Seattle Car Accident Lawyer

What Does It Cost to Hire Us After a Crash?

Nothing upfront.

No Fees. Unless We Win.

Our fee is a percentage of the settlement or verdict, agreed in writing before we start. No retainer, no hourly billing, no invoice while your case is open.

The costs of building a case, such as medical records, crash reconstruction, and filing fees, are advanced by the firm and repaid out of the recovery.

Before you sign anything, you should know the exact percentage, whether it changes if the case goes to trial, and who carries the case costs from start to finish. We put all three in writing and go over them with you line by line.

When Hiring a Lawyer Actually Changes the Outcome

Not always, and we will tell you when you don’t. If you were not hurt, the other driver was clearly at fault, and the only issue is a bumper, you can usually handle that yourself with a property damage adjuster.

The calculation changes when any of these are true: you needed more than one medical visit, the insurer is questioning who caused the crash, the at-fault driver was uninsured, or an adjuster has already offered you money.

Once an offer is on the table, the insurer has already put a number on your injuries. That number is a starting position, and it is usually built on the assumption that you will not push back.

The First Two Weeks Set Up Everything Else

The first two weeks decide how hard the rest of the claim will be. Evidence disappears, medical gaps appear in your records, and the insurer locks in its theory of the case.

Should You Give the Other Insurer a Recorded Statement?

No, not before you have talked to a lawyer. The adjuster is trained to take statements, and the questions are built to produce answers they can use later: how fast you were going, whether you saw the other car, whether you feel “okay.”

Your own insurer is different. Most policies require you to cooperate, so that statement usually has to happen. We handle both so the difference does not become a problem.

Who Pays Your Medical Bills While the Claim Is Open?

Your own Personal Injury Protection coverage, if you have it. PIP is medical coverage that rides on your auto policy and pays your treatment regardless of who caused the crash.

Washington insurers must offer PIP, and it applies unless you rejected it in writing under RCW 48.22.085. Most Seattle drivers have at least $10,000 of it and do not realize it.

Health insurance covers the rest, and both may claim reimbursement from your settlement later. Sorting that out early is part of what protects the money you actually keep.

Evidence That Disappears Within Days

Intersection and business camera footage is often recorded over within days. Vehicles get repaired or sold to salvage, which destroys the crush damage a reconstructionist would measure and the data stored in the car’s event data recorder.

We ask for the footage, send the preservation letters, and photograph the vehicle before the tow yard releases it.

Not sure whether you need a lawyer yet? Ask us. There is no charge for the answer.

At the Scene, Keep It Simple

Then keep it simple. Call 911 and ask for police and medical help, even if everyone seems fine, because a collision report you did not request is very hard to create later.

Photograph both vehicles from several angles, the full scene including traffic signals and lane markings, and the other driver’s license, insurance card, and plate. Then ask anyone who stopped for a phone number, since witnesses leave quickly and police often do not collect them.

Say as little as possible about fault, including apologies. In a claim, “I’m sorry” gets quoted back as an admission, and the person who said it was usually just being decent.

Accept medical evaluation at the scene if it is offered. If you decline and symptoms appear that night, go in immediately and tell the provider it started after a crash, so the record links the two.

How Does Washington’s Fault System Decide Who Pays?

Washington is an at-fault state, so the driver who caused the crash, through their insurance, pays for the harm they caused. There is no threshold to cross before you can claim for pain and suffering, and no cap on your damages.

What If You Were Partly at Fault?

You can still recover. Washington uses pure comparative fault, which means your award is reduced by your share of the blame and nothing more. RCW 4.22.005 puts it plainly: contributory fault “diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as compensatory damages.”

A driver found 30 percent responsible still collects 70 percent. Even a rider who was well over half at fault keeps something, which is different from Florida and most other states.

This is exactly why insurers assign fault percentages aggressively. Every point of blame they move onto you is a discount on what they pay.

What If the Other Driver Has No Insurance?

