Writing Colossus Demand Letters using Settlement Intelligence
If you are looking for AI demand letter technology, you want to first understand what the AI technology knows. Who has trained the AI, and using what expertise? Unless the AI is trained correctly it is not possible for the platform to create demand letters optimized to obtain the best settlement offers. With over 90% of all auto claims in the United States being evaluated by claim software, licensing software that considers the unique nature of each insurance claim software system used, and how to optimize your demand letter for that insurer should be central to your decision which AI demand letter platform to license. The most famous of the insurance bodily injury programs is Colossus, so we frequently get asked how to write demand letters optimized for Colossus using Settlement Intelligence.
The founders of Settlement Intelligence have an extensive background in insurance claim software. Aaron DeShaw’s research into insurance claim software goes back to 2001, resulting in the landmark book, Colossus: What Every Trial Lawyer Needs to Know, published by Trial Guides. When it was published, Colossus had been kept secret by the insurance companies, with almost no lawyers aware of its existence. DeShaw’s 523 page book uncovered the widespread use of the program, how it worked, and serves as the basis for most of what is now published by lawyers on the internet about Colossus.
During his three years of research into Colossus for the book, DeShaw created a demand letter method that triggers Colossus to make its highest offers based upon the facts of the case. This was done by learning the factors of value to the computer system, and in which order they would be asked and then creating the demand letter around that process.
Over the past 22 years, Settlement Intelligence founders, Aaron DeShaw and Charlette Sinclair have been testing and perfecting this demand letter method, and consulting with other law firms on their demand letters. These demand letters have been used in over $100 million dollars in personal injury claims. The knowledge gained from the past 22 years of work is now available directly to lawyers. The Settlement Intelligence platform helps lawyers use the expertise on claim software systems in order to obtain the information of value to insurance claim software, and then format it correctly for the software being used by a specific insurer to maximize settlement offers.
To demonstrate our expertise in claim software, we are posting several articles on the history and use of insurance bodily injury claim software including Colossus, Liability Navigator, ClaimIQ, Guidewire and others. When deciding which AI Demand letter platform to license, carefully check each platform's web site to see what expertise they demonstrate on each system that will be used to creating the AI demand letter platform, and their history of expertise in claim evaluation software. Without such expertise, the demand letter cannot possibly obtain maximum settlement offers unless the lawyer has a well known history of obtaining exceptional trial results. (Our research suggests this designation is generally limited to five lawyers in any geographical region.)
The following demonstrates a small fraction of our detailed knowledge of the Colossus insurance claim software. All of the claim processing information for claims analyzed by Colossus is contained in the Settlement Intelligence platform.
What is Colossus?
Colossus is the trade name for a software program which is a registered trademark of DXC Technologies – formerly Computer Science Corporation (“CSC”) of El Segundo California. DXC is the new name for a merger between CSC and a former division of Hewlett Packard. Colossus is licensed by DXC to individual insurers for their use in evaluating bodily injury claims. Since many of the statements about Colossus were made during CSC’s ownership, we will frequently refer to statements made about the program by CSC. Colossus was the first computerized bodily injury claim assessment program and the one that has been most widely used in the United States since the early 1990s.
According to CSC, Colossus is:
"The most comprehensive knowledge-based system used by the insurance industry today. Through interactive consultations, Colossus helps users assimilate and examine facts relevant to bodily injury claims. Colossus accesses more than 10,000 rules to evaluate more than 600 trauma-induced injuries, providing expert guidance for both novice and seasoned claims professionals."
In Europe, CSC has gone further claiming “Colossus simulates the thought process of the human claims expert.” The original programmers claim that Colossus was one of the first Artificial Intelligence (AI) computer programs ever written. Research suggests that the name Colossus came from a science fiction book on Artificial Intelligence called Colossus by D.F. Jones, which was later turned into the movie Colossus: The Forbin Project. Some lawyers have erroneously suggested the name was based on the first programmable digital computer, codenamed "Colossus," constructed in Bletchley Park, England by a group led by Alan Turing, for the purpose of cryptanalysis of German Military codes during World War II. This does not appear to be the basis for the name, based upon information discussed in the following article on the program now known as Liability Navigator or "LNav."
