Harlow County
Car Accident Lawyer.
Your state sets a deadline for bringing the claim, often two years, your own policy may pay the first medical bills whoever caused it, and in some states a box ticked when the policy was bought decides whether you can claim for pain at all.
What Do I Do In The First 48 Hours After A Crash?
The office's own order of things, shortened. The first two days decide how much of the evidence still exists when somebody finally looks for it.
Call (555) 018-4420Police, ambulance, photographs
Call the police and make sure an ambulance is sent. Check that everyone is alert and responsive. Stay at the scene even if it looks minor and have a report filed. Stick to the facts with the officer, do not speculate, and do not admit fault.
Get looked at, even if nothing hurts
Adrenaline hides a lot in the first hour. Get medical attention quickly, because you may be in shock and problems surface later, and because a gap between the crash and the first visit is the first thing an insurer points at.
Write down what will be gone next week
Names, addresses and plate numbers for every vehicle. The weather and the light, or photographs of the scene. Potholes, construction or road maintenance if any of it played a part. Keep every bill and letter that arrives.
Before you answer the insurer
You will hear from your own insurer, from the other driver's, from your health insurer and from doctors. Get advice before you give a recorded statement or sign a medical authorization. That call is free.
Who Pays My Medical Bills Before The Case Settles?
This is the question that actually keeps people awake, and the answer does not depend on who caused the crash.
In many states your own auto policy pays first. Those states require every auto policy to include a medical benefit and set the order in which policies pay: usually your own policy, then the policy covering the vehicle you were in, and for someone who was not in a vehicle at all, a policy on a vehicle involved in the crash.
Where that rule applies, the auto policy usually sits in front of a health plan. Bill treatment through your healthcare provider the way you normally would, and check your own declarations page for medical payment coverage, which can pick up co-pays and what the health insurer does not.
What none of that covers is the rest of it: the lost income, the treatment beyond the benefits, and the part of the harm that is not a bill at all. That is the claim against the driver who caused it.
Does Limited Tort Stop Me From Claiming?
In states that offer the choice, two versions of the same auto policy, and the one you hold decides what a claim can include. Most people do not know which they picked.
Full tort
- Eligible to seek compensation for noneconomic loss as well as economic loss
- Noneconomic loss is defined as pain and suffering and other nonmonetary detriment
- Often the default if the policyholder never made a choice
- No serious injury threshold to argue about first
Limited tort
- Keeps the economic side: the bills, the lost income, the out of pocket costs
- Precludes an action for noneconomic loss unless the injury is a serious injury
- Serious injury usually means a lasting impairment or permanent disfigurement
- Exceptions written into the rule can put you back on the full tort footing anyway
How Long Do I Have To File?
Four different kinds of deadline, and the one that applies to you is not always the obvious one. Filed means filed in court, not discussed.
Often two years
Notice in months
Often paused
Much sooner
What Is My Harlow County Car Accident Case Worth?
Nobody honest answers this on the first call, and this page is not going to print a number either.
What a claim can include is set by the tort election, by the treatment you end up needing and by the coverage on both sides. What it is actually worth cannot be known until the treatment has run its course, because the injury is still changing while anybody is guessing.
An early offer, made while you are still being treated, is an offer made before that is known. That is the reason it arrives early.
What If The Other Driver Had No Insurance?
Your own coverageThen the claim usually runs against your own uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage, if you bought it. Find the declarations page, or ask the insurer to produce it, and have somebody read it with you before you accept anything.
Do I Have To Talk To Their Insurance Company?
Not on the spot, and not on tape. This is what to do with the call when it comes, and it usually comes within a few days.
- You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurer
- You are not required to sign a medical authorization that opens your whole record
- Give the facts of the crash, not an opinion about fault or about how badly you are hurt
- Do not accept a number while you are still being treated
- Say that you are getting advice first, and that the office will call them back
- Once this office is on the file, the adjuster calls us instead of you
What Causes Most Of Them Here?
The list the office hears most: dense rush hour traffic, which turns into rear end collisions and fender benders. Poorly maintained roads, potholes and construction zones that make drivers swerve. Aggressive driving, meaning speeding, tailgating and sudden lane changes. Rain, snow and ice that take away grip and visibility. And phones, which take away everything else.
The firm reviews the case, investigates the evidence about what caused the crash, and interviews witnesses where that is needed. We will visit you at home or in the hospital anywhere in Harlow County or just over the line.
More About Car Accident Claims.
Three more questions from the first call, answered the way the office answers them.
If you were hurt, or left out of pocket, because somebody else did not follow the rules of the road, there may be a claim. Rear end collisions are the clearest example. The evaluation is free, so the cheapest way to find out is to ask.
Collect as much as you can: names, addresses and plate numbers for every vehicle, photographs of the damage and of the scene, and the weather and light conditions. If road maintenance played a part, photograph that too.
Yes. The main office is at 88 Mercer Pike in Millbrook, a short drive from every town in Harlow County, and an attorney drives out if you cannot drive in.
Many states still allow a recovery where your share of the blame was smaller than the other side's, and reduce the damages in proportion to your share. Whose fault it was is often the argued part of the case.
