Duties Under Duress: The Most Mismanaged Driver of Settlement Value

Why Duties Under Duress Matter

Some injuries are self-evident in their impact on a claim: fractures, surgeries, permanent disability. But what about the more ‘silent’ type; the impact on the claimant’s every day life. Modern claim evaluation software like Colossus, Liability Navigator, and ClaimIQ also account for functional hardship — the day-to-day tasks injured clients continue to perform despite pain.

These are known as Duties Under Duress (DUDs). They carry measurable value inside insurer AI systems. In many cases, they tip the scale on settlement offers more than additional therapy visits or extended treatment.

Yet in practice, Duties Under Duress are routinely underdeveloped in demand packages. They are often missing from medical records, vaguely described, or never formatted in a way the insurer’s software can read.

Defining Duties Under Duress

A Duty Under Duress is an essential task they continue to perform, but with pain, limitation, or difficulty.

Typical examples include:

• A warehouse worker continues to lift heavy loads with a herniated disc.
  

• A single parent cooking, cleaning, and transporting children despite a rotator cuff tear.
  

• An office employee working long hours at a desk despite severe back pain.
  

• A caregiver continuing daily rounds despite lumbar radiculopathy.
  

The distinguishing factor is persistence in the face of hardship. This is what insurer systems flag as a credible and compensable marker of severity.

The Three Requirements for Full Recognition

For Duties Under Duress to add settlement value, three conditions must be satisfied:

1. The claimant continues the duty despite pain.
   If the claimant stops the activity altogether, it is treated as a loss of enjoyment of life — valuable, but not scored the same way as a DUD.
   

2. The physician documents it in the record.
   Insurer software discounts anything not tied to medical notes. If the provider hasn’t written it down, the system assumes it didn’t happen.
   

3. The lawyer asserts it correctly in the demand.
   Vague statements like “client has difficulty with household chores” won’t register. The demand must present DUDs in structured language, linked to diagnoses and timeframes, that the insurer’s AI can interpret.
   

Miss any one of these, and the DUD is effectively erased from the claim valuation.

Why DUDs Are So Often Mishandled

Despite being a recognized value driver, Duties Under Duress are among the most mismanaged elements in claim preparation. Common issues include:

Poor Client Reporting

Most clients don’t understand the importance of describing these struggles. They mention “pain at work” or “trouble at home” in conversation, but don’t see the need to share details consistently with providers.

Incomplete Provider Notes

Medical professionals focus on diagnosis and treatment, not functional hardship. Unless prompted, they rarely document that a patient continues to work, lift, or care for family through pain.

Weak Demand Presentation

Even when attorneys know about DUDs, they frequently bury them in narrative paragraphs. Insurer AI systems can’t score anecdotes, they need specific, structured entries.

The net result is that one of the most influential value drivers is regularly absent, underdeveloped, or neutralized in final demand submissions.

Why Insurers Value Duties Under Duress

The logic behind insurer scoring is not arbitrary. Colossus and similar systems recognize DUDs for three reasons:

• Severity: If pain interferes with basic tasks but the client persists, the software interprets the injury as more serious.
  

• Prognosis: Ongoing hardship signals long-term impairment, increasing projected costs and value ranges.
  

When properly presented, each Duty Under Duress increases the insurer’s valuation output. When omitted or mishandled, that value is lost.

How Settlement Intelligence Solves the Problem

At Settlement Intelligence we built demandletters.ai to systematically capture, document, and format Duties Under Duress so attorneys never miss this critical driver.

Proprietary Intake and Treatment Forms

Our founder, the only author of the legal treatise on Colossus, holds exclusive copyright on intake and MMI forms that are specifically designed to capture DUDs.

• Clients are prompted with targeted questions about duties performed under hardship.
  

• Providers are guided to record these impacts in medical charts.
  

• Attorneys receive structured responses ready for inclusion in demand letters.
  

These forms are provided free to all Settlement Intelligence subscribers, embedding best practices directly into your practice.

AI-Optimized Demand Letter Formatting

Capturing the information is only half the battle. The demand letter itself must translate DUDs into structured entries that insurance AI can score.

Settlement Intelligence demand letters:

• Tie each DUD to a diagnosis (ICD-10 code).
  

• Include timeframes and activity descriptions in insurer-recognized language.
  

• Place entries in the correct sections so claim software reads them as value triggers.
  

This eliminates the most common mistake: anecdotal mentions of DUDs that never register with insurer systems.

Real-World Results

The difference between properly including and excluding Duties Under Duress claims in the demand letter is not theoretical.

• In one case, a claimant with a cervical injury reported continuing to work through severe neck pain, documented by his provider. When formatted properly in the demand letter, this raised the insurer’s offer by nearly $40,000.
  

• In another, a mother with a shoulder tear continued caring for two young children. Documented and presented as DUDs, this increased the settlement range by over 30%.

Neither case involved new treatment, new diagnostics, or new medical opinions. The increase came solely from capturing and structuring Duties Under Duress properly in the demand letter.

Duties Under Duress in Context

While Duties Under Duress are powerful, they are not standalone, and require proper injury diagnoses as the reason for their existence. They form part of the five core value drivers Settlement Intelligence emphasizes in every demand package:

1. Accurate ICD-10 coding of Injuries
   

2. Prognosis clearly outlined in treatment notes
   

3. Duties Under Duress
   

4. Loss of Enjoyment of Life
   

5. Permanent impairment
   
   

Together, these components maximize recognition in insurer claim software and prevent silent devaluation.

The Bottom Line

Duties Under Duress are not “minor details.” They are a recognized, algorithmic input in insurer valuation systems. Yet in most law firm workflows, they are improperly documented, vaguely described, or overlooked altogether.

To secure their full value:

1. Clients must continue reporting duties performed despite pain.
   

2. Physicians must record these struggles in treatment notes.
   

3. Attorneys must assert them in demand letters in structured, insurer-readable format.
   

At Settlement Intelligence, we give firms the tools to execute this process every time. With proprietary forms, AI-aligned demand letter generation, and expert system design, our subscribers ensure that Duties Under Duress, and every other major value driver, are recognized and compensated.

👉 Learn more and access subscriber resources at app.demandletters.ai/signup