The demand letter is where a personal injury claim turns a corner. Up to that point, you have been collecting records, sketching the story, and watching medical bills stack up. The demand letter crystallizes it all into a clear ask, backed by evidence and law. When you send it matters almost as much as what it says. Send it too soon and you risk leaving money on the table. Wait too long and you may bump against a statute of limitations or lose negotiation leverage. After years of handling claims from rear-end crashes to premises liability and workplace accidents, I can say the calendar isn’t a bystander in a personal injury case. It is a tool.
This guide walks through timing the demand letter with the kind of judgment that an experienced personal injury attorney brings to a case. It explains why you rarely want to rush, when you should push forward, and how insurers read the calendar differently than you do. It also offers practical ways to protect your claim while you wait for the right moment.
What a demand letter does and why timing shapes value
A demand letter sets your opening position. It summarizes liability, outlines injuries, documents medical treatment and cost, addresses lost wages, and then quantifies pain, limitations, and future care. That last piece often drives the number. Insurers expect a bodily injury attorney to support every dollar with records, expert opinions, or at least clean logic. Timing affects your ability to show, not just tell.
Claims tend to ripen. Orthopedic injuries stabilize or declare themselves. Soft tissue symptoms either resolve or persist, prompting imaging. Your providers transition from acute care to a prognosis: will you need injections, hardware removal, or physical therapy for another six months? Without that picture, your demand risks being an educated guess. Insurers treat guesses as discounts.
That said, not every case benefits from waiting. Some claims are straightforward: a clean fracture with full union, minimal residuals, and a fixed sum of bills. Other claims involve clear liability but policy limits so low that value becomes capped. In those situations, a well-timed demand can speed resolution and reduce stress for the client.
Understanding medical “maximum medical improvement” and its practical limits
Most injury claim lawyers anchor timing to maximum medical improvement, often shortened to MMI. It is the point where your condition is as good as it is likely to get with reasonable treatment. You may not be perfect, but doctors can now state what, if anything, remains and what it will cost to manage.
In a neck and back case after a moderate car crash, the first 8 to 12 weeks tell you very little. Some people feel significantly better by week ten. Others stall and need an MRI, which can reveal a disc issue or nothing at all. If the MRI shows a disc protrusion, you may try conservative care or injections over the next 2 to 4 months. Some clients improve. Others become surgical candidates. If surgery is likely, it is generally better to complete it before demanding a final settlement, as postoperative results change valuation more than any narrative can.
Real life complicates MMI. People need funds to keep the lights on. Treatment can be delayed for insurance reasons, not medical ones. A client might move for work, leaving gaps in care that an insurer will exploit. The job of a personal injury lawyer is to balance the clinical ideal with practical constraints. You do not have to reach perfect MMI to send a strong demand. You need enough to credibly project the future and to defend that projection.
Liability clarity drives the clock too
Timing is not just about medicine. If fault is disputed, the earlier you can lock down liability, the better. Photos of skid marks fade. A loose railing gets repaired. Witnesses move. Police body cam footage can be overwritten after a retention period. Before thinking about value, many civil injury lawyers focus on https://jaidendjpf890.theburnward.com/how-fault-is-determined-in-car-accidents-a-legal-perspective securing critical liability evidence. That might involve sending spoliation letters, downloading event data recorders, or hiring an investigator within days.
Once liability is pinned down, negotiation dynamics change. Insurers know when they have exposure. If the defense sees the plaintiff team building a trial-ready case, they tend to value earlier. If they sense delay or disorganization, they are content to wait you out. An experienced injury settlement attorney often invests early in fault development because the payout later depends on it, even if the demand letter itself goes out months down the road.
Statutes of limitations and pre-suit requirements
No demand letter should go out blind to the statute of limitations. In most states, you have two to three years to file a personal injury suit, although claims against government entities often require a notice within a much shorter window, sometimes as short as 90 or 180 days. Medical malpractice claims may have specialized rules. If you are dealing with an at-fault driver who was on the job, federal and state notice provisions may lurk in the background.
