Future Treatment

You are entitled to payments for future expenses as long the insurance company agrees to it before you settle!

Anytime that you have an injury you must account for future treatment. You must be able to estimate the future doctor�s appointments and medications that you will have after you settle the claim.

Remember that once you settle, then the insurance carrier will have no obligation to you. So if you think that you might have an injury or there might be a possibility of future expenses and medical care, then you must account for that before you settle the claim.

The value of future treatment is hard to asses. How much treatment are you going to need. Attorneys are quick to point this out and to work out some numbers into the settlement. However, insurance companies (the smart ones) have creative ways so they do not have pay (or least not in the spot) for future medical treat.

When it is very clear that the injury will require future medical care, then insurance companies will try to structure a settlement of the claim so they do not have to give you money if you do not seek treatment.

The insurance adjuster will create a new bank account for you. They would put the amount they believe their future treatment would cost and they would have those funds available to you when you need them.

The catch is that the treatment that you seek must be related to the actual accident. So if you go to the doctor because an unrelated injury or problem, the insurance company will review the bill and decline payment.

The one good thing about a settlement like this is that you earn interest on the money (unless the insurance company you are dealing with has already changed that!).

This is obviously not very good for you. If they pay for future treatment then you can use that income for any sickness, but if you take this type of structure settlement then the insurance company will not pay anything until they are sure your injury is completely related.

If you decline a settlement like this, the insurance company will then offer you a substantially reduced amount for future treatment.

They give you the option to monitor the injury and the bills or give you less money. Usually an offer to cover future treatment would look like this:

$10,000 in an interest bearing account for 12 months where the insurance carrier reviews the bills prior paying or $2,000 cash.

You can see that they add future treatment for only 12 months. The numbers above are subject to change depending on the injury, the conditions of the actual settlement, the policy limits, and many other issues, but you get the idea of what the insurance carrier will be trying to do.

One of the things that I was trained to do as a claim adjuster was to review medical records.

I was trained to look for specific information about the patient reaching pre accident condition. Insurance adjusters want to see this because it takes away any payment for future treatment. If you are where you were before the accident, then no payment is owed to you.

But how do they reach a number for future treatment?

Insurance adjusters can look at the treatment that you did receive and forecast what your treatment could be in a worst case scenario.

Remember that most injuries, soft tissue anyway, will heal with time, so treatment would decrease over time. But the numbers that claim adjusters look at are dubious at best. The data is given to them and there is no double checking or anything like that.

In many occasions the insurance carrier does not allow the adjusters to have access to this numbers or the sources. If you are dealing with a permanent injury, then the best way to evaluate and truly estimate your injury is by hiring a good bodily injury attorney. They have resources available like medical experts and economist that could do a more accurate forecast.

You can always ask for Future Treatment payments unless your doctor has stated in writing that you are back to pre accident condition!

Injured? Request a free personal injury case evaluation right now!

Future treatment can be compensated even in soft tissue injures. Read more.

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