Why Do Insurers Use Claims Assessment Software?
The quick answer is to consistently underpay bodily injury claims, thereby allowing insurance companies to improperly profit from their claim department. Profit is built into an insurance premium, and additionally made when money held for claims is invested. But, and insurer is not supposed to profit from money it should be paying on claims, by intentionally underpaying those claims.
According to an early paper written by two of the lead programmers of Colossus, the program is meant to provide uniform determination of the value of all claims in an identical manner.
The initial programming of Colossus was commissioned with the intent of finding a way to increase profits by reducing or “containing” claims payments. This is often referred to in the insurance industry as “reducing severities.” The idea that Colossus is a cost containment method was substantiated by the program’s inclusion in a division of CSC referred to as the “Cost Containment Solutions for CSC’s Financial Services Group.” In a CSC press release entitled “CSC Expands Cost Containment Solutions for Claims and Legal Expenses,” Colossus is noted as being the company’s main cost containment product for the insurance industry. The press release goes on to note “Since 1993, CSC has introduced and promoted the appropriate use of information technology for cost containment.” In a special report on UK insurer Norwich Union Insurance, CSC notes “Colossus is a software solution giving significant cost control to personal injury claims.” In a document produced in Grong v. Farmers, during the period that Farmers used Colossus, a regional claims manager for Farmers Insurance noted “Overall, our liability costs are down 11.2% since we started using Colossus. We feel there is continued room for improvement given continued emphasis and attention.” This was during the program’s first year of use at Farmers.
An even more substantial saving was noted at Allstate Insurance “In 1994, the year before it began to use Colossus, the company paid out 65.9 cents in auto-injury claims for every $1 in premiums collected, according to A.M. Best, which tracks the insurance industry. That fell steadily to 51.7 cents in 1998. That year, Allstate’s then chairmen, Jerry Choate, said in an internal company magazine the changes had helped lower bodily injury payouts by 17.5% during a three year period. ‘That’s worth $200 million a year to Allstate,’ he noted.”
As noted in David Berardinelli’s legal text From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves: The Definitive Guide to Handling Allstate Claims this was a gross understatement of the profits obtained through the full deployment of Allstate’s Claim Core Process Redesign (CCPR), one part of which included the use of Colossus. It was based upon the massive profits reaped by Allstate and publicly reported, that many other insurers implemented Colossus or competing claim software programs.
Estimates on the cost of implementation of Colossus, suggests initial costs of up to $30 million at some insurers, with annual licensing fees in excess of $10 million per year. Very little in comparison to the savings at these companies. According to CSC President Joe Jensen, “It’s viewed by some as expensive until the returns start coming in.” Those “returns” for the insurer are the amount your client is being underpaid on your claims.
The insurance industry has confirmed the financial losses your clients are sustaining through their use of Colossus:
- “John Thomson [Royal & SunAlliance’s Claims Operations Manager] says: ‘Colossus has certainly delivered! There’s no question that it delivered up to expectations and possibly even beyond.’” [Emphasis in the original]
- “Colossus is an excellent cost-containment tool.”
- “During the initial contract period, Colossus achieved significant savings on claims settlements.”
- “Colossus has delivered up to expectations and possibly even beyond. Our 800 claims handlers are now able to make fairer and more consistent assessments of personal injury claims and this has brought about impressive cost savings.”
- “‘The extension of our agreement with Federated Mutual and our new relationship with OneBeacon underscore the confidence that P & C insurers are placing in CSC’s cost containment solutions,’ said Joe Jensen, executive vice president of Cost Containment Solutions for CSC’s Financial Services Group.”
- “As part of the new contract, CSC will work with Liverpool Victoria to re-launch Colossus. This will include specific customizations of the product requested by Liverpool Victoria to ensure maximum cost savings.”
