Proving liability in a personal injury case is not easy. While some cases are pretty straightforward and the responsible party is prominent, others are complex and involve several matters and challenging factors that require an expert to examine and analyze. It is a tough decision to determine whether or not you need legal representation after a personal injury. But if you have sustained severe injuries that require extensive medical care, physical therapy, and a lengthy recovery period, it is advisable to have legal representation. At some point in the legal process, you will be required to deal with an insurance company through its insurance adjuster. Your attorney will handle it better than you.
This article discusses various ways a personal injury lawyer can help settle your insurance claim. For more information and legal support, contact an experienced personal injury lawyer.
Settling Your Insurance Claim Settlement
Having legal representation is a personal decision. Some people prefer to represent themselves throughout the legal process, while others opt to have a lawyer by their side. If you need legal representation and cannot afford one, you have a legal right to have one appointed for you by the judge. A lawyer has many benefits, especially when pursuing compensation after a personal injury.
When you choose to represent yourself, it is often likely you will misunderstand or misrepresent the laws involved. Several guidelines, regulations, and stipulations require extensive analysis to understand how they apply to a particular case. Highly skilled and experienced attorneys usually handle them. You can easily make a mistake that will significantly impact your situation and cause you to lose your chance to pursue compensation if you opt to work alone.
Additionally, it would be best if you had enough time to recover from your injuries while your attorney handles the legal matters. If you incur severe physical injuries, you must take a break from everything else to concentrate on your recovery. Some injuries take a longer time to heal than others. You will require time to visit the doctor and rest. That leaves you with minimal time to handle legal issues. Remember that you could lose valuable evidence if so much time is lost. That is why you need someone working on your case while you recover from your injuries. An experienced personal injury attorney would be the best person for the job.
Personal injury lawyers have the information you lack regarding personal injury settlements. For instance, they know the type of evidence required to win a personal injury case. They also know the compensatory damages you can claim in a particular case. It is impossible to get the compensation you deserve without this valuable information.
Thus, you should prioritize hiring an attorney when you sustain a personal injury. Hiring an attorney from the beginning of the legal process is necessary to ensure a smooth process. Having a lawyer right after an accident will also ensure you do not lose valuable evidence at the scene. Here are some of the ways through which a personal injury lawyer can help in your insurance claim settlement:
Helping You Make Better Decisions
You can become very emotional when you are injured in an accident in which another person is responsible. It is not easy to make the right decisions when you are emotional. Some people want to settle scores with those that caused them so much pain and loss, while others want to forgive their offenders and move on. A wrong decision made in an emotional state could compromise your chances of obtaining the compensation you deserve. Remember that you need compensation to cover the losses and costs incurred in the accident. That is why experts advise victims to remain calm regardless of their injuries.
Legal advice is necessary right from when you are injured to when you will receive the compensation you deserve. Experienced attorneys have handled many personal injury cases, knowing how a simple mistake can ruin your chances. Insurance companies always wait for victims to make mistakes to avoid paying. Your attorney will ensure that you make better decisions that will not compromise your case and deny you a chance to recover compensation. For instance, your attorney will advise you against speaking to an insurance adjuster or sympathizing with the responsible party. They will also ensure you go through the proper legal process when pursuing compensation.
Helping You Seek Medical Attention
Immediate medical attention is necessary for anyone that is involved in an accident. Some people do not seek medical help right after an accident, and their injuries worsen over time. You need to visit an emergency room if you have sustained severe injuries. It would be best if you also saw a doctor to devise a treatment plan to ensure that all your injuries are diagnosed and treated on time.
First, seeking medical help is essential for your well-being. You could feel okay after an accident but still have a severe injury. Injuries like internal bleeding are not evident at the beginning but can be fatal if left untreated. Second, seeking medical attention proves that you incurred injuries in the accident. It would be difficult to convince an insurance company of your injuries if you delayed seeking medical help.
Sometimes you could require medical help but not have the means to get to the hospital or the money to pay for medical services. Your attorney will ensure you receive adequate medical help right after an accident. They will also ensure you have a detailed medical report that can be used as evidence to support your claim with the insurance company.
The medical report will show the injuries sustained in the accident, the medical help you need, the medical services you have received already, the medical services you will require in the future, and how long it could take to recover from your injuries.
Gathering Evidence
Personal injury cases are won by the strength of the evidence you have. Insurance companies will take advantage of your evidence to deny you compensation if your evidence is insufficient. You need enough evidence to support your claim for the insurance provider to pay all your damages. For instance, if you claim so much money for medical costs, you must prove that you spent all that money on your medical needs.
Skilled personal injury lawyers know the evidence needed to win a personal injury case. They also know where evidence like that is gathered and how it should be prepared and presented. They know when to gather evidence and how much of it is enough to compel the insurance provider to compensate your losses.
Having an attorney from the beginning of your injury case gives them enough time to gather and prepare evidence against the responsible party. An insurance company will not be willing to compensate unless they are sure you have enough evidence against their client. They will even need evidence before responding to your claim.
Evidence could be in pictures, video coverage, and eyewitness accounts. An experienced attorney will include sufficient evidence when sending a compensation claim to the insurance provider.
Meeting Strict Legal Deadlines
Legal matters have stringent deadlines that you must meet to receive a fair outcome for your case. For instance, personal injury cases must follow a particular procedure within a given timeline for the injured to receive the compensation they deserve. Experienced personal injury lawyers know about these deadlines and how they can meet them to help their clients obtain compensation after an accident.
