Since 1980, Langer & Langer has fought for injured people across Northwest Indiana. We measure our work by one standard: what we actually recover for the clients who trust us. This result belongs to a client we’ll call Harold.*
Harold was 85 years old and a passenger, trusting the person behind the wheel. That driver ran a stop sign, and the car was struck by cross traffic.
The crash fractured Harold’s cervical spine and ruptured his bladder. He needed emergency surgery, followed by an extended hospitalization, a rehabilitation stay, and ongoing care. The complications that followed the surgery left him with permanent catheterization. A man who had managed his own life for eight and a half decades came out of this crash fundamentally dependent in ways he had never been.
Here is what insurance companies do with a client like Harold, said quietly and never in writing: they discount him. An 85-year-old has fewer working years to compensate, so the reflex is to treat the claim as small. We see it differently, and so does the law. Damages are about what a person actually lost, and what Harold lost was the thing he valued most: his independence, his daily functioning, the shape of his remaining years. For a man of 85, that loss is not smaller. It is total.
The case had a second layer. The at-fault driver’s policy was nowhere near sufficient for injuries of this severity, so we recovered those full policy limits and then pursued an underinsured motorist claim on top of them. The combined recovery came to $300,000.
Age does not shrink a claim. If an insurer is treating an older family member’s injuries as worth less, that is not an assessment. It is a strategy, and it can be beaten.
*Our client’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Injured in Northwest Indiana? Talk to Us First.
Talk to us before you talk to the insurance company. The consultation is free, and you pay nothing unless we win. Call Langer & Langer at (219) 464-3246 or reach us online.
Past results do not guarantee any future outcome, and every case is different.
