Interviewer: I wanted to know how long does it take to resolve a personal injury claim?

Bill Levinson: That’s a question that every one of my clients asks in the first interview at some point in time. My answer is, how long is it going to take you to get better? How long is my client going to take to get better? The answer is I don’t know because you don’t know how badly they’re injured. So in response to that question, my response is that I don’t know. I can tell you generally it’s when you’re better, when you’ve been released from care. Then it begins the settlement process.

Personal Injury Claim Process

Interviewer: What happens once I’m better?

Bill Levinson: Assuming that that’s correct – and sometimes it’s not, when I sit down and interview with my clients and find they’re still having symptoms – but assuming that the client has been released, the first thing that this office does is put together what we call a demand. It’s what we’re going to send the insurance company documenting what we think the case is worth. The insurance company will respond and this office carries on negotiations over the Internet so that the client can be a party to it – a party in the sense that they watch it happen. It’s a back-and-forth negotiation as you might expect and the end result is one of three things. The insurance company will make an offer that is acceptable to my client. They will make an offer that my client is not sure of, in which case I recommend settlement because it’s a gamble that they’re unsure whether they’re willing to take it or not. Then the third one is that the insurance company makes such an absurd offer that the only option is litigation.