The demand letter usually precedes filing. But if the deadline approaches, your personal injury attorney should file to protect the claim, then negotiate with the insurer’s defense counsel. Filing does not end settlement, it just changes the forum. I have filed on day 720 of a two-year statute for a premises liability claim to avoid blowing the deadline while we were still waiting on a surgeon’s report. We settled six months later for a number the pre-suit adjuster would not consider.
Policy limits and when it pays to move fast
If the at-fault driver carries minimum limits, and your damages blow past them, delay rarely helps. The defense cannot pay what it does not have. In a low-limits scenario, a prompt and well-supported limits demand may be wise, particularly if you can layer underinsured motorist coverage or a third-party defendant. The key is to document damages cleanly and to comply with state-specific rules for a valid policy limits demand. Some states require clear deadlines, a sworn statement of liens, and itemized bills. Miss one technical point and the insurer will use it to refuse tender.
Premises cases are different. Corporations rarely have low limits, but they fight liability harder. Early demands can feel premature if you lack store incident reports, maintenance logs, or video. Here, holding off until you pry that evidence loose can be the difference between a token offer and a fair one.
The insurer’s calendar versus yours
Adjusters and defense counsel work with internal metrics: file age, reserve adequacy, and quarterly closure goals. They watch medical billing patterns and treatment gaps. They also watch the statute of limitations clock. If they think you will not file, they will drag their feet. If you file early and press discovery, you can pull offers out months sooner than a passive claim would generate, even with identical facts.
Some insurers value around milestones. A completed MRI may bump a reserve by a few thousand. A documented surgery can bump it by tens of thousands. A clear causation opinion from a treating physician can move a claim from “maybe” to “likely” in their evaluation models. An injury lawsuit attorney who understands these triggers will time the demand to coincide with one or two of them, not before.
Building a record worth reading before you send
A demand letter without a tight record invites nitpicking. An effective personal injury claim lawyer works the file in the months leading up to the demand:
- Gather every page of medical records and bills, including radiology reports, operative notes, and physical therapy narratives. Do not rely on summaries. Get employment and wage verification that shows missed time, changed duties, or lost opportunities, not just a generic letter. Document out-of-pocket costs with receipts, not estimates. Ask treating providers for causation and prognosis statements in plain language that ties injuries to the incident. Organize photographs of the scene, property damage, and the client’s recovery timeline.
That is the first of only two lists in this article, and it exists because steps matter here. The more complete your file, the more persuasive your letter. The more persuasive your letter, the less likely the adjuster will feel safe low-balling you.
What a credible timeline looks like in common injury scenarios
No two claims share the same rhythm, but patterns emerge. Here are practical snapshots based on real-world pacing.
Rear-end collision with soft tissue injury. Initial 2 to 4 weeks to assess pain. If symptoms persist, add imaging at 6 to 10 weeks. Physical therapy for 8 to 12 weeks. If the client improves significantly by month three or four, a demand around month five with full records often makes sense. If symptoms linger beyond month four, consider specialist evaluation before demanding. If a pain management physician recommends injections, wait for results.
Slip and fall with fracture. Acute phase is clear. The fracture either heals cleanly or leads to complications. If the client has hardware or surgical intervention, short-term outcomes are often known by month four to six. A demand around month six to eight can work, but if the surgeon flags a second procedure, consider waiting or at least quantifying the future care path with medical opinions.
Commercial trucking crash with disputed liability. Move fast on liability: download ECM data, secure dashcam footage, and serve preservation letters within days. Medical timelines may be long, but liability development should not wait. You might hold the demand until you have a strong causation narrative and clear injury trajectory, yet you can still send an early liability-focused letter to set the tone and freeze defenses that often shift.
Premises liability with disputed ownership or maintenance. Identify the correct entity early. Subpoena contracts showing who maintained the area. Get incident reports. Timing the demand until after you pierce the ownership veil avoids the “wrong defendant” shuffle that wastes months. Value cannot be meaningfully discussed until the right players are at the table.
Balancing financial need with strategic patience
Clients live in the gap between accident and settlement. Bills show up before offers do. Health insurance may cover treatment, but co-pays and deductibles pile up. For some, waiting six extra months for a larger settlement is feasible. For others, it is not. A personal injury protection attorney in a no-fault state might leverage PIP benefits to float treatment while the claim matures. In at-fault systems, lien-based care or medical funding can bridge the gap, but those options come with costs that reduce net recovery.
