Nobody gets into their car and leaves home expecting to get into a car crash, but the 51,543 car accidents reported in Miami-Dade County in 2020 indicate that not everyone is lucky enough to make it to their destination without incident. In the state of Florida, during 2020, there were a total of 341,399 crashes reported, meaning that our county accounted for roughly 15% of all crashes in the state during that time period.
Source: https://www.flhsmv.gov/traffic-crash-reports/crash-dashboard/
Insurance companies handle claims on the majority of these accidents, meaning that they have plenty of experience with issuing payments to Coral Gables victims; however, it is important to recognize that an insurance company is a for-profit company, and there is a major focus on settling claims as quickly and inexpensively as possible to maximize profitability. No matter how easy your claims process may seem at first glance, nor how pleasant the adjuster assigned to your case may be, the reality is that insurance companies are focused on paying car accident victims far less than they rightfully deserve. Your situation will likely be no different.
This is one reason why it is so important to work with an experienced personal injury attorney from the start — especially if you or a loved one have suffered from severe injuries in a car accident that someone else caused.
Contact 1-800-Injured To Connect With a Personal Injury Attorney Experienced With Car Accidents
1-800-Injured is an attorney and medical referral service. After getting into a Coral Gables car accident — especially one that causes serious injuries or the wrongful death of a loved one — trying to deal with car insurance companies to recover your rightful damages is both frustrating and stressful, not to mention that victims who represent themselves are at risk of settling for far less than what they deserve.
This is why working with an experienced car accident attorney is so essential, but the added complications of trying to find a personal injury lawyer who is ready to take your case is one that many are unable to deal with after such a serious accident happens.
Instead of trying to reach out to law offices in West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, Coral Gables, Miami Lakes, and beyond, we will connect you with an experienced attorney for a free consultation where you can discuss your situation and learn more about how an accident lawyer can help you fight for adequate compensation. Even if the responsible party were to admit fault, this only establishes the first step of the process, and your lawyer will need to decline and counter several insurance company offers with calculations of their own to reach a reasonable dollar value for your case.
You can learn all about this legal process during your consultation about your Coral Gables car accident case. Simply complete our contact form, and we will schedule a free legal consultation with an attorney who is skilled with personal injury cases and has a proven track record in helping their clients pursue compensation from an at-fault driver. Read more below to get a better sense of how a car accident case works through Florida law.
How To Take On The Insurance Company With Confidence
Working with a Coral Gables car accident lawyer gives victims an advantage as they work through an insurance claim in an attempt to recover compensation for damages like lost wages, the cost of medical treatment, and the possibility of permanent disability or losses stemming from the wrongful death of a loved one in a Coral Gables accident. Insurance companies have spent years, or even decades, developing playbooks for their adjusters to follow that focus on resolving claims against their clients as aggressively and inexpensively as possible, regardless of how clear the victim’s damages are directly related to and caused by the other driver.
Source: https://www.flcourts.gov/content/download/672484/file/ar-19-20-court-filings-fy-2018-19.pdf
The District Court of Appeals alone had a total of 5,078 civil cases in 2018, a good indication of why attorneys work to settle before tying up your case in an overwhelmed court system.
When a Coral Gables accident victim approaches an insurance company with legal representation from day one, the insurance company recognizes that they will not be able to resort to their standard practices, and will instead need to deal with an attorney who is focused on making sure that their client gets fair compensation for all of their personal injury damages or wrongful death claims. Additionally, this gives the victim more time to get medical attention.
Understanding Contingency Fees in Personal Injury Cases
Personal injury law offices operate on pay structures known as contingency fees in which the car accident lawyer is paid as a percentage of the final amount that the client is awarded or receives in settlement. Under this agreement, a victim does not need to pay the law firm if they do not win the case, so partnering with an attorney to seek compensation is a risk-free decision that will improve the likelihood of a fair outcome while also giving car accident victims the mental space they need to focus on their recovery.
1-800-Injured will connect you with car accident lawyers in your area for a free consultation where you can discuss the specifics of their contingency fee arrangements as well as gather valuable and experienced insights into your Coral Gables car accident.
The Matter of Fault After a Coral Gables Car Accident
Florida is a “no-fault” state, which means that all drivers must carry their own insurance policy called personal injury protection insurance, or PIP. Each driver’s no-fault PIP covers up to $10,000 of medical bills, lost wages, property damage costs, and more without a victim needing to pursue compensation from the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
Personal injury protection coverage is intended to streamline the claims process, but when the no-fault personal injury protection coverage is insufficient to compensate for all of the damages — especially in accidents where a victim suffers major injuries with substantial medical expense, lost income, and more. In this instance, the victim will seek compensation from the responsible party, but determining how much compensation they are owed introduces a host of other legal issues that a Coral Gables car accident lawyer is best suited to help a victim uphold their legal rights.
Pure Comparative Fault
If a victim and their personal injury attorneys must initiate a claim against the other driver and their insurance policy, they will need to prove that the other driver is the at-fault driver in the accident, and under a rule known as “pure comparative fault,” will need to determine to what extent the other driver is liable.
Pure comparative fault states that “contributory fault chargeable to the claimant diminishes proportionately the amount awarded as economic and non-economic damages for an injury attributable to the claimant’s contributory fault, but does not bar recovery.”
Simply put, this means that a victim can seek compensation after a Coral Gables car accident even if they are partially responsible for the crash and that their final award will be reduced by the percentage of fault they have accepted as their own.
While pure comparative fault is an important law (otherwise, any contribution to a crash, no matter how minor, would bar a victim from seeking any compensation at all), insurance companies will use this law to their advantage by attempting to pin additional fault on the claimant to reduce their financial obligation. Your accident lawyer will fight to defend your legal rights and to ensure that your settlement is not reduced any more than necessary due to your contribution to the accident, if you contributed at all.
