Tag Archive for: car accident

Your Car Accident And Your Personal Injury Attorney

Blue old Car broken front light closeup

A car accident can be one of the most shocking and terrifying events in people’s lives. This is especially true in cases when individuals are injured. In the event you’ve been injured during a car accident that came as a result of someone else’s carelessness and/or recklessness, you deserve fair financial compensation from that person. Quite often, getting a fair result from an insurance company without using a personal injury attorney can be an uphill battle. I know, because I get calls every day from individuals who are having this same difficulty.

 

 

Fair Compensation

If the other driver’s insurance company agrees to fairly compensate your losses and cover medical bills, you probably won’t need the help of a personal injury attorney. But, if the individual who caused the car accident is not cooperative or their insurance companies is not prepared to pay, then hiring a personal injury attorney is a your next step.

Insurance companies are a for-profit endeavor. In most cases they are trying to settle such disputes for as little as possible, which is why clients find that even when the insurance company is offering a settlement, the client can do better with an attorney. Not only is your attorney in a position to argue value with the insurance company, but in addition the insurance company is attempting to avoid having the attorney file a lawsuit. Defending a lawsuit is an expense most insurance companies would like to avoid, especially in instances where liability is clear.

Uncovering Insurance Policies

In some cases, there is more than one insurance policy available from which to collect. Each personal injury claim is unique whether you are a driver, a passenger, or a pedestrian. Your personal injury lawyer will maximize the value of your claim by uncovering all available insurance policies in your claim.

Personal injury attorneys have the knowledge, experience and skill to help you negotiate your way through a personal injury claim. A good personal injury attorney will be able to predict the actions of insurance companies and will strategize with you regarding actions which guarantee you’ll get the compensation you truly deserve. The attorney will also more than likely be familiar with your type of case and your injuries, which puts them in a unique position to assess the value of your claim. They’ve already worked similar cases like yours.

Preparing For Trial

If you’re unable to settle your insurance claim and face litigation against the insurance company, you’ll be much better positioned to win at trial with the help of an attorney who was brought on early. Whether from the perspective of preserving evidence, examining medical records, or creating a history with the insurance company, the pre-trial work done by the personal injury attorney during settlement negotiations will pay off in the courtroom.

Generally, personal injury lawyers work on a contingency basis, which means that people injured in a car accident won’t have to pay anything if the attorney does not recover something for them. If you have been in a car accident and would like to find out more about working with a personal injury attorney, call 704.749.7747 today. Or, click HERE to request a consultation.

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Charlotte Car Accident

CarAccidentWhether you’re traveling on Interstate 77 or 85, or taking a more local route through uptown Charlotte on South Blvd. or Providence Rd., you’re bound to see a Charlotte car accident. Our sincere hope is you can avoid being part of one. But if you are in a car accident in Charlotte, here’s what you need to know:

Report The Accident

So often, victims of accidents don’t feel injured at the scene. They exchange information with the other driver, clear the road, and try to move on with their day. Quite often, that’s a big mistake. By reporting the car accident and generating an accident report, you create the first official record of the event. Additionally, the officer will ask each driver questions about what caused the accident. That information is often relied upon by insurance companies and personal injury attorneys to establish fault in the future.

When a police officer attends to an accident, he or she is more likely to get valid information from both drivers. This can be crucial for the victim of the car accident, when attempting to reach out to the other driver’s insurance company to make a claim for property damage or bodily injury.

Seek Medical Treatment

Whether you take an ambulance from the accident to the hospital is your choice. It’s understandable in a minor accident or ‘fender bender’ not to do so. However, if you’re in a serious car accident, not only do you need to seek medical attention immediately to establish your health condition, you’ll also want to do so to create a health record related to the car accident.

If you wait until after the car accident to seek medical treatment, you need to seek it within a reasonable time. Primarily, because the longer you wait the more damage you can be doing to your health. Additionally, insurance companies deny claims every day based on their assertion that the plaintiff waited too long to seek treatment. They conclude that the delay between the accident date and the treatment date means either you weren’t injured in the car accident, or perhaps you were injured after the car accident and are now trying to blame your injury on the car accident. Either way, your claim is denied and you receive nothing for your injury.

