss Your Options With Your Lawyer
In most cases, it’s best to counter the trucking or insurance company’s offer with a compensation demand of your own. The negotiation process is an important step in any injury claim, and it can often result in victims receiving significantly more money than if they agreed to the insurance company’s initial settlement offer.
However, you have options. You can decide to accept the initial settlement offer if you believe, after speaking to your lawyer, that it’s sufficient to cover your expenses. If the commercial truck insurance company’s counteroffer isn’t enough, you can keep negotiating until you get a satisfactory offer. If that never happens, your lawyer may file a lawsuit against the trucking or insurance company and take your case to trial.
6. Review the Terms of the Settlement Carefully if You Accept It
Although going to trial is an option in commercial truck accident cases, most of them settle outside of court. If you get a favorable settlement offer and decide to accept it, it’s important to first review the terms associated with it with your lawyer, who will break them down and make them easier to understand.
Among the terms you’ll encounter are waiving the right to future claims or compensation, a non-admission of liability by the trucking company, and potentially a confidentiality clause that prevents you from discussing the details of the settlement with others. Learning these terms and honoring them after accepting the settlement are vital after your case concludes.
Our Oklahoma City Truck Accident Lawyers Have the Experience You Need
If you or a loved one were recently injured in a commercial truck accident and received a settlement offer from the truck company’s insurance, don’t wait another minute to get an experienced Oklahoma City truck accident attorney on your side. A significant amount of compensation could be at stake, and accepting the initial settlement could cost you money you’ll need for your crash-related expenses months or years from now.
Our legal team is available to discuss your truck accident 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Contact us anytime to get a free case review and to learn how we can help you handle this often confusing and vulnerable situation after a truck accident.
