If you have been injured in an accident, you are certainly experiencing physical pain and the stress of wondering how much your medical bills will be and how much work you are going to miss. You know that any insurance company you deal with is going to try to get away with paying you as little as possible, and chances are, you do not have the legal expertise to combat the team of personal injury attorneys with whom the insurance company is certain to be staffed.
Fortunately, there is 1800-Injured, a company that can help you locate both doctors and medical professionals in your area. The attorneys who are listed in our network are committed to getting their clients optimal settlements.
Insurance Rules
If you are injured in a car accident, how you should proceed will have a lot to do with whether or not you live in a fault or no-fault state. If you live in a fault state, that means the person who is responsible for the accident is the one who must pay the bills related to the accident.
There are three basic types of fault rules when it comes to insurance: pure comparative, modified pure comparative, and pure contributory negligence.
A pure comparative jurisdiction will require that each individual driver pays for his own portion of the accident. If you are responsible for 75 percent of an accident, your insurance company would pay 75 percent of the other driver’s bills. The other driver would be responsible for paying 25 percent of your bill.
If your state has a modified pure comparative negligence rule, it means that the driver who is most at fault will be responsible for the percentage of the accident they caused, and the driver who is the least at fault would pay nothing. If a driver hit you and it was determined that they were 90 percent at fault, their insurance company would be responsible for 90 percent of your bill and your insurance company would not have to pay any of their bills.
If you live in a pure contributory state, you can only collect money from the other party’s insurance company if they are zero percent at fault. As you can imagine, insurance companies are quite fond of pure contributory states.
In a no-fault state, your own insurance company will pay for your injuries no matter who is at fault.
You should always find a lawyer who is not only experienced but who is experienced in your particular state. Different states have different types of personal injury insurance rules, and it is important to find an attorney who knows the laws of your state.
Different types of Personal Injury Cases
There are a few different kinds of insurance claims and lawsuits that fall into the category of personal injury.
Slip and Fall
A slip and fall accident takes place when you are in a private home, office building or store and you are injured due to the negligence of the home or business owner. The home or business owner’s insurance company will be liable for paying your medical bills and other expenses related to the accident.
One example of a slip and fall accident might be if you were to trip over boxes that have been left out where people generally walk, and those boxes had no warning signs around them.
If you are injured in a slip and fall accident, you will want to ask for witnesses at the scene and fill out an accident report with the business’ management office. You will want to get the name of the company’s insurance provider and call that insurance provider to let them know what happened. You should never accept an insurance company’s settlement offer without first speaking to an attorney.
Car Accident
No matter what kind of insurance rules your state may have, you always want to document all expenses related to a car accident thoroughly. Get a copy of every medical bill you have and get a receipt for every medication you take. You want to make sure to get a letter from your companies HR director detailing the time you missed from work due to your accident. You want to have a copy of the accident report and statements from any witnesses.
Worker’s Compensation
If you have been injured on the job, you may be entitled to compensation even if the accident did not happen when you were performing work. A good attorney can argue that the company is responsible for your well-being while you are on the premises. There have been several famous cases where brilliant personal injury attorneys got compensation for their clients even after their claims had been initially rejected.
Nationwide Personal Injury Settlement
1800-Injured can put you in touch with the professionals you will need in order to recover the funds to which you are entitled. An accident can disrupt your life, but justice is just a click away.