Nearly half of auto injury claimants who hired an attorney did so within days of an accident, the Insurance Research Council (IRC) found. By the time weeks had passed, 80 percent of those claimants had already made attorney contact. Seven in 10 claimants from the past three years reported consulting or hiring an attorney at some point in their claim.
The IRC surveyed more than 2,000 US adults in July 2026. Its report, Public Opinions on Attorney Involvement in Auto Insurance Claims: 2026, updates the organization's prior research on consumer attitudes toward legal representation. The findings land against a backdrop of rising claim severity, where attorney involvement has become one of the primary cost drivers across auto lines.
More than nine in 10 survey respondents reported seeing or hearing attorney advertising in the past year, with television remaining the leading medium. Six in 10 believe that advertising increases the number of liability claims and lawsuits. Roughly half link it to higher auto insurance costs.
The advertising finding connects to a broader trend IRC documented in a separate July 2026 severity report. That report drew on more than 7.4 million auto injury claims closed between mid-2017 and mid-2022. The attorney involvement rate among bodily injury claimants rose to 57 percent by 2022. Across all auto coverages combined, the involvement rate rose from 40 percent in 2017 to nearly 50 percent by 2022, while litigation rates nearly doubled. Represented claimants netted less money on average despite higher gross settlement amounts, because attorney fees and extended timelines consumed a large share of the payment.
The consumer survey adds the demand-side picture. Claimants said they hire attorneys primarily because of injury severity, concerns about fair compensation, and questions of fault. Cost of legal services was the most commonly cited reason not to hire one.
About eight in 10 claimants who consulted or hired an attorney reported being referred to a medical provider by that attorney. That referral pattern is a long-standing concern for carriers on auto liability and uninsured/underinsured motorist lines, where inflated medical billing drives claim costs higher.
The survey also found growing consumer awareness of litigation financing, the practice of outside investors funding lawsuits in exchange for a share of the settlement. Consumers remain broadly neutral on the practice itself. Support for transparency is strong, though as most respondents backed disclosure requirements when outside investors finance a lawsuit.
That consumer sentiment runs parallel to a legislative push building at the state and federal levels. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley introduced the Litigation Funding Transparency Act of 2026 in the US Senate. The bill would require disclosure of third-party funding in mass tort and class action cases.
In September 2026, more than 200 companies wrote to the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules to call for federal disclosure rules. They argued the absence of such requirements was inexplicable given the emphasis on financial transparency elsewhere in civil procedure. The push is part of a broader industry campaign against litigation financing practices that carriers say are reshaping claims costs.
"Attorney involvement remains an important driver of auto insurance claim costs and insurance affordability," said Patrick Schmid, president of IRC and chief insurance officer of the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I). "This survey shows that attorney involvement often begins almost immediately, with nearly half of claimants contacting a lawyer within just a few days of an accident."
The speed of that contact compresses the window available for early resolution. Once an attorney enters a claim, settlement timelines extend, medical referrals follow, and costs escalate in ways that are difficult to reverse. Federal disclosure proposals and digital litigation campaigns have put those dynamics under closer scrutiny, and the IRC's consumer data suggests the pipeline feeding them starts almost as soon as a crash occurs.
