Mercury Insurance Company is a mid-sized insurer who provide car insurance and other forms of insurance in California and select states.
While Mercury doesn’t have the same sort of name recognition as State Farm or GEICO, they handle thousands of car accident claims per year.
Those who file Mercury insurance claims for car accidents will find that it’s difficult to recover fair compensation from insurance companies without a lawyer. Insurance providers generally won’t offer fair settlements unless lawyers threaten them with consequences for their low ball offers.
Call us today for a FREE consultation at (800) 718-4658, text us from this page, fill out this page’s free case evaluation form or contact us here if you or a loved one has been injured or killed in an accident involving a Mercury Insurance policy. We can help you recover an insurance payout which covers medical bills, lost wages, loss of earning capacity, pain, suffering, wrongful death and more. We’ve been helping car accident victims since 1990, have recovered over $750,000,000 for clients, won’t charge any fee until and unless we win your case, and can get you to doctors who will treat you without charging you until your case is over. Call us today.
Will Mercury Offer a Fair Auto Accident Settlement?
While Mercury offers services like rental car coverage, comprehensive coverage, roadside assistance and more, one thing they are not known for is a willingness to offer fair settlements.
Basically, Mercury typically won’t offer a fair settlement without a fight. The company is known for aggressively minimizing payouts – especially compensation for pain and suffering.
What it comes down to is that if you don’t have a lawyer, Mercury won’t respect you enough to offer you a fair settlement. You may even end up facing a denied claim if you don’t have a lawyer.
When someone who has a Mercury auto insurance policy injures you in an auto accident via negligence, Mercury is obligated under California Civil Code § 1714 to pay you for your injuries up to the policy limits. However, this is an obligation which can only be enforced via the civil court system. That means suing Mercury over a low ball offer to force them to pay you what you’re entitled to.
Mercury and other providers know that you can’t win a lawsuit against them without a lawyer. This means that if you aren’t represented by an attorney, insurance providers like Mercury will take advantage of the fact, and offer you lowball settlement amounts.
However, the game changes when you have a lawyer. A lawyer can help you gather evidence like police reports, testimony from accident reconstruction experts and more. A lawyer can then use that evidence to construct a strong, convincing argument that the person Mercury insures is at fault for your injuries, and that if you sue Mercury for a fair payout, you’ll win.
We’ve been dealing with insurance companies for over 30 years and in that time, almost all of our cases have settled out of court for fair amounts. That’s because insurance companies have data on us which shows that when we go to court, we win.
In short, hiring a lawyer can mean the difference between having all of your medical bills paid off and facing a lifetime of medical debt after a car accident.
Average Mercury Car Accident Settlement Payouts
Mercury settlement payouts will vary based on injury severity and damages. When comparing insurers, settlements from providers like The Hartford or GEICO are sometimes said to be higher in value.
The average car accident settlement payout that people receive from Mercury may range from $10,000 to $75,000, but payouts could be worth less or more than that depending upon the specific damages that are suffered. Another factor that will affect the size of your settlement will be the policy limits.
Damages which the lawyers at our law firm can help you recover financial compensation for include:
Medical Bills
A Mercury Insurance payout could include compensation for all past and future medical expenses related to the injuries suffered in the car accident. This means covering all of the medical bills you’re already facing as well as any medical bills you can be reasonably anticipated to face in the future which are related to any injuries suffered in your car accident.
Lost Wages
Mercury could cover the wages you’re unable to earn due to your injuries. This could mean wages you can’t earn because you’re hurt too badly to work. This could also mean wages you can’t earn because you have to take time off from work to get your injuries treated.
Loss of Earning Capacity
If you suffer a permanent disability due to your injuries, Mercury could cover the loss or reduction of earning capacity which is created by the disability.
Property Damage
Mercury may cover the cost to repair or replace your vehicle after your accident, as well as the cost to repair or replace any personal property inside of your vehicle at the time of the accident.
Pain and Suffering
Mercury may cover the physical pain, mental suffering and emotional distress that you endure due to your car accident.
Wrongful Death
If you lost a loved one to a car accident, Mercury may cover things like funeral bills, burial bills, lost income, loss of love and companionship, loss of household services, your loved one’s medical bills and your loved one’s pain and suffering.
How Mercury Insurance Handles Fault and Liability
Mercury will do their own investigation into the accident in order to try to pin the blame for the accident on you so they don’t have to pay you any money. They’ll examine police reports, photos, witness statements, dashcam footage and more.
Mercury may try to pin partial fault on you. This not only affects your payout but can also trigger an insurance rate hike if you aren’t proactive about avoiding an insurance increase after an accident.
If liability gets disputed, it can delay or reduce the size of your settlement.
This is where having an attorney can help you out a lot. Our lawyers can help gather evidence to protect your side of the story. We can gather evidence and put together a strong case which proves that the at-fault driver represented by Mercury is to blame for your injuries. If you are actually partially at fault for your accident, we can minimize the percentage of fault attributed to you in order to maximize your payout. Just call us for a free consultation at (800) 718-4658 so we can prove to Mercury that your accident was the fault of their insured and, if necessary, minimize any partial fault attributed to you.
