10 Ways to Improve Your Car Crash Demand Letters

According to the US Bureau of Justice Statistics, 98.2% of all civil cases settle prior to filing a lawsuit.  Of the 1.8% tort claims that are filed, most of those resolve prior to trial. This means that nearly 100% of tort insurance claims will settle or terminate prior to a jury trial.

While many lawyers know Trial Guides as the leader in books, audio and CLEs on trial methods, the company started with a book about how to obtain maximum settlement value in auto cases. The groundbreaking book Colossus: What Every Trial Lawyer Needs to Know, featured Trial Guides founder Aaron DeShaw’s insights from years of researching the insurance company’s bodily injury software, and how lawyers could use the information to obtain maximum settlement offers for their clients in motor vehicle cases.

If you settle most of your personal injury cases, you need to know the specific factors that are provided value by insurance companies. One of the Top 5 value drivers is a claim for Duties Under Duress.

"Duties Under Duress" is a unique term used within insurance company bodily injury software (Colossus, ClaimIQ, Liability Navigator) used to evaluate bodily injury claims in auto, premises liability and workers compensation claims.

Trial Guides has resources for lawyers interested in using legal graphics in motions (Show the Brief) as well as in ADR and trial (Show the Story).

But, what about increasing your settlement offers by using graphics in your demand letters?  In a free article on the Settlement Intelligence web site, Trial Guides founder Aaron DeShaw discusses the use of litigation graphics in your demand letters to increase your settlement offers.

In a cooperative deal between High Impact and Trial Guides, lawyers can purchase a perpetual license to over 100 injury and medical procedure illustrations that can be used repeatedly to illustrate common medical procedures.

Announcing a Live Medicare CLE webinar featuring Matt Garretson of the Garretson Resolution Group.

Is your firm in compliance with Medicare? The MMSEA (The Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Extension Act of 2007) ensures that Medicare is the secondary payer on settlements involving Medicare eligible claimants.

A new version of our popular Colossus Forms CD for doctors is being released today. It is an update to one of Trial Guides' earliest products.

The majority of all auto insurers in the U.S. use computerized assessment software to determine bodily injury settlement offers. Most of them conceal its use or allege they no longer use the software. The most widely used bodily injury claim software is called Colossus, but there are others regularly used by large insurers including Liability Navigator, and ClaimIQ. Colossus and other bodily...

Obviously not all of your cases go to trial; some are settled in mediation or tried in arbitration. Why would you walk into a mediation or arbitration any less prepared than you would walk into a courthouse?

Attorney Sharon Rowen of Atlanta, GA realized this and prepared for her mediation with trial consultant Eric Oliver, using the techniques in his book Facts Can’t Speak for Themselves. The defense counsel tried to spin Ms. Rowen's personal injury case against a renowned charity as a simple slip and fall. Using Oliver's strategies, which are outlined in Facts, Ms. Rowen was able to reframe the case using Eric Oliver's methods.

Due to Oliver's techniques, Ms. Rowen obtained a very favorable settlement (amount confidential) despite the obvious challenges in her case.

The following article is published in Bloomberg Markets [Since removed from the internet] It provides one of the most comprehensive public media stories covering the serious problems in the insurance industry in America caused by programs of defense, delay and denial of claims.

The Insurance Hoax

By David Dietz and Darrell Preston

Julie Tunnell remembers standing in her debris-strewn driveway when the tall man in blue jeans approached. Her northern San Diego tudor-style home had been incinerated a week earlier in the largest wildfire in California history. The blaze in October and November 2003 swept across an area 19 times the size of Manhattan, destroying 2,232 homes and killing 15 people. Now came another blow.

Article in Chiropractic Economics:

An Excerpt from Billing and Procedure Denials: What Every Physician Needs to Know, by Dr. Aaron DeShaw, Esq.

"Have you ever played a game without knowing the rules? It’s difficult to win. Over the last 10 years, chiropractors have been playing a “game” with personal-injury insurers without knowing the rules.

Sometimes they win and get paid for their personal-injury (PI) and healthcare claims; sometimes they lose.

Book Review by Chiropractic Economics:

Colossus: What Every Physician Needs to Know
by Aaron DeShaw, DC, JD. Loose leaf, 465 pages.

According to the author, approximately 70 percent of auto injuries are evaluated by computer assessment software. The best known assessment software is known as Colossus.

Trial Guides is proud to announce its new book Procedure & Billing Denials: What Every Physician Needs to Know by Dr. Aaron DeShaw, Esq. 

The new book provides physicians & staff with the background necessary when dealing with a modern insurance company on a personal injury case. DeShaw describes procedures and codes frequently flagged by insurers, and insurance medical bill review software. The book also discusses coding methods and procedures which are flagged for audits, or rejected. DeShaw further discusses modern necessity for charting to substantiate treatment and reduce payment problems.

A new legal Colossus forms CD is released today, to supplement the new book Colossus: What Every Trial Lawyer Needs to Know.

Approximately 70 percent of all auto insurers in the U.S. use bodily injury assessment software to determine claim value. Most of them conceal its use. The most widely used bodily injury claim software is called Colossus, but there are others also used by large insurers including Claims Outcome Advisor.  Bodily injury assessment programs require specific information in order to generate claim value in a client's case.  

The Colossus Forms CD provides lawyers with the legal forms necessary when dealing with modern insurance companies on personal injury cases.