Calculating Damages After Establishing Fault in a Coral Gables Car Crash
Once it is determined how the accident occurred and who is responsible (or mostly responsible) for the crash, a personal injury lawyer will set out to gather as much documentation as possible pertaining to the damages their client has suffered. The term “damages” is applied to any loss or impact that someone suffers as a result of an accident.
The damages that a personal injury attorney seeks on behalf of their client are “compensatory” damages intended to compensate for measurable damages, whereas “punitive” damages are intended to punish the responsible party.
Compensatory damages are further divided into two distinct categories: economic and non-economic.
Economic Damages In a Coral Gables Car Accident
Economic damages are the basis of a personal injury case. These damages pertain to any impact that has a set or measurable dollar value, such as medical expenses, lost wages, the cost of goods or services that a victim pays for out of necessity due to their injuries, and much more. In instances of more severe injuries that may lead to long-term impacts to a victim’s income, they may also include disability payments, lost contributions to retirement funds, pensions, or 401K accounts, and more.
Calculating economic damages is as simple as tallying the totals of each line item, like total medical bills and ongoing lost wages, but car accident attorneys have the experience it takes to first identify each of the many damages that may be overlooked.
As you will learn in the next section about non-economic damages, every dollar you include in your economic damage calculations could ultimately translate to an additional $1.50 – 5, so you and your accident lawyer must include every cost or loss, no matter how minor it may seem.
Non-Economic Damages For a Coral Gables Car Accident
Non-economic damages are more complicated to calculate because they seek monetary compensation for abstract or intangible impacts that are not readily associated with economic values. These include things like the physical pain and suffering a victim must endure after suffering from serious injuries, as well as the emotional impacts of such a traumatic event, the loss of enjoyment and the ability to pursue hobbies, and more.
As you can imagine, an insurance company is expected to refuse to consider these types of damages or fights to reduce them as aggressively as possible, which is especially easy to do when dealing directly with a victim who is not represented by a Coral Gables car accident lawyer.
Several methods are used to calculate these damages, but without a professional understanding of Florida law, it can feel nearly impossible to calculate and then defend these figures — especially while trying to push through the pain of recovery and move forward from the trauma of a car crash.
The Multiplier Method
The multiplier method is a common approach that a car accident attorney may take when trying to reach a reasonable amount of non-economic damages following a car crash. Using this method, all non-economic damages are placed along a scale indicating their severity, typically between 1.5 – 5, and then this number is multiplied against the total economic damages.
For example: between medical bills, lost wages, and other economic damages, your car accident attorney has calculated the total amount at $100,000. If your non-economic damages are then assigned a 2.5x on the scale, the total non-economic damages your Coral Gables car accident lawyer will seek will amount to (2.5 x $100,000) $250,000. When combined with your economic damages, the total amount in damages you will seek is $350,000, but car accident lawyers know that once they have calculated a total, they will then need to enter a series of negotiations with the insurance company in the hopes of reaching an out-of-court settlement agreement.
The Per Diem Method
The per diem calculation method is another helpful guideline for determining non-economic damages, and is especially useful for those who have suffered — or continue to suffer — non-economic impacts but have not accrued substantial economic damages with which to use as a multiplier. Using this method, a car accident lawyer will determine a fair daily amount they believe their client is owed and then calculate the total number of days they suffer said damages to reach a final dollar amount.
For example: if a Coral Gables car accident victim suffers pain caused by nerve damage or emotional trauma stemming from an accident, but they are retired, younger than working age, or their medical bills do not reflect the extent of the damages, an attorney may assign a daily rate of $200 and then project the number of days that the victim will endure said damages. If these impacts persist for 400 days, the car accident attorney will seek damages totaling ($200 x 400) $80,000.
Determining The Appropriate Calculation Method For Your Coral Gables Injury Claim
An experienced Coral Gables car accident attorney will determine which calculation method will result in the highest payment for their client. During your free consultation, you will be able to discuss the specifics of your car accident and learn more about how the attorney has helped others following similar car accidents as your own.
While they may not be able to decide exactly which method is appropriate for your car accident case during your free consultation, you will be able to get a clear idea of how they will reach this decision.
This is just one reason why free consultations with law offices are such an important step. This advice can help you look towards the future with a better understanding of your situation and the confidence of knowing that a proven legal team is prepared to fight for the money you deserve.
Frequently Asked Questions About Coral Gables Car Accidents
The following are just a few of the many questions that a legal team commonly answers during free consultations. The answers provided below are meant to give you a general sense of what you can expect for an answer, but we encourage you to take advantage of these free consultations to get specific legal advice regarding your unique situation. The following answers are not meant to be taken as advice.
Will I need to file a personal injury lawsuit to get compensation after a Coral Gables car accident?
A Coral Gables attorney will often work towards a settlement agreement for car accidents; in fact, an estimated 50% of all personal injury claims are resolved before a lawsuit is filed, and 95% of all cases are settled before trial.
Of course, car accidents are unique,
and your situation may differ, but the only way to know how your case will be resolved is to move forward until a resolution — preferably with an attorney experienced in car accidents.
How long will it take to get compensation for my car accident?
Your Coral Gables attorney will not be able to answer this question until the day the check is deposited into your account, but in many instances, a lawyer will work aggressively to reach an out-of-court settlement before the statute of limitations requires you to take formal legal action in the Florida Courts.
Some car accident cases are resolved in a matter of weeks, while others may end up in years of litigation before reaching a final resolution.