- “In 1995, General Accident, while pioneering improvements in claims cost management, became the first UK insurance company to adopt Colossus as a tool for consistent injury assessment. Claims volumes were rising and the company was looking for a tool to help keep costs down.”
In non-protected depositions, 30(b)(6) deponents for CSC have admitted that Colossus is licensed to help insurers cut claim payments. Moreover, the word “consistency” used in marketing materials by claim software companies was used to replace the word “savings” because of the bad faith implications of cutting payments to an insurers' own policyholders. The purpose of Colossus is clear – it is used to cut claim payments to injured people, often including the insurer’s own policyholder.
A Brief History of Claims Assessment Software - Colossus
Colossus was originally developed in Australia in a cooperative effort between the GIO (the General Insurance Organization of Australia) and Computations International Insurance Systems Pty. Ltd., (aka “Computations Pty Ltd”) a small group of well respected Australian programmers.
After noting increasing claims costs of 14 percent per year from the year of 1984 to 1988, the GIO approached Computations Pty Ltd in search of a solution to decrease claims payments, and improve profitability. In response, members of Computations Pty Ltd and the GIO undertook the development of Colossus.
Up until the implementation of Colossus at the GIO, claims costs were increasing by 14% per year. After implementation of Colossus they went down every year, and even into the mid 1990’s the claims cost remained lower than the pre 1989 claims costs. Colossus was hailed as a remarkable success by the programmers and the GIO. Similar to the GIO, some US insurers have seen claims costs drop by over 10% during the first year of Colossus implementation, with an expectation of greater reductions over time. As demonstrated above, this can equate to hundreds of millions of dollars for the larger insurers.
Colossus was purchased by Continuum, which brought the program to the United States. The first known implementation of Colossus in the United States was in 1992. USF&G was among the earliest US insurers to license the program.
As discussed in Berardinelli’s From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves legal text, the Colossus program fit perfectly into McKinsey & Company’s plan to restructure Allstate in what later became known as CCPR. Over the course of 1995, Colossus was implemented at Allstate. Allstate fought and lost civil contempt fines in multiple states for refusing to turn over the "McKinsey Documents" demonstrating their massive profits until Florida prohibited the company from writing insurance in the state and a shareholder lawsuit was filed. That is how powerful of a profit machine Colossus has been for Allstate and the insurance industry by cutting settlement offers to injured people.
Computer Sciences Corporation then purchased Continuum in 1996. After the purchase of Colossus by CSC, a small group of the original programmers of Colossus, approached management at CSC to let them know that mistakes had been made in the original programming of Colossus, and that there were problems with the programming of Colossus that required correction. The programmers alleged that this request to improve the program was ignored repeatedly. As a result, the original programming team parted ways with CSC, and started a company called GS Computing (later renamed NeuronWorks Pty. Ltd.) in Australia. In late 1996, Graham Bartholomew (who had co-developed Colossus while with the GIO) contacted a competing software company, Policy Management Systems Corporation (“PMSC”) for the development of a claims assessment program which would make the necessary corrections to Colossus, and improve upon the technology. This product was eventually developed and called Claims Outcome Advisor or “COA”. See our article on Claim Outcome Advisor – now known as Liability Navigator or "LNav."
In prior press releases, CSC claimed that Colossus was being used by 34 insurers representing 60% of all US Direct Written premiums for personal auto insurance. CSC’s has also stated 38 claims agencies / third party administrators also use Colossus to evaluate claims for more than 300 additional small insurers. In a CSC press release, the number of major insurers noted as using Colossus had raised to 50 worldwide.
Outside the United States, the rate of usage for Colossus in some countries is also substantial. The counties outside the US where Colossus is known to be heavily used include Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Australia. It is for this reason that Settlement Intelligence is useful to solicitors (or barristers) handling auto cases in these countries.
How Does Colossus Evaluate Bodily Injury Claims?
