How Visuals Unlocked a $1.8 Million Settlement

A Honda CRV carrying a family was rear-ended by a Toyota 4Runner at 50 MPH, pushing them into a Ford Explorer at a multi-lane intersection. Plaintiff Honda CRV had stopped behind a car making an illegal left turn in the HOV lane. The Toyota 4Runner, which failed to brake, collided with the stopped cars.

	Case Type: Path Of Travel
	Results: $87K Insurance Offer to $1.8 MILLION Settlement
	Visual: Aerial Crash Sequence

Case Overview

Challenge

Causal claim was unclear. Verbal explanation didn’t make sense to focus groups—why would the client crash into someone stopped in an HOV lane? The crash was complex, the police report made sense to law enforcement, but was unclear to others, verbal explanations confused focus groups.

Visual Strategy

Explained the adjacent relationship of the HOV lane to the turn lane, answering why someone would have crashed into a vehicle stopped in an HOV lane.
Persuasively illustrated the stopped defendant driver was the BUT, FOR causation of the crash, if she hadn’t stopped in the middle of the roadway, an HOV lane, illegally, probably never happens. The Toyota would have had nothing to hit.
Animated recreations of the crash, showing the vehicle positions, movements, and the lack of visibility issues for the Toyota 4Runner driver.
Emphasized the reckless and unsafe behavior of the car making an illegal left turn in the HOV lane.
Included deposition excerpts and graphical annotations to clarify the crash sequence and fault distribution.
Photos were incorporated to reinforce the damage and consequences.

Our Work

Video enhances a confusing police crash diagram by visually contextualizing the roadway layout—clarifying why a driver illegally stopped in the HOV lane adjacent to a turn lane—while layering in deposition footage of the driver admitting fault, and walking viewers through the multi-car crash step-by-step, culminating in real crash photos that bring the damage to life.

Results

Before visuals the offered settlement value was $87,000 (denied by State Farm, minimal offer by AllState)
After using visuals at mediation $1.8 MILLION -StateFarm and AllState tendered full policy limits.

Within one hour of presenting the visuals, insurers reversed their stance, tendering full policy limits.

Testimonial

"Iconographics was great. I was told what was needed, why it was needed and what would make it better. I was given a clear timeline of when it was going to be done. I was given a clear budget in writing on costs, when the amounts were going to be due, and what the total cost was going to be. I did not have a whole lot to guess about. It was just a matter of turning everything over to them and they would stay in touch with me periodically throughout the process until we got our final deliverables." - Glenn Fair, Fair Squared Injury Law