If you have been injured in a crash caused by another driver you might be asking these questions:
- Who do you contact to get your car repaired and doctor bills and lost wages paid?
- Should you file on your health insurance?
- Are you required to give a recorded statement?
- How much is your case worth?
- Will you have to file a lawsuit?
- Can you handle all of the details yourself?
Unless you were involved in a fender bender and were not injured, navigating the complicated legal/insurance/medical process is almost impossible on your own.
You should hire a good car accident lawyer to handle the investigation and paperwork and fight to get you a good recovery of money. The sooner you hire an experienced professional, the better.
You especially need an injury lawyer in these situations:
1. When you or a family member have been injured
If you had to go to the emergency room, have tests performed, and will go through extensive medical treatment, your bills will mount up quickly. You may also lose income if you can’t perform your job and will suffer a lot of pain.
When the damages are serious, the financial stakes escalate and the other driver’s insurance company may deny or at least delay payment. What will you do then? An aggressive accident lawyer will explain how you can be fairly compensated and fight for you immediately.
2. When liability is disputed
Some collisions like rear-enders are open and shut. But others are not. The other driver’s account can contradict yours. When police officers come to the scene, they interview the drivers at the scene (you may have already been rushed to the ER) and witnesses and write a report. You may not know how to find it or how to decipher its codes. We subscribe to a data base and obtain the report for our clients at no charge and discuss the findings with them.
If multiple vehicles are involved, the determination of fault can be more complicated. Photographs, scene measurements, and witness statements must be obtained from all drivers and witnesses. There are limited insurance policies and financial resources that can be used to pay for all driver’s damages.
A car wreck attorney will not only take care of the formalities involved in the process but will also negotiate with the other parties and insurance adjuster on your behalf. Having an attorney and expert investigate the facts of the collision can make or break the case.
3. When your company is not working with you
You need to know what coverage you have to pay for your damaged vehicle, personal property, medical bills, and lost wages. The other driver may not have a valid insurance policy or he may be excluded. You may have uninsured motorists or underinsured motorists benefits that can be paid to you. We just settled our client’s case successfully when that happened. This can be complicated to figure out. Your own company may deny or delay making payments you have already paid them for.
For example, many people have bought Personal Injury Protection benefits that will pay up to $2,500 for everyone in the vehicle but did not know it, or did not know how to file on the policy. We have made many companies pay our clients these funds when it was not able to meet our demand to prove that they had not rejected this coverage in writing.
You may have other insurance that can pay your bills that we will discuss with you.
4. When your case is being denied or delayed by the companies
The insurance company for the other parties often prolong the evaluation and settlement process unnecessarily, even if your case is strong. This is because insurance companies make profits from the investments they have made from premiums charged. The longer they withhold the claim settlement, the more profit they will make. They may even decide not to pay you a penny if they think they have a valid argument that will hold up in court. An attorney will deal on your behalf and make sure you receive a reasonable settlement.
How can Berenson Injury Law help get a bigger recovery of money?
A good injury attorney does many things to boost the settlement or verdict amount.
Mr. Berenson and his staff will perform many valuable legal services including the following:
- Meet with you to answer your questions and explain the legal and insurance process
- Gather evidence, take photographs, and record witness statements
- Conduct legal research
- Prove that you are not at fault
- Notify all insurance carriers and medical providers
- Assist you with repairing or totaling your vehicle and getting a rental car
- Help get you repaid for any towing, storage, and rental car bills you incur
- Make sure you are reimbursed for your deductible if filing on your own collision coverage is a better option
- Coordinate medical treatment and help get medical treatment paid or guaranteed
- Pay for necessary medical records and bills up front and send them to insurance adjuster
- Help locate other insurance policies that can pay your damages
- Secure proof of lost income and benefits
- Provide an emergency loan with no interest charged to our clients
- Craft demand letter and build settlement package
- Negotiate with the insurance company and fight to increase the offer
- Negotiate with doctors and health insurance companies to decrease medical bills
- Make sure required liens are paid, reducing them when possible
- Explain in detail how much money you will receive and recommend whether you should accept the offer or file a lawsuit
- Get all legal procedures finalized as quickly as possible with no cost for internal expenses to our clients
- Get required documents signed and returned if you decide to accept the insurance company’s offer
- File suit and take your case to court if it is in your best interest
The sooner you act, the better
As you can see from this list, these cases are complicated.
We get several calls a week from people who were injured in collisions months ago who tell us (1) they have never heard back from the other driver’s insurance company, (2) only a small settlement offer was made, or (3) no offer was and they don’t know what to do now. They tell us that they assumed the other driver’s insurance company was going to treat them fairly or they wanted to try to get a big settlement on their own, and wished they had not.
By yourself, you will not know what the rules and procedures are or what your case is worth. The insurance company knows that it can low ball you and that you don’t know how to file a lawsuit and take your case to a jury. It will take advantage of your lack of knowledge and unfair bargaining position. It knows that you are in a hurry to get your bills paid and that it can offer less money – we see offers of only $500 made. By comparison, these are just a few of our verdicts and settlements over the past nearly 40 years.
Six months later, it is often too late for an attorney to step in and repair the damage that has been done to the case.
If you are worried that you will have to pay the attorney, a study has shown that injured claimants get three times as much money when a lawyer represents them. The contingent fee system, where the attorney does not charge you for his services or expenses until you get paid, protects you so that you have nothing to lose.
In addition, we are often successful in reducing our client’s hospital and medical bills to get our clients even more money.
When you hire Berenson Injury Law, we will immediately do all the legal work so all you have to do is get well. You can relax knowing that we taking care of all of the details. We are focused on doing everything to make sure that you get the compensation you deserve.
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