As electric scooters continue to become more popular for traveling around Fort Lauderdale and many other American cities, it is no surprise that accidents involving electric scooters are also on the rise. There are many electric scooter sharing companies that are expanding into new areas, such as Lime and Bird, that offer affordable and convenient transportation for their customers in an enjoyable way, and it is no surprise that Fort Lauderdale is a very popular city for these types of rides.
Riding on an electric scooter can be a lot of fun, especially in the great weather that Fort Lauderdale has to offer, but they come with a set of unique risks to accidents, which can be caused by either rider inexperience, negligence, or recklessness, or from others on the road. If you have been hurt in an electric scooter accident that someone else caused, then you are entitled to compensation for your injuries, your financial losses, and many other impacts that you may have to suffer as a result of someone else’s behavior.
Connect With a Personal Injury Attorney Today
1-800-Injured is an attorney and medical referral service. In the early days and weeks after a personal injury, going through the effort of finding a personal injury attorney who is available to take your case can seem overwhelming, which is one reason why many people choose to work directly with insurance companies on their own instead of with legal representation. When you are working with an insurance company, it is important to remember that their main priority is to save themselves money, NOT to pay you what you deserve. When an attorney is fighting for your cause, you can be confident that they will not reach a settlement without a fight.
Read more below about the insurance claim process following a scooter accident, and contact us now to be connected with an attorney in your area as soon as possible.
Seeking Compensation After an Electric Scooter Accident
After any accident that someone else is responsible for, you, as the victim, have a right to compensation from the responsible party or their representative insurance company under American tort law. However, while there is a legal framework for a victim to seek compensation through, this does not mean that it is a simple, or a fair, process. In order for you to get the money that you rightfully deserve, not just the money that the insurance company wants to pay, you need to work with an attorney who can fight on your behalf.
Hiring an Attorney
Many scooter accident attorneys offer free initial consultations, so that you can speak directly with an experienced legal professional about your situation, and get their candid and experienced feedback and opinion of your circumstances. The stress of not knowing what to expect in the upcoming legal process can be detrimental to your emotional AND physical health, so the sooner you are able to speak to someone, the sooner you can reduce this stress and start focusing on your path forward.
Finding an attorney can be a process in itself, which is why 1-800-Injured provides access to a referral network of available attorneys. You can skip the process of searching for a scooter accident lawyer and let us make the connection for you.
Filing an Insurance Claim
You have a limited number of days to file an insurance claim for your injuries, which you can do with or without the help of an attorney. It is recommended that you hire a lawyer before you file a claim since every statement or document that you provide the insurance company with will be analyzed and used against you if possible, since the insurance company is focused primarily on limiting settlement amounts, NOT paying victims what they rightfully deserve.
When you have an attorney handling all communications with the insurance company, you can be confident that they are using their experience and knowledge to ensure that the communications are done with the express intention of making legally-appropriate statements intended to maximize your possibility of a fair settlement.
Calculating Damages
Once your claim has been filed, the insurance company will assign an insurance adjuster who will investigate the accident as they set out to determine how much money you are entitled to. Remember, though, that the insurance company handles a claim from the perspective of paying as little as possible, meaning that you will need to do your own investigation in order to determine how much you rightfully deserve.
Damages are broken into economic and non-economic damages, which each seek compensation for different areas of your accident. Economic damages seek compensation for measurable, financial impacts on your life directly relating to the accident and the resulting injuries, such as medical bills, lost wages, and any expenses or other financial impacts that you and your lawyer can tie to the accident. Non-economic damages are for things like the actual pain and suffering of your injuries, the emotional trauma you have endured, and other, more abstract impacts, all of which as equally important to your economic damages.
Negotiating a Settlement
After the claims adjuster has completed their investigation, they will make an initial settlement offer that will be shockingly lower than the amount your attorney has calculated. When you are working along through a claim, this offer can feel like your only option, and the insurance company capitalizes on desperate victims who feel like they need to accept the offer and cover the financial issues that they are already suffering.
The reality of this offer is that it is the start of a series of negotiations intended to get you the money that you rightfully deserve. The insurance company is motivated to avoid trial, so your attorney will have a good chance to try to settle directly before even filing a lawsuit with the Florida courts. During this negotiation process, you will be working towards an amount less than the total damages that you and your attorney calculated, simply because avoiding a lawsuit is less time consuming and costly for everyone involved. If your attorney believes that you will have a better chance of getting fair compensation through the courts, then they may push for a lawsuit right from the start.