The drunk driver’s insurance adjuster just offered $18,000. Should you take it or push for more? At The Texas Law Dog, we help Duncanville families make informed settlement decisions and fight for the most money possible. Our drunk driver accident lawyers in Duncanville are ready to help you.
Insurance companies here know juries despise impaired drivers, and Texas law allows punitive damages. This creates pressure on both sides—the carrier wants to settle before you realize how much leverage you have, while you need enough compensation to cover damages that might not fully reveal themselves for months.
The decision to settle or keep fighting depends on specific factors in your case that only become clear when you understand how insurance companies think. If you need a car accident lawyer in Duncanville who knows when settlement offers are fair and when they’re insulting, we’re ready to help you make the right strategic choice.
How Insurance Companies Calculate Settlement Offers
Insurance adjusters don’t pull settlement numbers from thin air—they follow formulas based on your medical bills, lost wages, and internal company guidelines about claim valuation. For drunk driving cases, they typically start by adding your medical expenses and lost income, then multiplying that total by a factor between 1.5 and 3, depending on injury severity.
This means if you have $10,000 in medical bills and lost $3,000 in wages, their formula might produce an initial offer of around $19,500 to $39,000. But this is just their opening position, not their final authority. Working with our personal injury lawyer in Duncanville will reveal what adjusters aren’t telling you about settlement authority.
Settlement Tiers
Every adjuster has settlement tiers—amounts they can offer without supervisor approval, amounts requiring manager sign-off, and maximum authority beyond which the claim goes to special handlers or litigation teams.
That first offer of $18,000 might come from an adjuster whose authority stops at $35,000, meaning they have room to double their offer without even involving their boss. Our insurance experience helps us understand whether you’re getting their real offer or just their opening bid.
Drunk driving accidents further complicate settlements because possible punitive damages create exposure that the insurance company wants to avoid. Insurance companies would often rather settle for an amount that includes some punitive component than risk a jury adding six figures in punishment damages on top of your actual losses.
Red Flags That Settlement Offers Are Inadequate
Certain patterns in settlement timing and amount signal that the insurance company is trying to shortchange you. The most obvious red flag is an offer that arrives within the first two weeks after your crash, before you’ve completed medical treatment or understand the full extent of your injuries.
These quick settlements aim to close your claim while you’re still dealing with shock and financial stress, locking you into compensation that won’t cover your actual damages once they fully develop.
Warning signs that indicate you should reject settlement offers and keep negotiating include:
- The offer only covers past medical bills.
- Lost wage calculations ignore the time you’ll miss for upcoming medical appointments, procedures, or rehabilitation.
- The adjuster refuses to discuss pain and suffering damages, claiming soft tissue injuries don’t warrant compensation beyond medical expenses.
- They pressure you to accept immediately, suggesting the offer will decrease if you wait or talk to a lawyer.
- The settlement amount doesn’t account for aggravating factors that support punitive damages.
Another red flag appears when the adjuster emphasizes how expensive litigation will be, suggesting you’ll spend any additional recovery on lawyer fees and court costs. This assumes litigation won’t increase your recovery enough to justify the effort, which is often false in drunk driving cases where trial verdicts regularly exceed settlement offers.
Duncanville Drunk Driver Car Accident Lawyer Near Me (817) 775-5364
When Fighting for More Makes Strategic Sense
If your injuries are catastrophic—traumatic brain injury, spinal cord damage, permanent disability—settlement negotiations rarely produce adequate offers because adjusters can’t authorize payments large enough to cover lifetime care needs.
These cases require expert witnesses, life care plans, and economic testimony that demonstrate your full damages, pushing settlement values into ranges that exceed adjuster authority and require litigation to resolve. Our Duncanville drunk driver accident lawyers can help you determine whether settling or a trial is in your best interest.
About The Texas Law Dog
Matt Aulsbrook spent years running insurance agencies before becoming a lawyer, giving him unique insight into how adjusters think about claim valuation and when they have the authority to pay more than they’re offering. He knows the pressure adjusters face to close claims cheaply and the tactics they use to convince victims to accept inadequate settlements.
Our drunk driver accident attorneys in Duncanville work on contingency, so you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you. Matt will meet you wherever is convenient if your injuries make traveling difficult, and we use technology to keep you constantly updated as settlement negotiations progress.
The earlier we get involved in your case, the better we can evaluate the insurance company’s offers against the true value of your claim. We’ll document your damages thoroughly, consult experts who can project your future needs, and develop settlement strategies that maximize your recovery, whether through negotiation or trial.
Contact Us for Strategic Advice
Don’t accept a settlement offer without understanding whether it’s the insurance company’s real position or just an opening bid. Our team bites back against insurance companies trying to settle for cheap, and we fight to recover full compensation, whether through negotiation or litigation.
Contact The Texas Law Dog now for your free consultation with our Duncanville drunk driver accident lawyers.
