Lawsuit Advances – Improve your Chance for Approval

As a client looking for a lawsuit advance on your pending lawsuit, the most important aspect is getting the approval decision from underwriting. Getting approved for funding is even more important than the fees or costs involved. Why? Because if you cannot get approved for funding, then the fees and costs simply do not matter. Your goal is to get approved. At that point you can then decide to accept the offer or walk away with no costs incurred.

The point of this article is to give you the client, pointers to help you get your lawsuit funding request approved. And I am writing this article with respect to getting personal injury cases approved for funding, mostly because they are the most common funding request we see.

The first step in getting you personal injury case approved for funding, is getting the underwriters the requested paperwork on your case. (By the way, personal injury cases include: auto accidents, motor vehicle accidents, pedestrian accidents, slip-n-fall cases, premises cases, dog bites, etc.)

Cases where the client is proactive in assisting the gathering of this requested paperwork, have a much higher probability of approval.

Remember, you are the client, this is your case. You have every right to request documents on your case file from your attorney. If you can help in getting us the requested documents, you will have a much higher chance for getting your request approved.

With that being said, here is the list of documents, underwriters would ideally like to review on personal injury cases:

1. Police Report, Accident Report, or Incident Report

2. Medical records relating to the accident and subsequent treatment

3. Insurance coverage on the defendant

4. Copy of the lawsuit (complaint) if in suit (i.e. if filed)

5. Pay-off information on any prior advances

6. Expert Reports, Analysis, Opinions, or Investigative Reports

7. Witness statements

8. Settlement Offers and Settlement Demands

Of course not all of the above requested documents are applicable to all case types.

For instance:

Item # 6, is only important for medical malpractice cases, product liability cases, and wrongful death cases.

Item # 7, is important for slip-n-fall and premises cases.

Why do we request these documents?

Let’s look at each requested document, one by one.

Item #1: Police reports are important because they provide an independent party that documents an accident actually took place. They often include a lot if valuable information, such as the parties involved, if anyone was issued a ticket or arrested, or was anyone under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Police reports will often indicate if the injured parties were taken to an ER and if an ambulance was used. Police reports often indicate which insurance companies are involved in an accident. And police reports will sometimes even state who was at fault, which can be important in determining the liability on a case. For all these reasons, police reports are important for us to review.

Item #2: Medical records are important because they help us determine the severity of your injuries. The severity of your injuries is directly proportional to the value of your lawsuit. The more severe your injuries, the more likely your case will settle for a larger dollar amount. And the more severe your injuries, the more likely we can approve you for a larger dollar amount. Personal injury cases where the victim had to have surgery are almost always worth more than cases where the injury did not require surgery. It’s must harder for the defendant’s attorney to attack an injury claim that required surgery. But it’s much easier for the defendant’s attorney to attack injuries that didn’t require surgery and to claim the plaintiff is simply “faking” the injury. We distinguish between injuries requiring surgery and injuries that do not. Injuries that do not require surgery are referred to as “soft-tissue” injuries. In general, the most we will approve for “soft-tissue” injuries is $3,000 and usually the advance is around $1,000. While on cases that require surgery, we often will advance, $5,000, $10,000, and up.

So in terms of medical records, we want to review the following:

Ambulance call report, if applicable
Initial ER records or initial treatment records
Operative (Surgery) reports
Physician (doctor) diagnosis reports
MRI, X-Ray, and any imaging reports, not films

Usually 25 to 40 pages of medical records are plenty. We do not need to see the doctor’s handwritten notes, billing statements, or therapy records. And we do not need to see physical therapy or chiropractor reports.

Item #3: Knowing the insurance policy coverage limits from the defendant is extremely important. (The defendant is the party you are suing. The defendant is usually the one responsible for causing the accident.) The limits on their insurance policy place a theoretical dollar limitation on the case. For example, if a defendant has a $100,000 policy limit, that may be the maximum value of the case. Often we will only advance 10% of an insurance policy coverage limit. If the defendant has no insurance, then as far as we are concerned, the case has no value and we will not approve it for funding. From a litigation stand point, your attorney can sue an insurance company for more than the policy limits, but from our perspective that is a more risky investment.

