In our experience, a cyclist will almost always come out ahead financially by hiring an attorney — even after paying the bicycle attorney the attorney’s contingency fee. This is due to many factors, but here are some examples. First, even where the police report squarely puts the fault on the driver, the police report is not binding on the insurance company. This means that the insurance company can still claim, at any point during negotiations, that the cyclist was partially or totally at fault, and thus not entitled to compensation or entitled to less compensation.However, if the cyclist is represented by a lawyer, the insurance company will have a strong disincentive to try this, because the insurance company will have to hire its own lawyer (typically at between $200-$350 per hour) to counter the cyclist’s lawyer’s arguments. Second, the insurance company may also challenge an injured cyclist’s damages, claiming that some or all of their damages/injuries pre-existed the accident, were partially caused by something unrelated to the accident, or are not as serious as the cyclist is claiming. Third, a qualified bicycle-accident attorney can negotiate down the cyclist’s medical and/or health-insurance liens. In a typical case, the medical providers or the cyclist’s own health insurance company have a lien on any settlement obtained by the cyclist. It understandably almost always comes as a surprise to our clients that they will need to pay their health insurance back out of any settlement. When a cyclist is represented by an attorney, a health insurance company is much more likely to take the negotiation seriously and give much bigger reductions on their lien.
