get a lawyer. don't talk to anybodys insurance until you do. I've been in an accident where I was laid up for 6 months,
my wife was in a accident almost identical to yours. only she had a ruptured disk in her neck requiring about 50k worth of surgery.
insurance companys don't make profits by making payouts. they deal with these kinda things every day. whats new and scarey to you is just another workday to them.
just having the attny. to deal with all the crap is worth what you have to pay.
I don't know if the rules are the same everywhere (I doubt it) but here in oregon your insurance pays your medical bills, and wage compensation until you settle. then the deduct that from your settlement with the other guys insurance. my attny only charges his percentage out what was left after these are paid.
in both cases he more than paid for himself in that he persaded my insurance company that the other guys coverage was not suficient to compensate me and got them to wave the pip (personal injury protection) lein on my settlement. so I ended up with the other guys full insurance limit (- 30% to the attny)
also in my wifes case the insurance company tried to get out of paying for the surgery (said she had a weak spine and she would have eventually done something else to hurt it
) without him it would have been an imposable nightmare.
the amount of stress you will save by being able to say "please make all your contacts through my attny" alone is more than worth it.
cash wise here's some a couple bottom lines.
my accident
the pip lein was about 17k
the other guy had the state minimum insurance of 25k per person personal injury
even if I got every bit of insurance from his company I'd have recieved 8k. my attny convinced my insurance to wave the lein so we got the full 25k (17 for me)
wifes accident
pip lein was 68k, other guys insurance was 100k
if we had got all of the 100k (and won the argument on surgery) we would have got 32k
again he convinced my insurance to wave the lein
30k for attny, 4k expenses 66k for us
even though he made some pretty big cash taking care of this in both cases he saved us alot of money, stress, and pain.
ps.
the only good attny is your attny.