What qualifies
No statute draws the line; practice does. TBI — including "mild" ones that end careers — spinal damage at any level, amputations, burns requiring reconstruction, organ damage, blindness, and combinations whose whole exceeds the parts. The common thread: permanence. If life after looks structurally different than life before, the claim is catastrophic and must be built like one.
Why the label changes the build
Valuation: bills-to-date become the down payment; the claim prices decades — future surgeries, attendant care, equipment cycles, home modification, lost earning capacity by economist projection. Proof: treating doctors get joined by life-care planners, neuropsychologists, vocational experts. Coverage: one policy rarely suffices — liability, umbrella, UM/UIM, employer layers get stacked, because finding the money is as much of the case as proving the fault.
The first-offer warning, doubled
Insurers move fastest on the worst injuries — a quick limits offer while a family is still at Tri-City or transferred deeper into the trauma network is standard play. Signing early can release umbrella layers and co-defendants nobody's identified yet. In catastrophic cases, speed of acceptance is the most expensive mistake available.
The Oceanside layer
Military families add TRICARE's repayment claims and the VA's long-term-care role to the plan — both manageable, both better planned than discovered. The full military-claims picture is its own guide; the family-side claims (consortium, wrongful death) are covered in the wrongful-death guide; and the build itself starts with a free, unhurried case review.
