Anyone who’s ever been involved in a car accident can tell you that it’s a scary and confusing event. One minute, you’re driving along, perhaps on your way to work or running errands. In just seconds, a car accident takes your entire world crashing down.

You might be seriously injured and need to go to the hospital for treatment. After seeing the doctors, you may be in for weeks, months, or even years of medical care as a result of these injuries. When someone else caused you these injuries, you have legal recourse through personal injury law that allows you to recover your financial losses from the at-fault party.

You’ll spend much of your time talking to insurance agents who will give you a low offer for your settlement. They’ll try to convince you that you’ll get nothing if you don’t sign the release for this money. There will be legalese and terms you don’t understand, all while you’re trying to make sense of what has happened and try to get your life back to some semblance of normal.

One of those terms is the serious injury threshold. Not only should you know what it is, but you may be surprised that eliminating it could be the answer to simplifying motor vehicle lawsuits.

What Is the Serious Injury Threshold?

Sometimes referred to as simply “the threshold” by attorneys and insurance companies, the serious injury threshold is a legal concept. It was created in states that follow a no-fault insurance model.

In no-fault states, when there is a car accident, each party files an insurance claim with their own insurance company. The insurer will then issue compensation to its policyholder while deciding if it will pursue compensation in a lawsuit against the other person’s insurance company.

The idea behind it was to simplify the process for insurers and policyholders alike. It ensures that financial losses are covered and allows those involved in an accident to theoretically move forward with their lives, putting this unpleasantness behind them. This is certainly ideal if you have a minor accident with non-serious injuries—or no injuries at all.

Unfortunately, it creates a major issue in scenarios where you have been seriously injured. In these states, you can only file a car accident lawsuit against another person by stepping outside these boundaries for no-fault, if you qualify.

Qualifying means that you must meet the serious injury threshold, and this can vary by each no-fault state. One state may allow your serious injury threshold to be at $10,000 or more while others may make the minimum threshold at $50,000.

Why Is the Threshold Problematic?

To understand why the serious injury threshold is problematic, it helps to look at a real injury as an example. If you experienced a herniated disc, as many people do after car accidents, there would be much debate as to whether or not you’ve arrived at this threshold.

Herniated discs can range in their symptoms and complications depending on where you have been injured along the spine, the severity of this injury, and whether or not it has caused nerve damage. It will take many medical evaluations to fully assess the impacts this may have on your life.

You might make a full recovery, or you might be due for a lifetime of pain ahead. If your herniated disc is in the cervical spine region, it could cause chronic neck and shoulder pain, or it could reduce your fingers to periods of numbness, keeping you from getting a grip on your toothbrush.

As you think about these impacts, can you put a price on them? That’s what the threshold attempts to do, and if your medical costs aren’t quite at that threshold, then you are unable to file a lawsuit.

Why the Serious Injury Threshold Doesn’t Matter in the State of Texas

If you live in Texas, you don’t have to worry about meeting the serious injury threshold because Texas is an at-fault state. In at-fault states, the driver who causes the car crash is the one who is held accountable for the damages incurred by victims. Generally, their insurance policy would cover the financial losses, though they may be on the hook to pay you out of their own pocket.

There is one wrinkle in this at-fault insurance model, and that is the rule of comparative negligence. In car accidents, there are certain instances where each driver may bear a portion of the blame. If you were stopped at a red light and the vehicle behind you rear-ended your vehicle, this would be a scenario in which they would be considered fully responsible and at fault.

However, other circumstances may mean that you would incur partial blame. Let’s say that you were driving through an intersection during a green light when another driver ran a red light. It would be reasonable to assume they’d be fully at fault in that example, but what if you were speeding? If so, then you’d be given a percentage of the fault.

In Texas, the state follows a modified comparative fault law. With this rule, you must be 50% or less at fault for the accident, or else you’d be barred from claiming a financial recovery. It’s very likely that if you were going a little over the speed limit as mentioned in the example you’d only be assigned a small portion, perhaps 10% of the fault. Therefore, your compensation award would be reduced by 10%.

Since a herniated disc injury could result in as much as a six-figure settlement, that 10% will be taken out of it. If the award was $100,000, that would mean $10,000 less, giving you only $90,000. Keep in mind that this money is to cover the medical expenses you’ve incurred and your future medical care, lost wages, and other damages.

If you’re blamed for an accident, even partially, it could result in additional financial burdens. It is ideal to speak with a personal injury attorney to learn more about specific compensation in your case.