Someone that has filed a personal injury claim has the chance to go after a huge award, by fighting the defendant in a courtroom. Still, most claimants choose to settle their case and avoid the need to appear in court. Why do they forsake the chance to seek a big payoff? Read More
Ways To Determining Value of Totaled Vehicle
There are a lot of aspects of a car accident that are inconvenient. Even a minor fender bender can be an inconvenience since you’ll have to take the steps to repair the vehicle. One of the more inconvenient situations with a car accident is when the vehicle is totaled. This is a term used by insurance companies to determine that it’s not financially worth it to fix a vehicle. So, the insurance company will give you a set amount and take the vehicle to the scrap yard and sell it for parts to try to recoup some of the costs. Read More
What Happens When You Do Not Report An Auto Accident To The Insurance Service?
You might be tempted to pretend a minor car accident didn’t happen by not reporting it to your insurance company. After all, the risk of the premiums of your car insurance going up are very real if an accident is reported. So, you might think, why bother increasing my expenses for something that doesn’t look like to be a big deal? Read More
What Expenses Arise During Litigation of A Personal Injury Case?
Litigation can be expensive. Yet lawyers do not use the term “expense,” when referring to money that covers the charge for a particular service, one performed by a client’s legal team. Instead that expense gets called a cost. Certain costs arise during the course of a trial. Read More
The Role of Mediation In A Personal Injury Claim
In the past, the legal system has guided the injured victims of an accident towards utilization of a confrontational approach to the resolution of disputes. Now, though, students attending law schools devote time to learning a good deal about mediation. Read More
Reasons For Seeking Lawyer’s Help With A Personal Injury Claim
The accident victim that has not suffered a serious injury might fail to see a reason for hiring a lawyer. Yet no victim can be certain of what the future might hold, in terms of development of new symptoms. By the same token, no one can be sure that a planned trial will proceed as expected. Those observations highlight the wisdom behind consulting with a lawyer, while planning a trial-free approach to the resolution of a specific dispute. Read More
Is It Wise To Handle An Injury-Related Claim Without A Lawyer?
The accident victim that chooses to deal, alone, with an insurance company lacks all of the knowledge that was acquired by the insurer’s representatives. In the absence of such knowledge, the claimant/victim may well feel forced to accept the argument made by the defense team (those same representatives). Read More
Role of Insurance Company In Resolving A Claim
The insurance company plays a passive role in the chain of events that takes place immediately after two or more vehicles have collided. The involved drivers must exchange the name of their auto insurance companies, along with their policy numbers. Later, the same drivers must contact their own insurance company.
At that point, the company’s role switches from passive to active. The insurer assigns the case to one of the company’s adjusters. The adjuster contacts the claimant, and arranges to inspect the damaged vehicle.
Steps that might be taken by the other party’s insurance company.
Sometimes the company insuring the other driver contacts the person that filed the claim and asks him or her to provide them with a recorded statement. Accident victims should know that they are not required to furnish that same company with that desired statement. Smart victims say that their Personal Injury Lawyer in Oakville will be contacting the offices from which the request for a recorded statement has come.
Sometimes an insurer’s representative asks an injured victim to provide the representative’s boss with access to the victim’s medical records. This is another request that should not be acknowledged by a handing-over of the requested item. Instead, the insurance company should contact the victim’s lawyer, who can arrange for delivery of those medical papers that relate to the ongoing case.
Lawyers understand when it is to their client’s benefit to provide the insurer for the other party with a copy of the relevant papers. Such papers should not reach the hands of the other party’s insurance company until the lawyer’s client has reached the stage of maximum medical improvement (MMI).
What if the other driver is underinsured or uninsured?
In that case, the victim-lawyer team must work with the client’s/victim’s insurance company, in order to gather all of the relevant facts, along with any significant evidence. That includes all the facts that pertain to anyone that was in the car that felt the collision-associated impact.
Sometimes, adults might fail to consider any possible harm done to children in the vehicle, especially if each of them appears unharmed and healthy. Still, the absence of symptoms during the days right after the collision does not always mean that the symptom-free youth is also free from any trace of injury.
That is why a lawyer may need to step in, as the insurance company carries out its role. The lawyer might need to fight a request for an early settlement. An injury lawyer might realize that it makes no sense to settle until all the victims have reached the state known as maximum medical improvement. Only then can a victim feel confident that he or she will not suffer any unexpected medical complications.
Method For Determining Pain And Suffering Damages
Insurance companies have no one method for determining the extent of a claimant’s pain and suffering. At the present time, they normally select one of 3 different methods. Read More
How Value of Claim Depends On Evidence of Long Term Injury
Both lawyers and insurance companies ask this question, regarding a client’s or policy holder’s injuries: To what extent does the injury affect the victim’s life? Read More