You saw the crash coming and braced against the wheel, or the seatbelt caught you hard, and your shoulder has not worked right since. Reaching overhead hurts, sleeping on that side is impossible, and the insurance company's response is that rotator cuffs fray with age. Here is how shoulder cases actually get proven and what they are worth.
How crashes wreck shoulders
The mechanisms are predictable: bracing against the steering wheel drives force up the arm into the joint, the shoulder harness arrests a moving torso through one shoulder, side impacts slam the joint directly. The results: rotator cuff tears, labrum tears, impingement, AC joint injuries, and frozen shoulder that develops in the weeks after.
Shoulder symptoms are easy to dismiss early, pain reaching overhead, weakness, night pain, clicking. Easy to dismiss is exactly how treatment gaps happen, and treatment gaps are how claims die.
The 'wear and tear' defense
Like spines, shoulders show age on imaging, and partial cuff fraying is common in pain-free adults. So the insurer's review says degenerative tearing, preexisting. The answer is the same aggravation framework Nevada law recognizes: a shoulder that worked, lifted, and slept pain-free before the crash and cannot after is a compensable injury regardless of what the tissue looked like under the surface.
Acute findings help too: tear patterns, swelling on early MRI, and the simple fact that you had no shoulder complaints in years of prior medical records.
Building the claim
MRI or MR arthrogram to define the tear, a credible orthopedic course from conservative care through injections to surgical repair where needed, and documentation of what the shoulder costs you: the trade you cannot work, the sleep you do not get, the dominant arm you cannot raise.
Surgical cases change the math: repair, anchors, months of physical therapy, and a measurable risk of re-tear belong in the demand at full value, including the future care a repaired shoulder often needs.
What it is worth
Value follows the tear, the treatment, and the arm's role in your life. A dominant-arm cuff repair for a working tradesperson is a fundamentally different claim than mild impingement, and the insurance company's first offer will price every shoulder as the mild version. Kyle's job is to make them pay for yours.