How Much Does Mercury Insurance Pay for Bodily Injuries?
Mercury includes liability insurance in their packages. This means if you damage someone else, they’ll cover a portion which compensates them. For bodily injuries, they’ll cover as much as $25,000 per person injured as well as $50,000 for each accident. California insurers are required to cover up to $30,000 by the California Department of Insurance.
Should you choose to include personal injury protection in an insurance plan, Mercury will cover medical bills should you get hurt in any accident. In the case of wrongful death, they’ll cover death expenses like burial and funeral expenses.
If you got injured because of the carelessness of someone else, you should consider consulting with a car accident lawyer.
Tips to Maximize Your Mercury Insurance Claim
There are things to do to maximize your Mercury Insurance claim, including not giving recorded statements, not accepting first offers, collecting strong medical documentation and calling a lawyer.
Don’t Give a Recorded Statement
Insurance adjusters like the adjusters at Mercury are trained to trick injury victims into saying things while being recorded which imply they’re at fault for their accidents or imply their injuries aren’t as severe as they’re claiming.
The adjusters are very good at manipulating injury victims into saying these things. You can fall for their tricks even if you know they’re trying to trick you.
One example would be that a Mercury adjuster may begin the conversation by asking, “How are you today?” It may be your instinct to reply, “fine,” but if you do, they can twist this response and use it as “evidence” that you must not actually be hurt very badly if you said “fine.”
As you can see, they can twist the tiniest little thing you say and use it to their advantage so they can pay you less money or no money at all.
Do not give Mercury adjusters a recorded statement. Let a lawyer do it for you instead.
Never Accept the First Offer
The first offer from Mercury will pretty much always be a low ball offer. Mercury knows you’re probably in a pretty bad financial situation after your accident: unable to work due to your injuries, facing huge medical bills, and unable to pay those bills since you can’t work. They know you’re probably desperate for money right now. So, they’re going to offer you a low ball offer and pressure you into accepting it, trying to take advantage of your desperation.
The best thing you can do at this point is to not accept the first offer, then let lawyers with experience negotiating with insurance companies negotiate with Mercury for you.
Gather Strong Medical Documentation
It’s important that you be seen by a medical professional as soon as possible after being injured in an accident – even if you don’t think your injuries are serious. Serious injuries can actually sometimes take quite a while to show symptoms. If you wait too long to have your injuries documented, though, Mercury can claim something other than your accident caused them.
It’s important to:
- Seek immediate medical attention after an accident
- Dutifully attend all follow-up appointments
- Dutifully follow all of your doctors’ recommendations
By doing these things, you get your injuries documented, you get a link between your accident and your injuries documented, and you make sure that it is documented that your injuries are serious enough to require follow-up appointments and all of the treatments prescribed by your doctors. This helps prove to Mercury that you were injured, your injuries were caused by your accident and your injuries are as severe as you’re claiming.
Call a Lawyer
Lawyers can force Mercury to pay you what you’re entitled to by suing Mercury and winning over a low ball offer. Lawyers can prove to Mercury that their insured was at fault for your accident and can handle all communications with Mercury for you so you don’t have to worry about incriminating yourself on the phone with them.
We can help you build a stronger case and increase your payout – just call the number on this page.
How Long Does Mercury Insurance Take to Pay a Settlement?
The amount of time your claim will take to process will depend on multiple factors, such as injury severity, how long it takes to reach maximum medical improvement, the skill of your lawyer, etc.
That being said, once a settlement gets agreed upon, Mercury will have 30 days to pay you.
Some Mercury auto claim checks might arrive in a week. Others may take longer depending on your case’s complexity.
Things that could delay payments include missing paperwork or disputes over liability.
Hiring a lawyer can help to speed things up and avoid delays.
Can You Sue Mercury for Denying or Delaying a Claim?
Yes, you can file a Mercury Insurance lawsuit if Mercury unfairly denies, delays or underpays your claim. These are things that happen when insurers like Mercury act in bad faith. Lawsuits can lead to larger settlements or extra damages.
Contact a Mercury Auto Accident Lawyer Today
Our attorneys have been dealing with insurance companies’ bad faith tactics for over 30 years. We’ve recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from insurance companies for our clients. We know how to counter all of the insurance companies’ bad faith tactics like delaying claims, trying to pin fault on our clients, etc.
We won’t charge any fee to handle your Mercury claim until and unless we recover compensation on your behalf. This means we won’t charge an upfront fee or out-of-pocket fee to handle your Mercury claim – our only fee will be a percentage of any recovery obtained.
We can get you to doctors who won’t charge you until your case is over if you can’t afford treatment for your injuries. Doctors do this for our clients as a sign of trust because they know we get great results for our clients.
Call us today for a FREE consultation at (800) 718-4658. We’ll fight to hold Mercury accountable and pursue the full compensation you deserve for medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and more.
