How Are Personal Injury Settlements Paid Out? | Massachusetts Car Accident Lawyer

 How are personal injury settlements paid out? Hi, I'm attorney John Sheehan. Since 1993, I've represented thousands of injured workers and car accident victims throughout massachusetts. I fight to make sure that each client receives all the compensation and medical treatment that they're entitled to without getting taken advantage of by insurance company. Well, in massachusetts, after a personal injury claim, whether it's a car accident, personal injury claim or some other type of personal injury claim, once it's been settled, which means that your attorney has negotiated with the insurance adjuster or sometimes the insurance defense lawyer to settle your case, sometimes that takes place in formal negotiations or sometimes it takes place in a process called mediation.

But once you reach a point where your attorney has negotiated the maximum amount of money that the insurance company will settle, will pay to settle your personal injury claim, and you've accepted the settlement offer negotiated by your attorney, then you have to sign what's called a release. A release is a written contract that the insurance company has agreed to pay you a certain lump sum of money, amount of money in exchange for your promise, your legal promise not to file a lawsuit against their insured, against their client, and against the insurance company for the injuries that you sustained in the accident.

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The insurance company, when they're making payments of $500 or more in massachusetts has to do what's called a DOR check. So they have to check to see if there were any unpaid child support, unpaid taxes, whether MassHealth, which is the massachusetts Medicaid program has paid medical treatment related to your car accident, in which case there would be a lien. And also they have to check CMS to see whether or not there are any Medicare liens.

Once they've done that check and assuming there're no liens, then the insurance company's gonna send the settlement check to your attorney. The check will be made payable to you and to your attorney or your attorney's law firm. Your attorney then will deposit the check in the law firm's IOLTA account, which is a client fund account that's reserved separate from the law firm's operating account. And once the settlement funds have cleared, then the attorney will process the settlement.

He'll or she will issue the payments for the fee for any legal expenses that would be reimbursed out of the settlement.

And the net amount to you, the net settlement check to you. And you'll either come to your lawyer's office to pick up the settlement check or if you prefer, and have asked your attorney to mail it to you, your attorney will follow your instructions and mail you your net settlement check. If you've been injured in a car accident due to someone else's fault in massachusetts, and the accident occurred recently, you should contact an experienced car accident attorney to discuss your case, see what your legal rights are.

I'll talk with you about how the accident happened, what are your injuries, what's your medical treatment? We'll discuss what available insurance coverages there are, and what I'd recommend for next steps so that we can try and ensure that we maximize whatever recovery's available to you.