When a client faces eviction or job loss, a personal injury law firm may recommend an earlier demand that banks a decent recovery instead of chasing the last 10 or 15 percent over another year. That is not surrender, it is judgment. The best injury attorney will explain the trade-offs plainly and let the client choose based on a complete picture.
The hidden cost of treatment gaps and how they affect timing
Insurers love gaps. A three-week hole between doctor visits becomes “proof” that you healed or that something else caused your flare-up. If your care pauses because you moved, lost transportation, or waited on insurance authorization, document it. A short letter from your provider confirming you called for appointments, or a note explaining the hold for imaging, can neutralize the argument. Sometimes I will delay a demand two or three weeks just to close a gap, schedule a follow-up, and give the adjuster one less excuse.
When to file suit before sending a demand
Some claims benefit from an early lawsuit. If an insurer stonewalls liability or insists on a low value despite serious injury, filing can reset the conversation. Courts impose deadlines. Discovery pries loose documents that pre-suit adjusters won’t share. Once a defense lawyer sees the case, including your client’s deposition performance and objective imaging, valuation often improves.
There are also tactical reasons to file. If you face a short statute and need to add a corporate defendant after you uncover maintenance contracts, filing and amending later might be the only safe route. Filing does not end the chance to negotiate. Plenty of strong cases settle after depositions but before trial.
Special considerations with minors, wrongful death, and government claims
Minors. Settlement of a minor’s claim often requires court approval. Timing matters because the court will examine whether the settlement fairly accounts for future needs. Waiting for an orthopedic specialist to outline growth plate implications or for a neurologist to comment on concussion recovery can prevent a later challenge.
Wrongful death. The demand turns on liability reconstruction and economic analysis. You will need earnings history, tax returns, and perhaps an economist’s report. Families also need space to grieve. Rushing a wrongful death demand seldom helps. But do move quickly on accident reconstruction and autopsy results. If multiple insurers are involved, coordinate demands to avoid inconsistent narratives.
Government entities. Short notice deadlines change the sequence. Serve the statutory notice promptly, then build the record. Do not expect early concessions on liability. The demand may follow longer investigative work than a private claim would require.
How adjusters read “pain and suffering,” and when to quantify
Pain is subjective, but its documentation is not. Adjusters key off objective correlates: imaging findings, surgical interventions, consistent therapy notes, and functional limits noted by providers. A daily pain journal helps, but it is strongest when providers echo it. When timing a demand, I look for patterns: fewer missed therapy sessions, stable medication use, clear work restrictions. That is when you can credibly quantify human losses without sounding inflated.
Some plaintiff lawyers send an initial demand with a wide range for non-economic damages, then refine after the insurer signals its reserve. I prefer a well-supported figure from the start. A precise number tells the adjuster you have done the math and are prepared to defend it. If you need to wait four weeks to collect two crucial doctor letters that tie symptoms to MRI findings, wait.
Setting and enforcing a deadline in the demand letter
A demand letter needs a response date. Thirty days is common. For policy limits demands, follow your state’s rules strictly and give a reasonable window, often 20 to 30 days, unless extraordinary circumstances justify more. If an insurer asks for additional records, weigh whether the request is legitimate. If it is, provide them and reset the clock. If it is a fishing expedition, hold your ground and keep the deadline. An injury settlement attorney should memorialize extensions in writing to avoid disputes later.
Negotiation cadence after the demand goes out
Adjusters rarely meet the first number. Expect a counter that tests your resolve. If the counter ignores future care you have documented, you are still too early or the adjuster needs escalation. Ask politely for supervisor review when a case warrants it. If the value remains off by a large margin, consider filing suit rather than trading small moves. While many accident injury attorneys resolve claims within two or three rounds, complex cases may require depositions or mediation to align expectations.
Mediation works best once both sides see the same records and understand the same risks. Timing your demand so that mediation falls after key medical milestones can keep the day from turning into a futile exercise.