Historically, Colossus has determined the settlement offer for an insurer based on 600 Diagnoses and 10,000 “Attributes,” “Rules,” or “Factors.” In the insurance and legal fields, some people also refer to these as “value drivers.” Some lawyers and doctors publishing articles on Colossus have incorrectly differentiated between the term “factor” and “value driver.” They are the same. [We will also note that many lawyers and some doctors have jumped on the information about Colossus after reading DeShaw’s book, claiming to be experts in Colossus and selling seminars or promotional services on Colossus. Many of these teach the information incorrectly, in some cases fabricating ideas that are seriously misguided.]
CSC later claimed that Colossus had been changed to consider 720 Diagnoses and 12,500 Factors. While these terms are used interchangeably throughout the early articles on Colossus, many of which were authored by the programmers of Colossus itself, we typically use the term “Factors” in referring to the data entries in personal injury claim software.
The Diagnoses and Factors entered into Colossus by the insurance claim adjuster, determines the value of the settlement offer. In considering insurance bad faith claims for the use of insurance software, there are meaningful question whether any claim software can provide an appropriate evaluation of a bodily injury claim, even if its “benchmark values” for setting the monetary compensation in the system wasn’t intentionally set to undervalue claims. (This should be considered in insurance claim practice or insurance "bad faith" claims against insurers who use bodily injury assessment software.)
According to the original programmers, Colossus was set up to calculate General / Noneconomic Damages based upon four general categories which are as follows:
- Trauma (includes all factors on diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, duration of symptoms, etc.);
- Permanent Impairment;
- Disability (later changed to “Duties Under Duress”);
- Loss of Enjoyment of Life.
While this is nice to know, this knowledge is too basic to provide any appreciable understanding of how these areas are broken down into the 12,500 factors.
Colossus evaluates claims based upon a severity scale by providing “weight” to certain injuries and factors in the form of “severity points.” While some insurers have customized versions of Colossus, the amount of severity points is apparently the same for every version of Colossus when it is delivered to a particular insurer. Understanding these factors and the severity points weighting is important to what Settlement Intelligence helps lawyers to capture and optimize. Which is why other demand letter companies’ lack of experience with these programs is so problematic for lawyers using their service.
CSC executives have previously testified in available court records, that Colossus does not come with any set monetary values for the factors built in, and that the monetary range of the settlement offers provided by the program is solely based upon the information fed into the system by the insurer. The insurer does that in what is called “Benchmark Tuning.” With some major insurers, this essentially consisted of the company’s top 20-40 adjustors in a geographic location or “economic region” getting together to evaluate 9 to 11 cases total. Once a consensus was reached by the adjustors as to a claim’s value, the decision would be recorded. From this small amount of information the insurer would extract the market value of all 12,500 factors in Colossus.
This is a serious problem. Besides the inherent problem that there is no way that 9 to 11 cases could provide value to all 12,500 factors, some companies then took the evaluations provided by their best adjusters and cut them so that they were knowingly giving claimants less than the claim was worth. According to former adjustors, some insurance companies have instantaneously cut the value of all claims by a percentage (ranging from 5-20%), from the values provided by their best adjustors, during the initial implementation of Colossus.
When the claim factors are added in for a case, Colossus then processes the claim and provides a “Colossus high” number and a “Colossus low” number. Adjustors at some insurance companies are required to settle the case at or below the settlement range provided by Colossus. These are the settlement offers made by the adjustor to you and your client.
An insurer setting the claim payment software to pay out the 5-20% less than their best adjustors believed the case to be worth, implemented in the benchmark tuning, means that these insurers knowingly underpaid all of their claims (including first party UM and UIM claims) by that percentage. Some lawyers will fight improperly low values and go to trial. Others accept the improperly low offer. Trial Guides was established because it became clear that without litigating cases, nearly every auto case in the United States was going to be consistently undervalued. Settlement Intelligence exists to give injured people the best chance at getting the maximum settlement offer, to determine whether it is enough to settle (acknowledging the reduced value) rather than filing litigation. You should acknowledge that every case evaluated by claim software will be undervalued. But, mistakes in the demand letter or an adjustor disregarding the demand letter because its contents aren't useful, will also result in very serious claim value reductions. That is what Settlement Intelligence works to eliminate so that you can get the best settlement offer possible from claim software.
