[Christien]

Yep, you need a better lawyer, one with his ***** together. This is my dad's area of practice (no good to you, we're in Canada). 1 of 3 scenarios is the truth: 1. you/your wife are lying or grossly exaggerating and don't deserve anything, 2. you/your wife are being completely truthful and not exaggerating and you deserve compensation, pain and suffering, medical and legal expenses, etc or 3. the truth is somewhere in between. I don't offer option #1 to be a jerk, just to lay the facts out on the table.

In my (albeit limited) experience (I used to do summer work at the firm all through university and grad school) insurance companies at first will always lowball, but they're also good at smelling a fish. This means that a lowball offer to settle should be expected, but if you fight and they fight back hard there might be something there. Generally, it's cheaper to pay out a $35K claim than to settle for $25K plus both sides' legal expenses.

They have top-notch legal representation, so should you. The shark moron sending letters to the wrong people sounds like Jackie whathisname from Seinfeld! Not who you want batting for you.