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The risk of car accidents has escalated out of hand in the past few decades and the future does not appear to be reassuring either, at least not for the short term. While acting responsibly on the road and being extra careful can make you relatively safe, there is no guarantee of evading traffic accidents every time.
The threat is deeply entrenched in our society due to limitations of control over drivers, however, experts are working tirelessly to make roads safer for everyone.
In the meantime, accidents continue to create huge financial, physical, and emotional drains for victims. And, the only way to preserve your financial security and to avoid the economic abyss is to seek financial compensation from the at-fault drivers.
For this, you will need the services of competent and highly experienced personal injury lawyers who will fight for your cause at all stages of the accident settlement legal process, whether it ends with an agreement with the other party, as per the auto liability insurance policy, or conforms into a lawsuit. Car accident medical expenses can quickly pile up and overwhelm a victim..
The economic losses that necessitate this legal tussle are many, but none compares to the fraction claimed by medical expenses.
This article will shed light on this area of financial drains due to motor vehicle accidents and how they impact accident claims.
Auto accidents are not all the same. The intensity, timing, accident scene (location), and type of collision are all huge factors when it comes to the types of damages involved.. Medical bills are almost always a nuisance because even in moderate cases, a diagnosis is needed to ascertain the victim’s condition.
For instance, what appears to a whiplash, maybe something else entirely – even if it is not, the doctor must eliminate all other possibilities before treating your condition. Thus, victims usually have to deal with inflated medical costs and other financial drains because of auto crashes.
Common car accident injuries demanding such expenses may be minor, moderate, or extreme.
For instance, even minor rear-end collisions can cause whiplash (where the neck jolts back and forth in a whip-like motion), bruises, cuts, neck pain, minor head injury, minor spine injury, fractured bones, and so on. The pain and suffering in such cases may wither after a couple of days but you may still be unable to pursue your job for a while and thus suffer a cut in your income.
In moderate to severe cases (the severest being rollover accidents, crashes with drunk drivers, etc.), accident victims have to deal with a world of pain from severe injuries. Injuries like broken bones, severe neck injury, internal organ damage, soft tissue damage, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, internal bleeding, lacerations, heavy bruising, disfigurations, and much more are possible here.
In some cases, the injuries may be permanent, or at least, part of the trauma may persist for a long time, perhaps, even for life.
Not to mention the complications created by amputations, paralysis, or wrongful death damages (funeral expenses, loss of income, and loss of consortium); such situations demand maximum compensation, and the victims can ask an experienced attorney to file a lawsuit for them if the insurance companies refuse to cooperate (they may even win punitive damages).
To sum it up: The types of injuries and their intensity will vary across the board – thus, you should not be quick to settle for a nominal sum. Instead, you should seek legal consultation from experienced car accident lawyers before finalizing your decision on anything, it will be worth it.!
Having your doctor’s notes with you and understanding the nature of the damages you sustained (minor, acute, long-term, permanent, etc.) put you in a better spot for demanding fair compensation. But you must also understand how much all of this is going to cost you.
The pain and suffering caused by catastrophic injuries will not evaporate anytime soon, instead, the condition may demand prolonged periods of therapy and medical treatments. For instance, someone suffering from chronic spinal injury should never settle for a sum that does not cover the full extent of the damage.
A one-time payment, calculated only by keeping in view the momentary losses (i.e. the bills and receipts you have) will be inadequate. If you know that your medical expenses will continue to bother you even after you’ve cleared up a couple of bills, you should get an estimate on the duration of your therapy; an experienced auto accident lawyer will help you get fairly compensated.
For instance, initial medical care for such an injury may cap at, let’s say $1,000 (hypothetically), but you may need physical therapy (i.e. chiropractic treatment) from medical providers for a year, and each session may cost you an additional $500. This way, the additional therapy sessions will cost you much more than the initial patch-up.
These are hypothetical numbers, of course, but usually, things play out exactly like this for impact injury cases.
