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How long does a car accident injury case take to settle in Minnesota? On average, a car accident personal injury case takes about 1 year to complete in Minnesota.
However, each case is unique and specific to your personal circumstances. I’ve seen cases as brief as 6 months and as long as several years; it all depends on the severity of the collision and treatment timelines.
Three factors determine the overall life of a case: treatment timelines, gathering records, and cooperation from the insurance company.
The first, and arguably the main factor in determining the length of a case, is the treatment timeline. The treatment timeline is something you and your treating physician discuss at appointments to determine your next steps in your overall recovery. It’s important to talk with your doctor about your treatment timeline and share these updates with your attorney to ensure an accurate timeline of the case. Once you have achieved physical recovery and your treatments are completed, your personal injury legal team will start preparing the demand for compensation and requesting records.
Requesting records can be time-consuming because health facilities have 30 days to fulfill these requests and often use a third party to do so, which adds time between the request and receiving the records. Once we have received the records, we begin drafting the demand for compensation to send to the insurance company.
This brings us to the final determining factor, cooperation from the insurance company. After a demand is written and approved, it will be sent to the insurance company for review. They then have 30 days to respond, after which the demand is revoked. Some insurance companies and adjusters are cooperative; they will review the demand and provide us with their first offer before the deadline. Other insurance companies and adjusters will delay the demand process for as long as possible. At BK Law Group, we are aware of the strategies insurance companies use to avoid the demand, and we have implemented countermeasures to address these tactics.
The life of the case has several determining factors, and the dedicated legal team at BK Law Group is here to help you navigate the entire process and ensure your case continues to move forward.
While each case is unique, I’ve outlined an average case timeline to illustrate how a year progresses during a personal injury case.
This step all depends on you. You first need to reach out to an attorney, schedule a free consultation, and complete an intake packet. After the consultation and intake packet, you will have the opportunity to retain the law firm and attorney.
If you choose to retain an attorney, it’s essential that you sign the retainer as soon as possible. You have not actually hired an attorney until that retainer is signed, and no work will be done on your case until it is signed.
Once you have retained an attorney, they will contact your insurance company and notify them that you have retained legal counsel. It’s at this point that you should no longer be in contact with either insurance company. The at-fault party’s insurance and your own insurance were both notified that you retained counsel and that they need to direct all future communication to your legal team.
Establishing the claims and obtaining insurance contacts takes only a few days or longer, depending on how cooperative the insurance companies are. During this time, we are actively following up with the insurance companies to receive the needed materials. We also set up any additional benefits you may wish to pursue for this claim, including wage loss and replacement services. We then establish any subrogation interest your health insurance may have in the case and follow up with you on any materials that require signatures.
This process takes an average of a few days to a week, as it mainly consists of completing and submitting forms and obtaining contact information from all interested parties. During this part of the case, your legal team will be contacting you to gather any additional information. To keep the case moving forward, it’s important that you provide your legal team with the requested materials.
This is when your legal team is requesting and receiving police reports, recorded statements, any available video footage, and any materials that might be beneficial to your case. The timeline for receiving these materials depends on the police department and on any facilities from which we are requesting documentation. This can sometimes be a few hours to a few weeks. Some police reports will be completed fairly quickly, while others may take a while to conclude. This depends on whether a criminal matter was also addressed in the collision. If a criminal matter is being pursued against the at-fault party, the police report in its entirety may not be released until the investigation is complete.
This is the longest step, as it should only be completed when you have fully healed and no longer need treatment. This can last for months if not longer, depending on the treatment timeline you have discussed with your physician and if you need any intensive treatments, such as surgery. This part of the timeline depends on you and your recovery. At BK Law Group, we prioritize your recovery and wait until treatment is complete before we start a demand letter. It’s important to update your legal team on your treatment plans so we can provide you with a more detailed case timeline and continue moving your case forward.
Demand prep can take, on average, around 2 months to complete. This is because we must request records from the treatment facilities, and they have up to 30 days to fulfill these records. However, the demand prep stage lasts longer than 30 days because we must review the records and ensure that all related treatment dates are included and that anything unrelated to the collision is excluded from the demand. Sometimes records will be missed, which causes further delay. Many facilities also use third-party vendors to complete the record retrieval process, adding time between the request and receipt. After we have received and reviewed the records, we then begin writing the demand.
A demand letter is written by your dedicated legal team, and it consists of your medical treatments, the costs of those treatments, any out-of-pocket expenses, wage loss, and pain and suffering incurred as a result of the collision. This takes, on average, a week or longer to complete, depending on the case’s complexity, the extent of the records to include, and the editing as we write the demand and compile your story. Once the demand is written and approved, we forward it to the insurance companies for negotiations.
After a demand letter is written and submitted to the insurance companies, it can take around 3 months or longer to achieve a settlement. This is because insurance companies have 30 days to acknowledge the demand before it’s revoked. However, just because they acknowledged the demand does not mean they have started their investigation. Insurance companies will sometimes ask for extensions to review the demand and investigate the claims. Once they have concluded their investigation, they will present the first negotiation.
Negotiations can take a few weeks to months, as any offers presented to your attorney will then be presented to you for further discussion. Negotiations often go back and forth with several discussions between the insurance adjuster, your attorney, and yourself. Due to the back-and-forth nature of negotiations, they can take months, depending on how cooperative the insurance is and how straightforward the case is. Once negotiations are complete, we move to settlement, which should only take a few weeks, as checks need to be cut and any liens paid.
This section is largely dependent on the case’s complexities and whether the liability remains in dispute. Negotiations and settlement can also prolong a case if there are talks of litigation.
Litigation proceedings vary to a large degree, but if you want to pursue litigation, you must file before the statute of limitations expires.
In Minnesota, car crash cases have a 6-year statute of limitations from the date of the collision. If you want to retain an attorney and pursue a personal injury claim, you will need to do so before the statute of limitations expires. If you want to pursue litigation, you will need to file before the 6-year statute of limitations expires. You can still retain a recovery with an older case, but it’s important that you contact your attorney early so they can have at least a year to work on the case before the statute of limitations expires. Once the statute of limitations has expired, you will no longer be able to pursue a claim for this collision.
A year in personal injury moves fast, and the dedicated legal team at BK Law Group is here to help you navigate all aspects of your personal injury claim, from intake to settlement.
If you are currently dealing with a personal injury matter and would like to discuss your case, feel free to contact BK Law Group, and we would be more than happy to help in any way we can.
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