The short answer is because of past jury trial success. Insurance companies are world class data collectors and analyzers. Insurance carriers use complex algorithms to determine the cost of coverage premiums. They also use data and formulas to decide how much money to offer in injury and death cases. The amount they offer will be impacted by the lawyer representing the plaintiff.
Insurance companies and the insurance defense lawyers who represent them know what law firms are willing to go to jury trials. They also know who has achieved high jury verdicts in injury and death cases. Rick Friedman, a great injury attorney and trial lawyer, stated the following:
Who is respected and feared and paid more by the insurance companies: The lawyer who tries fewer cases and has a high win ratio; or the lawyer who takes case after case to trial but loses more cases than he wins? The answer is this: the lawyer who tries more cases, win or lose, is feared more and gets higher settlement offers. Why? Insurance companies know the risk of trial. They respect and fear the lawyer who is the outlier, the real trial lawyer who holds fast to his word, who knows what the case is worth, and who isn’t afraid to go to trial and lose.
Rittgers Rittgers & Nakajima – Unprecedented Success in Recent Jury Trial Verdicts
In the past two years alone, the lawyers at Rittgers Rittgers & Nakajima have obtained record level jury verdicts in conservative counties. More importantly our lawyers take cases to jury trials frequently. As an example, Matt Nakajima received a jury verdict in 2018 in excess of $1 million in Campbell County, Kentucky for a client who suffered non-life threatening injury that healed. Charles M. Rittgers completed five jury trials in a 12 month period between 2019-2020 including one in 2019 with Matt that resulted in a $3 million jury verdict in Hamilton County, Ohio after a top settlement offer of $25,000. Later in the year, Matt achieved a $600,000 jury verdict for a client who suffered a shoulder tear in Warren County, Ohio and Charlie represented a family in a two week wrongful death jury trial in Cuyahoga County, Ohio.
Insurance companies and lawyers who defend them know we are not scared of jury trials. Sadly, very few lawyers take cases to jury trials and even fewer have success. We routinely get policy limit offers for our clients. Insurance company lawyers know we have a high chance of beating them at trial so they treat our clients more fairly than most. We see this happen frequently after cases are referred to us from other attorneys. We frequently accept low offer and no offer cases from other lawyers and get six figure results. In one recent case, the referring lawyer had a $2,500 offer from an insurance company, sent us the case, and we settled it for $475,000.
The lawyer you choose to represent your family in an injury lawsuit will greatly impact your recovery, especially in catastrophic injury and death cases. Please carefully review an injury attorney’s reputation, jury trial success, and past outcomes before retaining that lawyer.