Moreover, the bills are never expected to decrease, i.e. you have to factor in the financial dynamics and their effect on healthcare costs.
Your personal injury lawyer will not only help you get a fair estimate on the long-term costs associated with your medical bills but also add up other factors like pain and suffering; then there are policy limits to consider - sometimes
Bottom line: Always consider the long-term medical costs before pursuing your legal claim and settling for a sum; sometimes, matters settle fairly only via personal injury lawsuits.
Now comes the confrontation part.
You’ll have to be brave, pull yourself together, and face the auto insurance company if you wish to get compensated fairly. Your insurance claim for compensation will be just as big as the losses (medical expenses, loss of income, property damage claim, repair costs, special damages, etc.) incurred upon you by the responsible parties.
We can’t remember, how many times people asked us how much a certain type of personal injury case could get them, and how many times we had to tell them that the payout depends on the details of every case – it is not a fixed sum.
While most cases settle in a couple of thousand dollars, others can go well over $100,000, or even more than a million dollars!
The details of every case are different.
For some types of accidents, it is very easy to identify the at-fault party. For instance, in distracted driving crashes, drunk driving accidents, aggressive driving collisions, speeding accidents, rear-end accidents, head-on collisions, side-impact collisions, and pedestrian-automobile collisions, the negligent driver is literally waving the “I did it” card.
However, in other cases, you may have had a share in the blame or are not sure who did all of this to you (hit and run accidents). Yet in other cases, the fault may not lie in the court of just one party but two or more liable parties (i.e. in accidents involving commercial vehicles or defective vehicles - design defects will pull the manufacturers in the tussle as well), in which case the payout will be bigger than otherwise.
Then there are additional details to consider such as weather conditions, vehicle defects, or unsafe roads which may have complicated things; accident injury attorneys make it a point to unveil all aspects of the case before going ahead with the claims process.
Just remember to never accept a quick settlement from the insurance company without knowing the full extent of your case. Their first offer is not even close to what they can give you for your personal injury claim, these offers usually touch the minimum limits - completely inadequate for the physical pain and emotional trauma of the crash victims.
Your medical records can also be a factor here, the insurance adjuster will scan for details that can be used to downplay the role of your accident injuries in bringing about your present condition, they may stress that some preexisting medical conditions had a role in making things as bad and thus deny you a fair settlement..
Of course, if the case is solid enough, the personal injury victims need not worry about the adjusters being cold-blooded reptile, and instead, can proceed with accident lawsuits against distracted drivers.
If the other party's insurance liability coverage does not cover the extent of your losses, or in the event of an uninsured car accident, you can turn to the underinsured motorist coverage and uninsured motorist coverage of your own auto insurance policy to pay off for all common types of damages and bills for medical professionals.
You can also dig into the insurance coverage of your health insurance company.
The point is that you have several options, even in the direst circumstances.
Seek legal consultation from experienced accident lawyers representing competent injury law firms before going down a certain road because there may be no going back; just remember that these cases have time limits under the statute of limitations, so, avoid unnecessary delays.
Securing a fair personal injury settlement in personal injury cases for any type of compensation claim (accidents, defective products, medical malpractice, etc.) is never as simple as walking into the insurance company office, speaking to the adjuster, and getting a decent payout.
In theory, if you had all the evidence supporting your side of the claim and you approached the company representing the negligent party, they should’ve offered you reimbursement for all of your economic and non-economic damages.
However, this is not true in practicality, if it were, you wouldn’t be reading this.
In reality, insurance adjusters are very tricky to handle and they will do whatever it takes to cut down your compensation sum. Thus, your best bet is to seek strong legal representation from a team of auto accident attorneys boasting decades of experience and a flawless record of success in personal injury law, and that's us!
Our team of personal injury attorneys at Calhoun Meredith, a top-rated accident law firm, make sure that your claim for compensation stands firm against the tactics of the insurance company.
Just a PS, don’t worry about paying us, we work on a contingency fee basis – no win, no pay.
Call us today, and we’ll handle the rest!