As an Oregon Trial Attorney, I receive calls from Oregonians who were injured in car accidents and want to know if they should take a settlement offer from the insurance company. Here are the top ten things to consider when evaluating the insurance company’s settlement offer:

Claims adjusters try to get people to settle too soon – before an injured person is even done treating with doctors. If you don't know what your medical bills will total or whether you will be left with a disability, then just say, "I do not want to talk about that. Please don't call me again."

On the other hand, there are time limits to when a person must sue, known as the statutes of limitation. If you wait too long, then your claim is lost forever. That's one reason to talk to an Oregon personal injury attorney right away. Another reason to talk to a lawyer is that, for some claims, Oregon law requires an injured person to notify the perpetrator within months of the car accident even though the lawsuit does not have to be filed until later.

Did the other guy cause the collision 100%? Is there evidence that you were at fault, in part? In Oregon, if you are more than 50% at fault, you recover no money. If you are 50% or less at fault, then you may recover money damages, but the dollar amount is reduced by your percentage of fault. So if you have a $100,000 loss and if you were 30% at fault, then you can recover only $70,000 (less the costs of the lawsuit).

How badly were you hurt? Did you have a sore neck for a day? Are you now confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life? The extent of loss is valued in what we call “damage.” The two primary categories of damages are economic damages and noneconomic damages, which I describe below.

Oregon law provides for three types of damages: "economic damages," "noneconomic damages," and punitive damages. Economic damages include medical bills, lost wages, lost capacity to work, and other costs that have a dollar value you can calculate. You need to add all of this up when considering what is the fair value of your claim.

Oregon law allows injured people to claim money for the what you go through that economists can't calculate. These include pain, humiliation, inability to enjoy the activities you could do before, mental distress, etc. If the car accident knocked you down for six months, then your noneconomic damages will be much less than if you are permanently injured.

Let's face it. Ultimately, the dollar value of your case is what 12 strangers decide the value is. If Mother Theresa went in front of a jury, they would treat her better than Adolf Hitler. If a speeding drunk driver ran a red light and smashed into you, a jury will want to punish him or her. If a speeding police officer chasing a murderer smashed into you, then you might not even get your case to a jury.

Bottom line: if you are a sweet person with a lot of friends who can testify about how this car wreck hurt you, a jury will like you and award more than if you are a mean and nasty person.

Defendants look for other causes of your injury. Have you suffered other back injuries before or after the car accident about which you are making a claim? How do other injuries factor in? Did the prior injury make you more susceptible to future injury? If your medical picture is complicated, then you will need a lawyer and doctors to help sort it.

A jury must weigh evidence. The better the evidence, the higher the value of the case.

Will three nonbiased witnesses swear that the injury was totally caused by the other side?

If you live in a forest and nobody knew how physically fit you were before the car accident, then the jury must rely on your word only. On the other hand, if you worked with several people every day who will testify that you were happy and physically fit before the collision, that’s better than your own testimony, alone.

What you care about is the net amount of money to you. It costs a lot of money to go to trial. Doctors cost money. Economists cost money. Trial presentation costs money. Attorney fees typically go from 1/3 to 40% when there is a trial. So, for example, if you can settle before spending an extra $20,000 for trial costs, that’s a $20,000 savings. This means giving the insurance company a $10,000 discount would increase the net dollars in your pocket by $10,000.

On rare occasions, the person who hurt you was so reckless that a court will allow you to ask for punitive damages. If so, then the settlement value of the case increases.