Your lawyer knows when to report a personal injury to the police and insurance company. For instance, you must report an accident immediately after it occurs. If the police do not respond to the accident scene, you must notify them within 24 hours of the accident. Additionally, you must notify your insurance provider of an accident within 48 hours. Failing to do so could cause the insurance company to deny your claim.
An insurance company can assume that the accident was not serious or significant, so you took longer to notify them. The company has every right to deny your claim if you do not have a valid reason for failing to notify them of the accident.
After informing the insurance company of the accident, your attorney must prepare and send a demand letter explaining the details of the accident, the type of injuries you sustained in the accident, and the damages you incurred. If the insurance company does not respond to this letter after a few weeks, your attorney must contact them. That way, your claim remains within the deadlines given under the statutes of limitations for personal injury cases.
If the insurance company is unwilling to respond or settle the matter out of court, your attorney should be able to file a compensatory claim with a civil court within two years of the accident.
Preparing and Sending a Demand Letter
Legal experts know best how to prepare and file legal documents. They know what to include and not include in those documents. Demand letters must be prepared and filed in a specific manner you could not be familiar with. Allowing an attorney to do that for you improves your chances of receiving compensation after a personal injury.
A demand letter is a centerpiece for the insurance claim process. It is a detailed document created by the victim and shared with the responsible party's insurance company, highlighting your claim and its logical reason. It should include your name, date, contact details, name of the insurance provider, subject, and enclosed copies of supporting documents. Your attorney will ensure that everything the insurance company needs to respond to your claim is included in the letter, including evidence and details of your claim.
An experienced attorney will first organize your damages, establish the facts of the case, share their perspective on the case, and provide details of your recovery journey in the demand letter. Your attorney must also acknowledge and emphasize your pain, anguish, and suffering and demand a reasonable settlement to cover your losses.
Negotiating With Insurance Adjuster
When you call to inform an insurance company of an accident in which you incurred a personal injury, the company appoints an insurance adjuster to investigate and advise the insurer whether to pay or deny the claim. The adjuster will contact you in a few days or weeks to hear your side of the story. They will ask what happened, who was responsible, whether you sustained severe injuries, and what kind of medical attention you received.
Note that insurance adjusters only work on behalf of their employer and only have the employer's interests at heart. Thus, they will only gather information to help the insurer deny the claim or pay less than you deserve. That is why personal injury victims are highly advised against dealing with insurance adjusters and only to leave the matter in the hands of their attorneys.
Experienced personal injury attorneys know all insurance adjusters' tricks to gather evidence against personal injury victims. Your attorney will be ready to protect you and ensure that you only provide adequate information to the adjuster, not more than could compromise your situation. If anything, the attorney will negotiate with the adjuster without your involvement. That way, you will avoid making mistakes that could jeopardize your case.
Helping You Secure Compensation Faster
It is not unusual to find an accident victim struggling to pay for medical and personal needs because they do not have the financial ability to do so. Accidents come when they are least expected. Some people do not have savings for emergencies to cater to their needs when something unexpected comes. Others have minimal savings that can only go a long way and do not cater to expensive medical procedures they could require after an accident. If you are in that situation and require faster compensation, your attorney can help you.
Out-of-court settlements offer a speedy solution to victims that require faster compensation and insurance providers that want to deal with the matter and be done with it. It is a win-win situation for parties willing to negotiate and be done with the case in the shortest time possible.
In that case, your attorney will hold meetings with the insurance adjuster to negotiate a settlement that will enable you to cater to your medical and other needs. Remember that your attorney's role is to protect your rights and ensure that your best interests are served. Thus, the attorney will ensure that the negotiations are in your favor.
If your attorney has enough evidence against the responsible party, the insurance company will be willing to negotiate out of court because it could cost them more money if the matter were filed in a civil court. Thus, you can quickly obtain the compensation you deserve without necessarily going through the court process.
Giving You Peace of Mind
It could be too much for you to handle if you are dealing with severe injuries after an accident and have to fight for compensation. In most cases, accident victims give up on pursuing compensation to concentrate on recovery. Others risk their lives to pursue compensation first to obtain the money needed to seek medical help. It leaves you emotionally drained and could result in stress and depression.
Having an attorney takes away the stress and gives you peace of mind. It would be best if you had peace of mind to recover from your injuries. A stressed mind will prolong recovery and make it hard for you to make the right decisions. It could introduce other illnesses and conditions that could leave you sick for extended periods, like stress-related ailments.
An attorney will handle the legal issues as you concentrate on your recovery. You do not have to deal with the insurance company or an insurance adjuster during this period, which could increase your stress levels and affect your recovery. Your attorney will also take care of any damaged property, like a vehicle, to allow enough to rest. Your attorney will ensure that you have enough evidence to support your claim. They will prepare and file documents with the insurance company and the court (if need be) to keep the case going even before your recovery.
Find a San Diego Personal Injury Lawyer Near Me
Legal help after a personal injury is essential. Personal injury laws are complex and require a legal expert to navigate the process and deliver a fair outcome for a case. An attorney can do much more for you than representing you in court during hearings. It would be best to have someone working behind the scenes as you receive treatment for your injuries. You also need an expert to handle your claim's stern insurance adjuster. We walk the journey with our clients at San Diego Personal Injury Law Firm until they receive the compensation they deserve. Call us at 619-478-4059 to understand how we operate and how we could help your situation.