INSURANCE COMPANY MYTHS

If you have been rear-ended by another vehicle and photographs of your car do not show visible damage to your rear bumper, the other driver’s insurance company may try to deny your bodily injury claim. The insurance companies rely on a myth that if you cannot see the damage to the bumper, the impact must not have been great enough to cause injury. This is a MYTH that the insurance companies hope to perpetuate, and it is in fact a lie!

Up until the 1980s, auto manufacturers made vehicle bumpers out of molded steel, attached to the rear of the car by steel frames. The bumpers were designed to crush inward upon impact. By crumpling, the bumper would absorb the kinetic energy of the impact and protect the driver. Low speed impacts would cause highly visible dents in the steel bumpers of yesteryear. Insurance companies spent tons of money replacing bumpers bent in low speed collisions.

By the 1980s and 90s insurance companies began to pressure auto makers to design dent resistant bumpers for their vehicles. The modern day bumpers on current model vehicles are covered with “bumper covers” constructed from dent resistant synthetic polymers. The internal structure of the bumpers themselves are made of foam or honeycomb lattices, or hydraulic isolators that flex in and out in response to impact. A low speed impact against a modern day bumper will cause the bumper to flex in and out and appear undamaged. The same speed impact on an old-style bumper would cause the bumper to bend and crush.

Insurance companies often describe the speed of impact in terms of “Delta V”. Delta V is the change in velocity. If you are sitting stationary and are hit from behind by a car traveling 10 mph, and the impact brings the other car to a complete halt, the Delta V, or change in velocity, is 10 mph. If you are moving forward at 5 mph and a car strikes you from behind and causes you to lurch forward at 20 mph, your Delta V is 15 mph. Delta V is an in-exact measure of force of impact, because it fails to take into account the rate of acceleration, but it is common shorthand for insurance company junk-science experts.

Crash test studies show that the threshold for injury to human soft tissue in a rear end impact is a Delta V of 6 mph. However, crash tests also show that most modern day car bumpers can withstand an impact of up to 8 mph Delta V before their structural integrity becomes compromised. This means that it is very easy to have an impact where the driver sustains injury but the rear bumper shows no visible signs of damage.

If you were injured in a low impact rear-end collision, it is important that you have an attorney who understands the insurance company myth of Delta V and is prepared to expose the lies of their junk-science “experts” to get you a fair settlement for your claim.