Many car accidents occur because other people drive recklessly or carelessly and crash into you. Even if you know a car accident is not your fault, you should still have a car accident attorney in your area call your insurance company.
By taking this action, your lawyer places the insurance company on notice of a potential claim. If you suffered injuries in your accident, you might eventually need to file an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim with your own insurance company under certain circumstances.
Once your attorney notifies the appropriate insurance company and files a claim, they may begin to negotiate favorable settlement compensation on your behalf. That compensation may include monetary damages for your related medical expenses, lost earnings, and other accident-related losses. Reach out to a car accident lawyer.
If the insurance company does not offer you a fair economic damage award for your injuries, your lawyer can file a lawsuit in court, litigate your case, and pursue the highest amount of monetary compensation available to you.
Medical Treatment After a Car Accident
When other people drive negligently, accident victims frequently suffer injuries, some of them permanent. One of the best ways to prevent your injuries from becoming worse is to seek ongoing medical treatment after your accident.
The injuries that accident victims suffer in a car crash typically depend on how their body moves in the vehicle, whether a part of their body strikes something in the car (such as the headrest, window, doorframe, or steering wheel), the amount of force involved in the collision, the number of vehicles involved in the crash, and other accident-specific circumstances that vary from case to case.
Generally speaking, the more forceful a collision, the more significant the injuries drivers and passengers may suffer.
Car crash victims commonly sustain:
- Internal organ damage
- Traumatic head and brain injuries, including concussions and coma
- Whiplash contusions involving the neck and upper back
- Bone fractures
- Rib fractures
- Spinal cord damage
- Paralysis injuries
- Open lacerations
- Bruises, usually resulting from airbag deployment
By seeking ongoing medical intervention following your car accident, you help ensure that your injuries do not worsen with time. In addition, you show the insurance company that your injuries are severe and that you deserve to recover monetary compensation for your medical expenses and your ongoing pain, suffering, and inconvenience.
Car Accident Causes
Most car accidents result from negligence on the part of another driver. When drivers violate their duty to drive safely and carefully, they may inadvertently cause an accident and severe injuries to other drivers and passengers. When you can prove someone else was to blame, their insurer should cover all of your losses. Identifying the cause of the crash is critical to your future.
One of the most common causes of traffic accidents is inattentive driving. A driver is distracted when they fail to watch the road continuously and carefully.
Instead of watching the road, a driver might be roughhousing with a vehicle passenger, adjusting the volume on their car stereo system, finding a song on their music playlist, programming a GPS navigation system, or fiddling with an electronic device, like a cellular phone or tablet.
Distracted driving may cause a driver to turn their eyes away from the road for several seconds and negligently cause a traffic accident.
Other car accidents happen when drivers fail to use their mirrors, side cameras, and backup cameras when driving – and while backing out of parking spaces in parking garages and lots. When drivers fail to utilize these devices, they may not see a vehicle or pedestrian behind them, causing a severe crash.
Some car accidents also occur when drivers are intoxicated or under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Intoxication often leads to blurred vision, dizziness, and other physical symptoms that prevent a driver from operating their vehicle carefully. In addition, intoxicated drivers cannot control their reflexes well enough to hit the brakes in time to avoid a crash.
Additionally, some car accidents happen when drivers exhibit road rage. An enraged driver might resort to aggressive driving maneuvers, like tailgating other vehicles, failing to use turn signals, and weaving around heavy traffic, often cutting off one or more cars and causing a series of collisions.
Finally, some car crashes happen when drivers willfully violate traffic laws, such as by:
- Exceeding the posted speed limit
- Failing to yield the right-of-way to other vehicles at a traffic intersection
- Failing to use turn signals at the appropriate times when turning at an intersection or switching lanes
When car and truck drivers engage in these reckless driving maneuvers, they may cause a severe crash with another vehicle or pedestrian. Some of the most common types of motor vehicle accidents that result from driver negligence include T-bone or broadside collisions, head-on accidents, rear-end collisions, sideswipe accidents, and overturn accidents.
If you sustained injuries in an accident that resulted from another driver’s reckless behavior, you should obtain contact information from the at-fault driver, assuming you can do so.
Your lawyer can then contact the insurance company for the other driver and your insurance company to begin the claims-filing process on your behalf. Your attorney’s primary goal will be to maximize the monetary compensation you receive through settlement or litigation.
Third-party Car Accident Claims
In most instances, your lawyer will file a third-party insurance claim with the at-fault motor vehicle driver’s insurance company after a car accident. As part of the claims-filing process, your lawyer will first need to gather important documents to use as potential evidence in your case.