Further “tunings” of Colossus are done every 6-12 months, allowing for further reductions in the Colossus settlement range provided to adjustors. When some law firms accept lower and lower settlement amounts, it justifies insurers reducing the amount they pay for all claims. Adjustors at some companies are then required to settle the case at or below the settlement range provided by Colossus.
What is an even more significant problem is that when some major insurers originally tuned Colossus, they intentionally excluded all cases which were “clear policy limits cases” (maximum of the policy), all cases worth more than $50,000, all stacking UM/UIM policies, and all litigation cases. In other words, most of the cases with a high value were excluded, thereby undervaluing the entire system.
This is the type of issue that raises concern with the public and insurance regulators. In the March 2003 edition of The Regulator, a trade magazine for The Insurance Regulatory Examiners Society, an article entitled “Colossus Will Bite Auto Insurers If They’re Not Careful” noted “If an insurer is going to use a database to systematically assess claims, it is critically important that the protocols be absolutely spotless when exposed to the light of day.” The article goes on to note “If the protocols aren’t 100% above reproach by the general public (or a skilled newspaper reporter at the Wall Street Journal) [referring to the 1/2/2003 WSJ article on Colossus] then trouble is brewing.” Clearly, a database with most of the high outcomes removed is not “absolutely spotless.”
Even in the programming of Colossus itself, outcomes are biased. The primary programmers of Colossus wrote in an early article, “[Colossus] is not cognizant of comparable verdicts, except to recognize the maximum award for general damages as a ceiling. (AU$274,000 for Quadraplegia.) However, it is not an arbiter, nor was it intended to be.” [Emphasis in original text.] In fact, CSC’s contract with insurers specifically states that Colossus cannot be used as anything but a tool to determine the fair value of a claim, and may not be used as the sole method of determining claim value. Unfortunately, this is exactly the way it is being used by some of the insurers in US. Insurers will almost always deny they are using claim software (and some insurers have explicitly instructed their adjusters to lie about claim software use). Even if pushed or facing bad faith litigation they will resort to calling it a tool they use in assessing claim value. Don’t be fooled. If you have a bad faith case, dig deeper and it is likely you will find documents requiring use of the program in the evaluation of claims. Moreover it is likely you will find that the offer to your client conforms to the amount Colossus suggested.
All of the injury codes historically used in Colossus have a profile, which provides expectations and assumptions about the likely types of treatment and duration of treatment for the claimant. These injury codes also provide the baseline severity point rating of the claim.
Colossus has been implemented, very effectively, to substantially reduce payments for bodily injury claims. The outcome of a test study performed by Zurich Financial Services (the parent corporation of Farmers Insurance) in the Los Angeles area shows the disbursement of settlement amounts by severity of case prior to the implementation of Colossus. The variation in dot placement would suggest that every claim is different, and as such, each claim needed to be evaluated on a case by case basis. In other words, individual cases were considered individually based upon their own facts.
Colossus was implemented to remove all variation in settlement amounts, and made it a set number based upon an allocated value for each factor. Zurich’s post Colossus implementation at Farmers removed all variation in claim value both above and below the “Colossus Low” and “Colossus High” evaluation lines. Claim values demonstrated very little variation from the Colossus range after initial implementation. What you should also note is that the general trend for all cases was substantially downward from its pre-Colossus level (the result of reductions during the benchmark tuning process).
So, for those readers wondering, “do certain injuries or factors have any set known monetary value?” the answer is both yes and no. While the programmers set a specific number of severity points for a particular condition and insurers cannot change those, the severity points can be increased and decreased in monetary value by the insurer during the tuning process. Beyond this monetary value per point over nine value ranges, the presence or absence of other factors in a claim will impact the overall claim value. Combinations of different injuries, treatment, and complications will increase and decrease a case’s severity points, and as a result, the monetary value of every severity point. The more severity points, the more each severity point is worth in compensation. DeShaw has a database of non-protected analytic sets that demonstrate the value of claims, so Settlement Intelligence fully understands how this works.