Item #4: Reviewing a copy of the filed lawsuit is important for several reasons. (The filed lawsuit in many states is called a “complaint”.) When a lawsuit gets filed, this lets us know your attorney is serious and means business. The date a lawsuit is filed is important because it tells us how far along the case is, which gives us an idea how long it will be until settlement. So basically, the filed complaint gives an idea of how serious your attorney is, how experienced they are, and the maturity of the case. All this information helps us to evaluate the case for funding.

Item #5: Prior advances on the case are only applicable if you have received a prior advance on the case. If this is the situation, then we will need the pay-off information on that prior advance. Typically when this happens, for us to advance more money to you the client, we will have to pay-off the existing advance. This allows our lien to have a higher priority by replacing the old lien’s position. The higher priority the lien on a case, the less risky for us, the investor. For example, let say you have a $2,000 prior advance on a case. And you want an additional $2,000. To pay off the prior advance may cost us $4,000 and then we will advance you $2,000. But the new lien on your case will be for $6,000, i.e. $4,000 to pay off the prior plus $2,000 to you the client. So whenever a client comes to us with an existing lien and prior advance on the case, it is always harder and more challenging to get the client approved for more money, because of the cost of removing the first lien.

Item #6: Expert reports, analysis, opinions, etc are only important in evaluating medical malpractice and product liability type cases. In these types of cases, it’s always important to have an “expert” to evaluate your medical records and state in their expert opinion what went wrong. The expert’s opinion often forms the basis for these types of lawsuits. In medical malpractice cases, experts are usually other doctors. And in product liability cases the experts may be doctors, chemists, physicists, engineers, etc.

Item #7: Witness statements are important in premises and slip-n-fall cases, especially, because it is common not to have a police report in these types of accidents. It is usually impossible to substantiate a claim that you fell, without a witness being present or an ambulance coming to get you. Ideally on premises and slip-n-fall cases, we like to see a police report, accident report, or incident report. However, if those do not exist, we often will want to see a witness statement to help substantiate your claim.

Item #8: Settlement Offers and Settlement Demands. Offers and demands are important because they provide insight into the potential value of a case and the level of negotiation activity transpiring. Demands and offers therefore help us to place a dollar value on case, which is critical if we are going to approve the case for funding. Without being able to predict a value on a case, we will not be able to approve the case.

We’ve now addressed all the main documents we request on personal injury cases. Hopefully this gives you a better understanding of what we are looking for and why.

The other area you can improve your chances for an approval is in your communications and relationship with your attorney. Ultimately to fund your case, we will need your attorney’s full cooperation. The cases which are most easily funded, are the ones when the attorney comes directly to us for funding. Why? Because we have the attorney’s full cooperation from the beginning, which allows for a smooth funding process.

Therefore, we recommend from the very beginning of this process, you communicate with your attorney. Communicate your financial needs and your interest in pursuing a lawsuit advance. Some attorney’s are not familiar with lawsuit advances and you may have to educate them about the process and expectations.

On the other hand, attorney’s who are aware of lawsuit funding, will counsel their clients to avoid it, largely because our money is expensive. In this situation you need to communicate to your attorney, you have done your own research, you are aware of the costs, but given your current financial needs, you need your attorney’s cooperation to pursue getting a lawsuit advance.

And lastly, you need to communicate what is expected of your attorney. Your attorney will need to do two things. 1) Provide us the requested documents, which we have already addressed. In reality, the attorney’s assistant or paralegal is the one who actually prepares the requested documents. And 2) once approved, your attorney will be required to sign on the contract, acknowledging the placement of a lien on the case. That’s really all that is required of them.

To summarize, as a client looking for funding your pending lawsuit, you can increase your chances for an approval by:

1. Being proactive in assisting with gathering the requested documents on your case and

2. Communicating your financial needs and your understanding of the costs involved with getting a lawsuit advance to your attorney. Ideally you want your attorney’s cooperation through out the funding process.

Please contact Mr. Eric A. Kelly, with www.Get-Lawsuit-Loan.com with any questions.