The average driver is involved in an auto accident, on average, once every 18 years. That translates into four accidents over the course of your lifetime. What happens if you’re in an accident that was not your fault and you sustain serious injuries? Your injuries will require you to miss several weeks of work, your medical and hospital bills are mounting, as are your car repair bills and other expenses.
Several legitimate questions remain to be answered, such as: Who is at fault? Who will pay for your car repairs and medical bills? Do you qualify for pain and suffering compensation? Can you ask the guilty party’s insurance company to reimburse you for lost wages?
An experienced personal injury attorney can be extremely helpful in getting the answers to those questions while making sure your rights are protected. Most personal injury attorneys work on a contingency basis, so they only get paid if they can successfully resolve your claim. In other words, you won’t have to pay significant up-front costs just to get their help.
Many personal injury attorneys have important experience that you lack, especially when it comes to collecting the evidence that’s needed to win in court or to successfully settle a claim out of court. This might include accessing police accident reports, witness statements, medical records and lost-wage analyses. You can rely on them to do the legal legwork while you focus on healing emotionally and physically from your accident.
Often immediately following a car accident, you may receive a call from the other party’s insurance company, hoping to get you to agree to a quick and extremely small settlement. In nearly all situations, this is the wrong thing to do! You might even be told things such as, “You are partially at fault, we will cover a small part of your expenses.” Or, “We can only offer you this amount right now.”
An experienced personal injury attorney will be your representative in dealing with the other driver’s insurance company. They likely have access to accident experts who can help strengthen your case, and their negotiating experience with insurance companies will almost always pay dividends in securing the money you need to cover all your expenses. In some cases, they may help you recover “pain and suffering” expenses.
There are many different kinds of damages that a victim of a car accident may be able to pursue, as an attorney, like a personal injury lawyer in New York from a law firm like Hurwitz, Whitcher & Molloy, Attorneys at Law, can explain.