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Insurance adjusters have to deal with a great many facts. Those facts reflect the losses claimed by a given policy holder. The monetary value of a given loss might be expressed in the form of a medical bill, the estimate of lost income, an estimate of costs for fixing a badly damaged automobile, or some other bill that had arrived in the mailbox of an injured victim.
The adjuster must come up with a dollar figure for all of the victim’s losses. The number of a bill links a dollar figure to a loss that resulted from a medical problem. By summing up the total on each bill, the adjuster can obtain the value of the medical special damages.
Significance of the medical special damages
These can be used to calculate a figure called the medical specials. In order to carry out such a calculation, adjusters do use a formula. Adjusters use that formula by multiplying the medical special damages with a number that lies between 1.5 and 5.
The greater the severity of the victim’s injury, the closer the number in the formula will be to 5. If the injury has forced the victim to face a bleak future, because he or she must now deal with an incapacitating handicap, the 5 might get replaced with a number that is close to 10. The product obtained by using the recognized formula provides the insurance company with the value for the medical specials.
Significance of the medical specials
Those get added to the general damages. The general damages cannot be linked to a well-defined quantity. The losses that have resulted from the victim’s pain and suffering get placed in the category known as general damages. The sum obtained by adding the medial specials and the general damages gets added to yet another figure. That is the loss of income, along with the losses that have resulted from damage to the victim’s property. The total obtained by summing up all of those figures provides the insurance company with the rough estimate of a claim.
Of course, the insurance company will not be making a claim; it simply wants to estimate the claim that could be made by the plaintiff (the injured victim). The insurer has no way of knowing how closely that estimate approaches the amount that will be requested from the policy holder. Still, the adjuster’s job demands utilization of that same estimate.
It gets used at the start of the negotiating process. The adjuster needs to have a starting figure, one that can be presented when the negotiations for the settlement get initiated. The estimate that was obtained by using a formula provides adjusters with that particular value.
Why the adjuster’s initial offer is so low
Remember that the number plugged into the formula reflected the adjuster’s view of the severity of the injury. Seldom do adjusters take into account all the ways that a given injury could alter the victim’s future lifestyle, and perhaps his or her career path. Personal Injury Lawyer in Orillia do appreciate the extent of such alterations. The lawyer’s knowledge becomes clear upon presentation of a higher offer.