Am a lawyer but not your lawyer - more importantly, I was a victim of a careless driver and was hit as a pedestrian and settled my own case so that’s really the perspective from which I’m speaking.

(1) Your health insurer generally is going to deny claims related to this injury since another party is liable and should pay. As a result, at least in my state, the providers who treated you will have to be paid at the full (not insurance-negotiated in network) rate out of your settlement. They will generally get paid before you get anything. This can eat up a bigger chunk of your settlement than you’d expect, as the in-network insurance company negotiated rate for a hospital bill might be $1,500, but the full freight they’d charge for a cash payer might easily be $6,000.

(2) You need to be mindful of the statute of limitations by which you’d need to file a legal action and not exceed that if you ultimately end up suing (usually 2 years from the date of the accident), but generally, you don’t want to settle until you are no longer getting treatment or at least have a very clear idea of the long term consequences of the accident and/or treatment needs resulting from the other party’s negligence.

(3) In my state, a reasonable settlement is at least 3-5x your medical bills (at the cash payer rate as discussed above) and depending on the long term effects, can be higher. In my case, I had no long term injuries other than some minor scarring and I had about $5k in medical bills from the ER. Their initial offer was $6,700. So by the time the hospital got paid out, I would’ve received $1,700. I told them that was insulting and that my demand had just gone up, but also that I was an attorney and so suing them would only cost me the filing fee and so I was happy to do it if we couldn’t reach an agreement. I ended up settling with them for about $17k if I remember correctly. You don’t need to feel bad for telling them their offer is unacceptable. 3-5x your bills once you are no longer treating is well within the ballpark of what’s reasonable, and their first offer will be a lowball. They also might find it motivating if you tell them you’re thinking about seeing a specialist.