This may be one of the most frequent questions that Hawaii injury lawyers receive.   Although it would be great if the answer were a simple one, unfortunately, it’s not.  Many different factors go into determining the value of one’s Hawaii car accident injury case.  We always try to settle our client’s injury cases, so they don’t have to go through the stressful and time-consuming process of taking a case to court.  During the settlement process, the person who determines how much the injury claim is worth is the Hawaii insurance adjuster and his or her manager.

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The first factor they will consider is whether their driver was liable.  Once they determine that their driver is liable, then they will then consider the value of the injuries.  The Hawaii insurance adjustor will do this by reviewing all of the medical bills and records that we send to them.   If the injuries are very serious such as those involving fractured bones or other injuries that require surgery, then their valuation will likely be very high.  If the injuries are considered “soft tissue” injuries because they didn’t require surgery to repair, then the value of the claim will be much lower.  “Soft tissue” injuries are those types of injuries such as whiplash, neck strains, and back strains.  These injuries usually heal with time and with treatment from physical therapists, chiropractors, or massage therapists.

The value of the injuries also greatly depends on which insurance company is involved.  Farmers and Geico tend to offer small amounts to settle Hawaii motor vehicle accident injury claims.  State Farm, Allstate, Liberty Mutual, and Progressive also tend to offer lower settlement offers.  We have seen better settlement offers from Dtric, First Insurance, and Island Insurance.  The best settlement offers that we see usually come from USAA as well as some of the insurance companies on the mainland.  

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Nothing is certain when it comes to making injury claims.  About 80% of the time, we can make a pretty good guess of how much an insurance adjuster will offer.  However, about 10% of the time, an adjuster will shock us with a settlement offer much higher than we expected, and 10%of the time, an adjuster will shock us with a settlement offer much lower than we expected.

It is always completely up to our clients whether they want to accept a Hawaii insurance adjustor’s settlement offer or not.  If they feel that an offer is much lower than they deserve for the motor vehicle injuries, then it is up to them if they want to proceed to litigation.

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The first step of the Hawaii car accident litigation process will be the Court Annexed Arbitration Program.  At this stage of the process, the Court assigned Arbitrator will determine how much he or she thinks the case is worth.  Once again, it will be completely up to our clients whether they want to accept the Arbitrator’s award or appeal the award and take their case to the jury trial.  

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The question of how much our client’s Honolulu car accident injuries are worth will then be determined by a jury.  Juries in Hawaii tend to be quite conservative.  They don’t usually award large amounts, especially in cases involving “soft tissue” injuries.  We often talk to juries after the trial, and they usually say things like: “We’re just tired of all these lawsuits…We’re tired of people always wanting to sue everything….”  When deciding to take an injury case to a jury or not, it’s important to remember that, in general, the majority of the population in Hawaii has not been injured in an auto accident, so they may not be very sympathetic.  They also usually have a false belief that injury cases make their insurance rates go up.