Coverage and Collectibility: The First Thing That Limits Your Case

Part of the series: “What Is My Personal Injury Case Worth? A Complete Guide.” This article covers the first factor we look at when valuing an injury case.

When someone asks what their case is worth, the very first thing we look at comes down to two words: coverage and collectibility. Before the severity of an injury even enters the picture, these two factors can set a hard ceiling on what’s realistically recoverable.

Coverage is insurance — liquid money that someone can write a check for, up to the policy’s limit, to pay for the loss. In Nebraska, the minimum auto liability coverage a driver must carry is just $25,000 per person for bodily injury. That is not a lot.

Here’s why it matters so much: if the at-fault driver has only a $25,000 policy and no assets to pursue, it often doesn’t matter how badly you were hurt — even a million-dollar verdict can’t squeeze more than $25,000 out of someone who doesn’t have it. For car crashes, common policy limits run $25,000, $100,000, $250,000, or $500,000, so an early step is simply figuring out what policy the other person has.

Other kinds of cases look different. In matters like traumatic brain injury, nursing-home negligence, or construction-site accidents, the defendants often carry substantial coverage — because the whole point of an insurance policy is to cover exactly that kind of loss.

Sometimes the defendant simply tells you. Sometimes you have to file suit to find out. There’s no magic button that compels disclosure, but most of the time we’re able to determine what coverage exists.

Collectibility is the second question: if your damages exceed the available coverage, is there something else to go after? Does the defendant have assets we can attach or execute on?

With a large, well-capitalized defendant — say, a corporation with significant assets — coverage matters less, because a substantial verdict can be collected against those assets. We have obtained a writ of execution and worked with the sheriff’s office to reach a defendant’s bank accounts and property when needed. But for many individual defendants, collecting beyond the policy is genuinely difficult; as a practical rule, for cases under roughly a million dollars we generally focus on the available coverage, because chasing assets that aren’t there is rarely worth putting a client through.

That last point is important. We have seen horrific injuries where, unfortunately, there was very little coverage and no collectibility — and we won’t put a client through the ordeal of a lawsuit when there’s realistically nothing more to recover than the policy. Being honest about that up front is part of the job.

If you’ve been injured and want an honest assessment of what your case may be worth, the attorneys at High & Younes can help.Consultations are free, and we commonly work on a contingency fee — no upfront cost to you.

Call or text us today at 402-933-3345