Special Damages in a Demand Letter: Getting the Numbers Right
The documentation trail behind every number in your demand's special damages section.
Special damages in a demand letter are the documented economic losses of an injury: medical bills, lost income, future treatment, and out-of-pocket costs. Getting them right means pulling every figure from a source document and attaching the proof. Adjusters test these numbers before they weigh anything else in the letter. A total that survives that first pass sets the floor for the whole negotiation.
Nimbus Marlowe is the AI operations layer for personal-injury law firms, starting with intake. This post stays on the numbers side of the demand: how the medical specials and wage figures get assembled, and what documentation has to sit behind each line. Valuation and strategy belong to the attorney. The file work underneath is where small firms lose weeks, and that part can be systematized.
What are special damages in a demand letter?
Special damages are the losses you can put a document behind. An ER bill. Eight weeks of missed paychecks. A surgeon's written estimate for hardware removal next year counts too, provided the file supports it. General damages cover pain and suffering, and in many negotiations adjusters anchor those figures to the specials. A sloppy specials total therefore weakens two numbers at once.
The section itself is simple in form: each provider or loss category on its own line, with a dollar amount and an exhibit reference beside it. Its strength comes from whether every number traces cleanly to a record the adjuster can verify.
Every dollar in the specials section should trace to a document the adjuster can hold.
How do you build the medical specials?
Start with a complete list of providers, and treat "complete" as the hard part. Clients forget the ambulance company. The radiology group that billed separately from the hospital slips their mind, and so does the pharmacy. Run the provider list against the intake notes and the health insurance explanations of benefits; each source catches names the other misses.
For each provider, get the itemized bill. An itemized bill shows dates of service and coded charges, which lets the adjuster match treatment to injury. A one-line balance statement invites questions the file cannot answer.
Then comes the billed-versus-paid question. The gross charge on a hospital bill and the amount health insurance paid can sit far apart. Some states limit recoverable medical expenses to amounts paid or still owed, and Texas is one of them; Georgia takes a different approach. Which figure goes in the letter is a legal judgment the attorney makes for the jurisdiction and the case. The file's job is to keep both numbers available, with the explanations of benefits and lien letters to support either presentation.
List each provider with its date range and amount, in treatment order. A chronological table doubles as a treatment narrative, and gaps in care show up immediately. Find the missing bill before the adjuster does.
What proves lost wages?
A wage claim needs two things on paper: what the client earns and the time the injury took away. For a W-2 employee that means a verification letter from the employer on letterhead, stating the pay rate, the normal schedule, the exact dates missed, and whether any leave was paid. Pay stubs from before and after the injury back it up. A doctor's off-work note then ties the missed time to the treatment. Without that link, the adjuster treats the absence as a choice.
Self-employed clients take more work. Tax returns from the prior two or three years, 1099s, profit and loss statements, and a dated record of cancelled jobs together build the number, because an asserted figure with no paper behind it carries no weight.
Lost earning capacity, the claim that the client's future ability to earn has been reduced, is a different animal. It usually needs expert support, and whether the case can carry it is the attorney's call. Keep it out of the specials math until the attorney puts it there.
How do you support future treatment costs?
A future treatment number with nothing behind it is the fastest way to lose credibility on the entire letter. Support starts with the treating physician: a written statement that specific future care is needed, tied to the injury, with expected frequency and duration. Then a cost basis, which can be the provider's own estimate or charge data the attorney is comfortable citing. For serious injuries with years of care ahead, a life care planner turns the treatment plan into a costed report.
Whether to demand future damages at all, and at what number, is strategy. That decision sits with the attorney, often with retained experts alongside. The operational job is narrower: get the physician statement and the cost estimates into the file before drafting starts.
What documentation backs each number?
A quick map from line item to proof:
- •Hospital and physician charges: itemized bills with dates of service, plus the medical records showing the treatment happened
- •Amounts paid and owed: health insurance explanations of benefits and any lien, subrogation, or letter-of-protection paperwork
- •Prescriptions and equipment: pharmacy printouts and receipts
- •Mileage and out-of-pocket costs: a dated log with receipts attached
- •Lost wages: the employer verification letter and pay stubs, with the doctor's off-work notes tying time to treatment
- •Self-employment losses: tax returns, 1099s, profit and loss statements, and records of lost work
- •Future treatment: the treating physician's written recommendation and provider cost estimates, with a life care plan where warranted
The test for every line is the same. When the adjuster asks who says so, the file answers with a document.
Where does the demand letter drafter fit in?
Assembling all of this is clerical work with legal consequences, and in a small firm it lands on whoever has the least time. That is why demands sit half-drafted for weeks while the specials wait on one missing bill nobody has chased.
This is the layer Nimbus runs, in front of the practice-management system the firm already uses. Case preparation pulls the file together: providers identified, records and bills collected against a checklist, wage documentation requested, everything visible in the free CRM so the team knows what is in and what is outstanding. The demand letter drafter then turns the assembled file into a complete draft, with the specials itemized from the documents on hand and every figure tied to its exhibit. Missing support gets flagged in the draft rather than papered over.
A licensed attorney reviews all of it. The attorney decides which medical figure the jurisdiction calls for, whether future damages belong in the letter, what the demand amount is, and what goes out under the firm's name. The draft exists so review starts from a complete, documented file.
Pricing is flat and published: case preparation runs $95 and a demand letter draft runs $170, per completed unit, pay-as-you-go with no minimum. No fee is ever a percentage of any recovery, settlement, or judgment. For comparison, a part-time legal assistant doing the same file-chasing runs $3,000 to $4,000 per month and works business hours.
Frequently asked questions
Does the AI decide what a case is worth?
No. Agents assemble and organize the file; the attorney decides valuation and every legal judgment in the letter. Each draft is reviewed and adopted by a licensed attorney before anything leaves the firm.
Does Nimbus take a percentage of the settlement?
Never. Pricing is flat and published, identical regardless of outcome, and the company never holds, transmits, or takes custody of client funds. A demand letter draft costs $170 no matter what the case resolves for.
What does it cost to get a demand letter drafted?
A demand letter draft is a flat $170 and case preparation is $95, per completed unit with no minimum. The CRM underneath, covering contacts, matters, documents, and the client portal, is free and never invoiced.
What happens when a bill or record is missing?
The draft flags the gap, so the team sees exactly which provider or wage document is outstanding. Chasing it becomes a visible task in the CRM rather than a surprise during the attorney's review.
The specials section gets built in the file, weeks before anyone drafts a word. If you want that assembly handled and each draft waiting on your review, Sign up now for the free CRM or book a call to see a demand file come together live.
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Nimbus Marlowe is the AI operations layer for personal-injury firms. The CRM is free, pricing is flat and per-unit, and every output is a draft your attorneys review and adopt.