There are 273 million vehicles on America’s roads today. Each year about 5 million are involved in accidents and 1.8 million Americans are injured. Much to the insurance industry’s chagrin, a significant percentage of accident victims hire personal injury lawyers to represent their interests. And for good reason. According to the Insurance Research Council’s own internal data, car accident victims who hire lawyers average 3.5 times more financial restitution for their accident claims than those who don’t hire attorneys. The data below from the 1999 IRC study illustrates the difference in payouts for specific injuries with and without an attorney. The difference in compensation for catastrophic injuries could be substantially more with attorney representation as insurance companies have a much greater financial incentive to contest larger claims and payouts.
**Compensation for injuries have increased substantially since this study was conducted in 1999, so dollar figures in this table would be much higher today due to inflation.
That’s why the insurance industry has disparaged personal injury lawyers for decades, attempting to discredit them by making patently spurious claims like “lawyers are all about money.” Some of the malicious barbs have been repeated so long they’ve become bromides. The irony of course is insurance companies make billion dollar profits, not personal injury attorneys. Further, insurance company’s interests revolve around generating higher profits for their Wall Street shareholders, while injury attorneys represent the interests of ordinary people without the means to stand up to wealthy corporate conglomerates.
High dollar litigation between law firms and insurance companies has become more prevalent lately as pandemic restrictions eased, more people took to the roads and U.S. motor vehicle fatalities increased. U.S. traffic fatalities reached a 16-year high in 2021, with nearly 43,000 deaths. And the trend is continuing. According to the National Highway Traffic Administration, the first three months of 2022 were the deadliest in more than two decades. Over 9,500 people were killed. The rise in traffic deaths is attributed to more people on the roads driving at high speeds, under the influence and without seatbelts. Less police officers on the road is also adding to the problem according to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association.
With billions of dollars in accident victim compensation at stake, Brantley Davis Ad Agency has launched a TV ad that turns the old “lawyers are all about money” bromide on its head, pointing out that the money lawyers obtain for accident victims helps pay for surgery, physical therapy, long term lifecare and to take care of families who lost a loved one due to a negligent driver. While the money insurance companies save by not paying accident claims ends up in the pockets of wealthy Wall Street stock holders. The ad starts out with an attorney proclaiming, “Some say personal injury law is all about the money. Well they’re right.” The commercial goes on to provide examples of how the money is used to help accident victims recover from damage caused by someone else’s carelessness.
Brantley Davis, President of Brantley Davis Ad Agency, commented “sure, many personal injury lawyers make a great living but that’s not why they became lawyers. They chose the legal profession to help people rebuild their lives. And that takes money.” Davis continued, “Is personal injury law about the money? Damn right it is.”