Those documents may include:
- Police investigation reports
- Written witness statements
- Photographs of property damage
- Pictures of the accident victim’s visible injuries
- Pictures of the motor vehicle accident scene
- Medical treatment records
- Medical bills
- Tax returns
- Lost income documents from the accident victim
- A personal statement that the accident victim prepares
After submitting a settlement demand package to the other party’s insurance company, your lawyer can begin pursuing favorable compensation in your case. Insurance companies and their adjusters are often unwilling to offer accident victims fair monetary compensation for their losses upfront.
In fact, adjusters try to save their insurance companies as much money as possible in car accident claims. After all, insurance companies are not in the business of paying out large personal injury settlements and jury verdicts. Instead, they want to try and keep as much of their money for themselves as possible.
Settlement negotiations with insurance company adjusters can take many weeks or months and usually involve:
- The accident victim’s lawyer making an initial settlement demand
- The insurance company making a lowball settlement offer
- The parties negotiating back and forth until they reach an impasse or they resolve the case through a settlement
If the car accident claim does not resolve with the at-fault party’s insurance company, your lawyer may file a lawsuit in state court and pursue a favorable result for you there. Your car accident attorney can handle all of the oral and written communications with insurance company adjusters in your case and will do everything they can to secure the highest amount of monetary recovery available for you.
First-party Car Accident Claims
Sometimes, your attorney may need to file a first-party claim with your insurance company. Given this possibility, your lawyer must reach out to your insurance company as early on in the process as possible, putting them on notice of a potential claim.
An uninsured motorist claim is one type of first-party claim following a car accident. Your lawyer may need to pursue this type of claim if the driver who caused your accident had no motor vehicle insurance coverage.
Alternatively, your lawyer may need to pursue an uninsured motorist claim if the at-fault driver fled the scene of the accident before you can obtain their contact information, insurance information, or license plate number. These are often called phantom vehicle accidents.
In addition, your attorney may need to file a first-party underinsured motorist claim with your insurance company under certain circumstances. Your lawyer can file a claim for underinsured motorist benefits if the responsible driver did not have sufficient insurance coverage to adequately compensate you for all of your accident-related losses and damages.
In this situation, your lawyer will first pursue a policy limit offer from the at-fault driver’s insurance company. They can then pursue a first-party UIM claim against your own insurance company, seeking additional monetary compensation for all of your accident-related losses.
First-party insurance claims proceed in much the same way as third-party claims, and accident victims can either settle their claim or litigate it in the court system. Your car accident attorney can explore all of your legal options with you and help you decide on the best way to maximize the monetary recovery you receive in your case.
Pursuing Favorable Monetary Recovery for Car Accident Losses
The monetary compensation you receive via a third-party or first-party personal injury claim will depend on various factors, including the severity of your injuries, the types of medical treatment you underwent, the total cost of your medical expenses, and other accident-specific losses.
Monetary damages in your car accident case should include compensation for all of your:
- Related past and future medical expenses
- Mental distress and emotional anguish
- Pain and suffering (both past and anticipated)
- Lost earnings
- Loss of earning capacity
- Loss of spousal companionship and consortium
- Loss of life enjoyment
- Permanent disability or disfigurement
- Loss of the ability to use a specific body part
- Long-term care costs stemming from the accident and your injuries
A car accident attorney in your area can help you determine a ballpark figure for the monetary compensation you may expect to recover in your case. Your lawyer can then set about maximizing your financial compensation through a favorable settlement offer, jury verdict, or binding arbitration award.
Proving the Legal Elements of a Car Accident Case
No matter the type of claim you file, you will need to prove several legal elements in your case to recover monetary compensation following a car accident.
First, you must demonstrate that the at-fault driver deviated from the standard of care and acted unreasonably under the circumstances. For example, the driver might have committed one or more traffic law violations.
In addition, you must demonstrate that this breach was both the actual and the foreseeable cause of your motor vehicle crash. Finally, through medical testimony, you must show that you suffered at least one physical injury from the car crash.
A car accident attorney in your area can help you satisfy these legal elements by retaining an expert, such as a treating medical provider, to testify in your case. Medical experts can be extremely helpful when causally connecting your injuries to the accident or determining that you suffered one or more permanent injuries in your car crash.
Speak With an Experienced Car Accident Lawyer Near You Today
If you sustained injuries in a car crash that another driver caused, time is of the essence. Accident victims only have two years from their accident date to file a personal injury claim or lawsuit that seeks monetary recovery.
Sometimes people think that their accident case is simple and doesn’t require the involvement of a lawyer. However, in all cases, insurance companies will make every effort not to give victims the compensation they deserve. The best way to prevent this from happening to you is by enlisting the help of a lawyer.
In addition to filing a timely claim or lawsuit on your behalf, a skilled car accident attorney in your area can negotiate with insurance company representatives, litigate your case, and represent you in all legal proceedings. Reach out to a personal injury lawyer.
If your case must go to a civil jury trial or binding arbitration hearing, your attorney may introduce favorable evidence on your behalf and fight for your right to the full monetary recovery you need.