What are Colossus dissection sheets and what is their impact on claim value?
Lets step back a few steps to the point at which the adjuster enters the claim data into Colossus to describe an important problem in the way claims are adjusted, and how the use of Settlement Intelligence eliminates this problem.
Once the bill review software information (discussed in the Settlement Intelligence Learning Center available to customers) is deemed to be correct by the adjustor on two separate occasions, the adjustor then can enter the data from the medical bill review system, and all of the other relevant “Colossus Factors” on a case into Colossus. Typically this is done by way of obtaining data from the records and entering it onto a “Dissection Sheet.” Historically, the dissection sheet is a paper form that contains approximately 60 factors out of the 12,500 available in Colossus. For many insurers using Colossus the only thing required of an adjuster is the completion of the dissection sheet. That means, they only need to know whether these 60 factors do or do not apply in a claim. That allows the adjustor to overlook the other 12,440 factors that are not on the dissection sheet.
The problem with using the dissection sheets, is that they are not nearly as complex, detailed or interactive as the Colossus program itself, and may inherently lead to a failure to provide all relevant factors in a case to the Colossus program. There are problems in appropriately evaluating a claim with the full 720 diagnoses and 12,500 factors in Colossus, but an even greater problem when the insurer is attempting to provide a full evaluation of claims with 60 factors.
If you provide a medical timeline style demand letter to the insurer, many insurers will train their adjusters to ignore it and review the records directly. When they do this, they will be looking for the 60 factors discussed on the dissection sheet.
This is one area where the potential for significant undervaluation exists. Even if Colossus could provide a fair evaluation of claims when the data on a case was entered directly into the program, insurers only requiring the use of a dissection sheet prevents an accurate evaluation of the case with the factors not included on the dissection sheets. The dissection sheets miss most of the factors in a claim.
Beyond the problems already listed above, the value of a Colossus evaluation is only as good as the information added into it. Similarly, the value of a demand letter is only as good as its ability to provide the factors of value to the claim software that will be evaluating the claim. To be blunt, providing an AI generated medical timeline style demand letter isn’t going to create much value because it isn’t looking for the specific information necessary for the computerized evaluation. And without expertise in the Colossus program, it won't create a demand letter that gives the adjustor the information needed when the data entry screens in Colossus open to collect additional information. Settlement Intelligence provides demand letters optimized for Colossus, that helps adjusters get the information they need for direct entry into Colossus so that more accurate settlement offers can be provided. When you trigger entries that the adjustor would not have entered without you raising the information in your demand letter, that is part of how you get higher settlement offers.
A bad quality demand letter, combined with the insurance adjuster’s 60 factor dissection sheet results in what computer programmers call a “Garbage In – Garbage Out” scenario, in which the value of the program’s output is only as good as the accuracy of the information entered into the system.
That is one of the primary reasons for Settlement Intelligence. We know the factors that are provided value by Colossus. Settlement Intelligence helps you find and communicate factors of value to the claims software. The Settlement Intelligence platform is intended to create demand letters formatted correctly for claims software to feed the information an adjuster needs in the order the software needs it.
Without filing lawsuits to attack the validity of the program’s use itself, the best way you can address this in a typical personal injury case, is to provide all of the Colossus factors in your demand letter, supported by the medical records. It is your hope then, that the adjustor will appropriately enter the factors from your client’s claim, and provide a settlement offer high enough that it is sufficient for your client to accept.
Duties Under Duress Claims in AI Demand Letters
As discussed in our previous blog post on Duties Under Duress, Colossus programmers discarded traditional methods for rating disability and instead created a multi-factor method they called “Duties Under Duress.” During his research, DeShaw culled all of these from the programming notes and created forms for lawyers to use with their clients. These forms ask all of the factors provided value within Colossus. Through an exclusive deal with Trial Guides to use the intellectual property rights to these forms, Settlement Intelligence is the only company that can include the Duties Under Duress factors in their AI demand letter platform. This provides approximately 100 factors provided monetary value.