Then your own Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist coverage becomes the claim. UM/UIM pays what the at-fault driver should have paid, up to your limits, and it also covers hit-and-run crashes where the other car is never identified.

It applies when the other driver carried only state-minimum liability limits and your injuries are worth more than that policy. In a serious Seattle crash, that happens often.

How Long Do You Have to File?

Three years from the date of the crash, under RCW 4.16.080. Claims against a city, county, or state agency run on a shorter track and require a formal tort claim form before any lawsuit, so a crash with a transit bus or a road-maintenance vehicle has to be evaluated quickly.

What Is a Seattle Car Accident Claim Worth?

The value comes from four things: what the crash cost you in money, what it cost you in daily life, what your treatment will cost going forward, and how clearly the evidence pins fault on the other driver.

Anyone who quotes you a figure in the first phone call is guessing. Until your doctors know whether you are going to recover fully, nobody can value the claim honestly, and settling before then is how people end up paying for their own surgery a year later.

Why Do Insurers Argue a Crash Was Too Minor to Hurt You?

Because it works, and because it is cheap. A photo of a bumper with no visible damage is the most common reason a legitimate injury claim gets lowballed.

Cars are not built the same, and impact angles are not the same. A tow hitch can absorb a hit and leave the bumper looking untouched while the force still reaches the people inside. Frame damage often sits behind panels that look fine.

We pull the repair estimate, ask the body shop whether they checked for structural damage, and in the right case download the event data recorder, the black box that records speed and braking in the seconds before impact. That is how a “minor” crash stops being minor.

Gaps in Treatment Quietly Lower a Settlement

Because if your pain is not documented in medical records, the insurance company treats it as if it did not exist. That is not fair, but it is how claims get valued.

Missing appointments, waiting three weeks to see a doctor, or telling the ER you feel fine because you do not want a bill all show up later as an argument that you were not really injured.

Property Damage, Rentals, and Total Loss Values

That is a separate claim, and it moves faster than the injury claim. The at-fault driver’s property damage coverage pays to repair your vehicle or, if it is totaled, to pay its actual cash value.

Two things get missed. First, rental coverage, which you are generally entitled to while repairs happen and which insurers often provide grudgingly. Second, the valuation itself, since a carrier’s first total loss figure is frequently below what comparable vehicles actually sell for in this market, and it can be challenged with listings.

Property damage settles independently, so accepting a check for your car does not settle your injury claim. Just read what you are signing, because a release with broad language attached to a vehicle payment is a problem.

Seattle Roads Where Fault Gets Disputed Most

Crashes where both drivers were moving and neither had a clear stop sign or red light are the ones insurers dispute hardest, and Seattle has a lot of them.

The I-5 express lane entrances and the collector-distributor lanes near the I-90 interchange generate merge collisions where each driver insists the other drifted. Aurora Avenue North and Rainier Avenue South produce left-turn and mid-block crashes where a witness matters more than a diagram.

Downtown one-way grids and the SR-99 tunnel approaches add another problem: drivers who are not sure which lane they are supposed to be in, and who change their story about it later.

Most King County cases that go to suit are filed in King County Superior Court, and how a case will be received there is part of what shapes a settlement long before a trial date.

Crash Types Our Seattle Attorneys Handle

Our Seattle car accident lawyers handle collisions where someone else’s driving caused an injury, from a single rear-end hit to a multi-car pileup on the freeway.

Rear-end and stoplight crashes are the most common, and they are also the ones insurers try hardest to reduce to a repair bill. Left-turn and intersection collisions turn on right of way, and often on a witness the police never interviewed.

Lane-change and merge crashes on I-5 and SR-520 usually come down to physical evidence, since both drivers describe the same thirty seconds differently. Hit-and-run claims run through your own uninsured motorist coverage, and they move faster when the report is filed right away.

We also take crashes caused by drivers who were drinking, drivers who were reading a phone, and drivers in company vehicles, where a second insurance policy usually sits behind the driver.

