Colossus – Insurers and Their Claims Software

Highland Park New Jersey Personal Injury Attorney

After you’ve been injured in a car accident, how does an insurer determine what you should be paid? Do they simply look at your medical costs? Your lost wages? Do they consider pain and suffering? While each case is different, in general, most insurers now use computer software to help them determine what to pay someone after a personal injury claim. These computer programs are quite sophisticated and include things like catastrophe models and complex algorithms that claim to provide a baseline for costs associated with specific kinds of injuries. One computer program, Colossus, is used fairly widely by many of the big insurers.

So, what do you know about Colossus?

Colossus – How it Works

Chances are you haven’t heard of Colossus link to settlementcentral.com/page0448.htm. Most insurance agents don’t volunteer information regarding the use of Colossus, let alone explain how it was used in determining your claims payout. So, how does Colossus work? Put in simple terms, Colossus uses algorithms to identify baseline costs associated with collected information regarding the costs of certain kinds of injuries.

Referred to as “value drivers,” Colossus analyzes data related to medical treatment, hospitalization, the kind of injury in question, and other related factors. In this way, however, the estimates provided by Colossus will only be as accurate or “fair” as the baseline data and averages gathered. In other words, if the data itself is skewed or if the algorithm employed is tweaked in the direction of a “conservative estimate,” the payout estimate itself could very well be lower than the actual financial impact of a personal injury.

Problems with Colossus

So much about Colossus is a mystery since the software itself is protected by intellectual property rights. As such, information about its functioning is considered proprietary. Secondly, Colossus depends on what variables are put into it by a claims adjuster: if, six months after your whiplash injury, you experience weakness in your left arm that interferes with your ability to perform your job, Colossus has no way of taking that into account when making its initial estimate. Third, to date, there is no real effective way for Colossus to take into consideration costs associated with pain and suffering.

Protect Your Interests – Contact Personal Injury Attorney Harold J. Gerr

If you’ve been seriously injured it’s important that you protect your interests. Insurance companies are in business to make money. One way to make money is to reduce costs. Colossus can help insurers reduce costs sometimes at the expense of a fair settlement to an injury victim. The personal injury law office of Harold J. Gerr understands how Colossus works and how to challenge claims payout estimates that are the result of using the software.

To learn how we can help you, contact Highland Park New Jersey car accident attorney Harold J. Gerr today.