In an 18 month study conducted by CNN, if you are injured in a low-impact car accident, there is a good chance that the insurance company will offer a “take-it-or-leave-it” approach to paying your medical expenses and damages for pain and suffering, even if you sustained a “serious injury” under your state’s no-fault law.
Since the mid-1990s, most of the major insurance companies –led by the two largest, Allstate and State Farm — have adopted a tough take-it-or-leave-it strategy when dealing with such cases.

The result has been billions in profits for insurance companies and little, if anything,for the public, according to University of Nevada insurance law professor Jeff Stempel. "We can see that policyholders individually are getting hurt by being dragged through the court on fender-bender claims, and yet we don’t see any collateral benefit in the form of reduced premiums even for the other policyholders," Stempel said. "So I think now we can say to continue this kind of program is in my view institutionalized bad faith.

Auto Insurers Play Hardball In Minor-Crash Claims, by Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston, CNN

There is no scientific proof that a low impact accident means less damage to the injured party.  However, by adopting this strategy, insurance companies are paying out less for claims while their profits increase.

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