How “injury lawyer near me” searches fit into the timing equation
Clients often search “injury lawyer near me” after an accident and expect quick answers. A good personal injury legal help consultation should map the medical timeline, the statute, and the evidence plan. A free consultation personal injury lawyer will not fix an injured back in one phone call, but they can set expectations. If someone promises a fast settlement in a case that plainly needs more time to mature, ask what they plan to do when new treatment becomes necessary after you sign the release. A thoughtful personal injury legal representation strategy values both speed and completeness.
Using underinsured motorist coverage to buy time
Underinsured motorist coverage can buffer against low third-party limits. If your damages exceed the at-fault policy, you can take the limits and pursue your own carrier for the rest. Timing becomes a two-step. You may demand third-party limits quickly, then gather more records for an underinsured demand. Some states require consent-to-settle procedures to preserve UIM rights. A personal injury protection attorney in a no-fault jurisdiction will coordinate PIP, liability, med pay, and UIM so they do not clash.
Red flags that suggest you should not wait any longer
- The statute of limitations is within six months, and no meaningful movement has occurred. The insurer has all records and continues to undervalue by an unreasonable margin. Liability evidence is as developed as it will get, and further delay offers little gain. Your client’s recovery has plateaued, and remaining care is maintenance, not curative. A named defendant is a dissolving entity or a policy is eroding with defense costs, risking reduced collectability.
That is the second and final list. Each item points to a different kind of clock: legal, strategic, practical, medical, and financial. When more than one starts ticking loudly, file or demand promptly.
What strong timing looks like in practice
Take a mid-30s client with a T-bone collision, airbag deployment, and a torn labrum in the shoulder. ER visit, orthopedist within a week, MRI by day 21. Physical therapy for two months, only partial relief. Surgeon consult at month three recommends arthroscopy. We pause any global demand. Surgery at month five, clean repair. By month eight, therapy finishes, and the surgeon notes near-normal range with residual weakness. We gather bills, wage loss from eight weeks off work, and a letter on future risk of arthritis. Demand goes out at month nine with a concrete narrative, operative photos, and a fair ask that anticipates the defense’s arguments. Settlement arrives at month eleven, roughly four times the medical specials, because the case had matured.
Now consider a low-limits rear-end crash with clear liability and $35,000 in medical bills. The at-fault driver carries $25,000. You also have $100,000 in UIM. We send a policy limits demand at month four once bills exceed the liability limit and we have the records. We secure the $25,000, preserve UIM rights, then continue care for another two months to solidify future treatment needs. At month seven, we send a detailed UIM demand to the client’s carrier. This two-stage timing maximizes recovery without unnecessary delay.
How a personal injury law firm structures the timeline from day one
From intake, a seasoned negligence injury lawyer maps out two tracks: liability development and medical progression. We calendar key medical appointments, set reminders for imaging follow-ups, and request records on rolling intervals rather than waiting until the end. We also identify the likely inflection points where a demand could be strongest, and we explain them to the client. Clear expectations prevent frustration and reactive decisions. If a client understands that a surgeon’s note expected in June could add five figures to case value, June becomes a goal, not a delay.
We also keep an eye on liens and subrogation. Health insurers, Medicare, Medicaid, and ERISA plans may assert rights. Negotiating liens after settlement can save thousands, but you need accurate lien figures before deciding whether an offer truly works. Timing the demand to allow for lien verification avoids accepting a number that looks good on paper and disappoints in the client’s bank account.
The bottom line on timing, distilled
A demand letter is not a formality. It is a moment you earn by building a record that leaves little room for doubt. You earn it by pushing liability early, nurturing the medical narrative until it stabilizes, and watching the statutory and practical deadlines that shape negotiation leverage. The right time is usually when you can prove the future as confidently as the past, when your client can see a light at the end of treatment, and when the insurer will have to defend an unflattering risk at trial if they refuse to pay.
If you are unsure where your claim stands, talk to a serious injury lawyer who handles this terrain daily. Ask how they time demands in cases like yours, how they protect statutes while treatment continues, and how they leverage policy limits when applicable. A capable personal injury attorney does not just write a demand. They choose the moment so the letter lands with weight, not hope.