Clients fall into two groups.

The first group wants to try to settle the case before they’ve even started treatment.

The second group doesn’t want to even consider making a demand (even a policy limits demand) before treatment is finished and there’s certainty about injury outcome.

Here's my response to this second group: There’s never going to be certainty about injury outcome. Waiting to make a demand until after prognosis is reasonably clear.

This impression—that insurance companies favor delay—was reinforced by an adjuster last week. He asked (rhetorically) how we could possibly settle the case when the injured person was still treating.

Here’s how I responded:

It can be difficult to settle cases when there’s treatment planned that may completely eliminate symptoms and return the injured person to their pre-injury baseline.

But that scenario represents less than one percent of all cases.

In the vast majority of cases future treatment will be palliative—it will reduce symptoms but won’t cure the underlying cause of symptoms or restore the injured body-part to its pre-injury baseline.

If the injured person’s prognosis is reasonably clear, the case can and should be settled.

Let me break that down a little.

Something like neuropsychological testing isn't treatment. It's just assessment.

Speech therapy is treatment. But a lot of speech therapy revolves around adapting to limitations rather than fixing the cause of the limitations.

Physical therapy is also treatment. It increases the function of an injured body part. But it doesn't reverse the changes that have taken place to the tissues the injured person’s body.

Cases shouldn’t be commoditized. But at some point we need to move forward based on probable outcomes. That point is when—according to the injured person’s providers—outcome is reasonably clear.

(The other exception is when the value of the claim—irrespective of injury outcome—exceeds the available insurance limits.)

Demands should be made as early as possible. Lots of good things happen when a demand is made. Two of the biggest things: Either the case settles or you can move forward with an open policy.