Cases we do not handle, we say so early. Sending someone to the right place beats holding a file that is going nowhere.

How Long Does a Seattle Car Accident Claim Take?

Most claims that settle without a lawsuit resolve somewhere between four months and a year and a half. The two things that move that number are how long you treat and how much the insurer disputes.

Why Does Medical Treatment Set the Pace?

Because a claim cannot be valued until your doctors know where you are going to land. Settling while you are still treating means guessing at the cost of care you have not received yet, and once you sign, the claim is closed for good.

If you recover fully in eight weeks of physical therapy, the case can move quickly. If you are headed toward an injection series, a surgical consult, or a referral to an orthopedic doctor, the responsible move is to wait for those answers.

Inside the Demand and Negotiation Stage

Once treatment is complete or your prognosis is clear, we assemble the medical records, the billing, the wage documentation, and the evidence on fault, and send a demand package to the insurer.

Adjusters usually take 30 to 60 days to respond, and the first response is almost always low. That is a negotiating position, not an evaluation. Several rounds of back and forth are normal, and each round should be backed by a record, not an argument about fairness.

When Does Filing a Lawsuit Make Sense?

When the insurer’s number stops moving and the gap is real, or when the three-year deadline is close. Filing does not mean a trial. Most filed cases still settle, often after depositions or mediation, because the carrier’s math changes once a jury becomes a possibility.

A King County case that goes to trial typically takes a year or more from filing. We talk through that trade-off with you before anything gets filed, because it is your decision, not ours.

What If a Rideshare, Delivery, or Company Vehicle Hit You?

Then there is usually more insurance available, and more argument about which policy applies. An Uber or Lyft driver carries different coverage depending on whether the app was off, on and waiting, or on with a passenger, and the ride-hailing company’s policy only reaches the higher limits during an active trip.

Delivery drivers create a similar question, since some are employees covered by a commercial policy and some are contractors using personal insurance. Company-owned vehicles bring in the employer directly, along with questions about hiring, training, and whether the driver was on the clock.

These claims are worth more when they are handled as commercial claims from day one. They are worth much less when they are handled as ordinary two-car crashes and nobody asks for the app data or the employment records before they are gone.

How We Handle a Seattle Car Accident Claim

We take the claim off your plate. Our office contacts both insurers, opens the PIP claim, requests the police report and any available video, gathers your medical records as treatment goes on, and deals with the adjusters so you are not doing it from a couch with a neck brace on.

You get a single point of contact who tells you what is happening, including when nothing is happening because a records request is sitting in a hospital queue. Some clients want a phone call, some only want email. We work the way you prefer.

Boohoff Law is a two-state firm, with attorneys admitted in Washington and Florida and an office at 920 5th Avenue, Suite 1530, in downtown Seattle. Founder Tatiana Boohoff is admitted in both states and is a Life Member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum.

We handle these cases in English and Spanish, with attorneys and staff who speak both. That matters more than it sounds. In a deposition, a Spanish-speaking client describing pain “en la cintura” is describing the low back, and an interpreter who translates it as “waist” has just changed the medical record. We catch that because we are listening in both languages.

If you cannot come to us, we come to you, at home or at the hospital.

Send us the details of your crash and we will tell you, honestly, whether you need us.

Seattle Car Accident Questions Our Attorneys Hear Most

Talk to Us Before Your Next Call With the Adjuster

You do not have to decide about a lawyer today. You do have to decide what to say the next time an adjuster calls, and that is a much easier decision with someone who has read your police report sitting next to you.

Boohoff Law reviews Seattle car accident claims at no cost and answers around the clock. If we are not the right fit, we will say so and point you somewhere useful.

If your crash involved a commercial rig or box truck, a Seattle truck accident lawyer handles a different set of rules and deadlines, and we cover those claims too. If you were struck from behind, our page on rear-end car accidents in Seattle walks through how those claims are valued.

Request a free case review online, day or night.

Past results do not guarantee or predict similar outcomes in future cases. Every legal matter is different.