Three requirements are necessary to get money on Duties Under Duress claims. This is discussed on the Settlement Intelligence platform. Additionally, there is a video on making Duties Under Duress claims available soon in the Settlement Intelligence Learning Center available to annual licensees.
Competitors have suggested that there is a "story" that can be developed around “Duties Under Duress.” This only conveys their ignorance of Duties Under Duress claims. These are specific claim factors they cannot use due to intellectual property protection. Creating a "story" around Duties Under Duress makes no sense – the factors either exist or don’t exist in the case. There is no variation in value based on whatever story their AI wants to make up. It is difficult to understand how an insurer will enter such a claim when the company can’t list the Duties Under Duress factors, which are the result of extensive research, work product, and registered intellectual property of our co-founder.
Demand Letter Loss of Enjoyment of Life Claims
Loss of Enjoyment of Life is the term used to quantify the loss of quality of life one will experience subsequent to a collision. It is not specific to the case law of a state, but looks at six categories of factors and over 100 sub-factors, each of which have monetary value.
During his research, DeShaw culled all of these from the programming notes and created Loss of Enjoyment of Life forms for lawyers to use with their clients. These forms ask clients for information regarding all of the factors and subfactors provided value within Colossus. Through an exclusive deal with Trial Guides to use the intellectual property rights to these forms, Settlement Intelligence is the only company that can include the Loss of Enjoyment of Life factors in their AI demand letter platform. This provides over 100 more factors provided monetary value. Not that this is an issue because companies suggesting they are competitors to Settlement Intelligence have demonstrated minimal if any, knowledge that Loss of Enjoyment claims even exist. That should be worrisome to lawyers wanting value for their clients loss of quality of life claims - a key component of noneconomic damages.
Three requirements are necessary to get money on Loss of Enjoyment of Life claims. This is discussed in the Settlement Intelligence platform. Additionally, there is a video on making Loss of Enjoyment of Life claims in the Settlement Intelligence Learning Center available to annual licensees.
Adjustor entry accuracy negatively impacts claim value
An important additional piece of information is this; in closed claim files secured by DeShaw during his research on Colossus, adjusters demonstrated a 0% accuracy at entering all data of financial value in a claim. What does that mean? In the closed claim studies reviewed by DeShaw, insurance adjusters missed data of value in a claim in 100% of cases.
How does Settlement Intelligence work with this information to create our demand letter platform? Our demand letter platform seeks all information of value in the system, based upon the insurer you select, and adds questions based upon your entry of information. It then optimizes the information into a format for the insurer selected, with the intention of including all information of value in a claim in the order that their software program will seek the information. It is by leveraging our expertise that your clients claims are most likely to generate the highest settlement offer possible.
Important insights about insurers using Colossus
Many years ago, insurers may have looked at past medical bills and provided a multiple of 2 or 3x the medicals as noneconomic damages. That was no longer used by any insurance company using Colossus or a competing system by the mid-1990s. It simply isn't reality.
Similarly, projecting noneconomic damages using a per diem amount hasn't been used by any company evaluating cases with Colossus or other bodily injury software in nearly 30 years. Per diem arguments are prohibited in trial in most states, and they certainly aren't the way insurers calculate noneconomic damages when they make settlement offers. Yet that is the way our competitors suggest noneconomic damage compensation in their demand letters, because they lack a fundamental understanding of the claim software actually used by insurance companies, and how it determines claim value.
Conclusion
This article barely scratches the surface of our knowledge on Colossus. Our extensive knowledge in Colossus and competing programs such as Liability Navigator, ClaimIQ, Guidewire and others, is contained in the Settlement Intelligence platform. An annual license allows you and your staff direct access to the platform so that you can generate highly effective demand letters that will maximize settlement offers. Choose the best license for your law firm and get started today.