Keep Notes

Write down your thoughts about the car accident. What conditions were present? Who had a green or red light? What chain of events do you remember which led to the collision or car accident? In the days after the car accident, continue to keep notes, including how you feel. Judge your pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and indicate what is hurting you.

When you see a doctor or chiropractor, bring your notebook with you and be sure to clearly communicate to your medical provider what pain you’ve been experiencing since your last visit. These clear indicators then become part of the medical record and can play a critical role in financial recovery when it comes time for your personal injury attorney to make a demand of the insurance company.

Call A Personal Injury Attorney

If you’re in a car accident, a phone call to a personal injury attorney is free. Take advantage of that free call to ask for advice, even if you don’t think you’ve been injured. You’ll find almost any charlotte personal injury attorney will devote time over the phone or in person to answer your questions and give you the confidence to feel you’ve done all you need to do with regard to the car accident.

If you’ve been in a car accident and would like to speak to an attorney, call us today at 704.749.7747. If you’d like to request a call from us, you can do so HERE. We’re here to help.

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Car Accidents and Personal Injury Negotiations

Car Accidents are at the least a gigantic nuisance, and at worst can change your life dramatically, giving rise to permanent injuries and health complications. Negotiating with the other driver’s insurance company– and even your own insurance company– can bring on an amazing amount of frustration and fear that you’re not going to get a fair result. A Charlotte personal injury attorney can make all the difference. In the meantime, here are some tips:

The Negotiation Process For Car Accidents

Typically, your negotiations won’t really begin until your treatment for your injuries from the car accident has completed. This allows your personal injury attorney to value your claim without the insurance adjuster responding that it’s “too soon to tell what the permanent/final injuries are.” In the meantime, HERE are some tips for gathering support for your claim, while treatment is ongoing.

Once treatment is complete, your attorney will value the claim from a number of different perspectives including lost wages, pain and suffering, outstanding medical bills, future medical expenses, etc. This is all summarized in the demand package your personal injury attorney sends to the adjuster, which will include an amount your personal injury attorney thinks the claim is worth.

Getting a response from the adjuster often takes 45-60 days. Keep in mind this is the insurance company’s first chance to review all the paperwork involved in the case, review doctors’ notes, and examine your personal injury attorney’s breakdown of the demand. Once you get a response from the insurance company, each side is essentially attempting to figure out how much movement there is between the initial demand and response, what each party is willing to settle for, and how much patience each side has to wait the other out.

Key Factors In Successful Car Accident Negotiations

FACTS: It helps to have good facts– a police report that establishes the accident was the other motorist’s fault, or damage to the rear of your vehicle (vs. being side-swiped). In negotiations arising from these car accidents, there is little chance the other side will argue their driver is not responsible.

PERSISTENCE: While patience is a key factor in not accepting too low a number, your personal injury attorney also needs to establish a sense of urgency with the adjuster. Once the adjuster has done his/her initial evaluation of the case, there is no reason for each exchange of new offers to take another 45 days.

UNDERSTANDING AND EMPATHY: Insurance adjusters are corporate employees who are over-worked and under-paid. Your personal injury attorney will develop a relationship with the adjuster which goes beyond trading offers back and forth. It is your personal injury attorney’s job to get the adjuster to see you as a human being with a full life, who has been sidetracked by a car accident that was not your fault.

PATIENCE, AGAIN: If the adjuster’s number and your number aren’t even close, the best advice is to wait it out. Sometimes that’s not possible, as hospital bills are piling up; however, most personal injury attorneys can get medical providers and billing agents to defer payment until the case is settled. This helps buy time to play the waiting game. The longer you wait, the quieter your side is, the less the insurance adjuster thinks they can get away with a low offer because the most important thing to you is getting the case settled.

If you have questions about negotiating a personal injury arising out of a car accident, please call 704.749.7747 to speak with me today. I’m here and answering questions is my job.

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