Demand Letter
So what is a demand letter in a personal injury case?
Hi, I’m attorney Christopher Nicolaysen from Springs Law Group. Today I wanted to talk about demand letters and how and when they come into your case. 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. 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. 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.
That demand letter is going to demand a certain amount of money, where you’re requesting compensation for your injuries- both the physical injuries that you suffered, but also your non-economic injuries, like your pain and suffering and things like that.
Additionally, 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 a demand letter will be a big encompassing document that will list what happened within the accident itself, as in the crash. Generally, you’ll have a medical summary. And then, in the end, you’ll give 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.
In 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,” I mean 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. 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 true or an opportunity to look at everything.
And then, a lot of times they will either 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, there’s a back and forth.
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 a letter that you’re going to send via 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 writing so that you have a track and kind of show as the negotiations are moving forward.
So if you’re at a spot and working on an 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 Law Group if we’d be happy to help you along and discuss with you.
Springs Law Group is here to help you on your road to monetary and physical recovery. We understand you deserve to be compensated financially for your losses. We will fight by your side to make sure you get proper recompense equivalent to your compensatory and punitive losses. Contact a personal injury lawyer at Springs Law Group in Colorado Springs to set up a free consultation and discuss your legal options.
Find more helpful resources here: