Car Accident Claims

The law is clear: if you are responsible for a car accident, then you are liable for compensation. Missouri is a pure comparative fault state, meaning that all drivers involved in the car accident could potentially be liable if they are all responsible, at least in part, for the collision.

However, in some cases, it’s not a drunk driver, or someone using their phone and not paying attention to the road that may have caused the accident. It could be someone with a genuine medical condition, like dementia. Who pays then?

Understanding What Dementia Is

Dementia is a neurodegenerative condition that affects 46.8 million people worldwide. This disease does not hit you all at once – symptoms can be very slow to appear in some cases, taking even years to fully affect a person’s life.

On average, people with dementia can experience:

• Memory loss
• Disorientation
• Mood swings
• The trouble with planning or following steps
• Confusions regarding time and space

People with dementia are sometimes allowed to continue driving. Now, the law doesn’t mandate people to disclose they are suffering from dementia when renewing their license, but doctors do have the option of reporting these drivers if there is a concern their driving may put themselves or others in danger.

In most cases, the person will dementia will get a driving assessment that will show if they are still able to drive or not, and will need to repeat it as their doctor’s recommendation.

Who Pays for Compensation?

This can be a tricky question because it greatly depends on the case at hand. If the person with dementia has permission to drive, then they will be liable through their auto insurance. However, they are also required to disclose to the insurance company that they are suffering from this condition. If they don’t, the insurance company may be able to deny covering the claim because their client breached the contract.

Additionally, it’s also possible for a person with dementia to get behind the wheel even if they are not allowed. This condition can create a lot of confusion, and the person may very well forget they cannot drive anymore and get behind the wheel without their caretaker noticing.

In this case, the person legally responsible for the person with dementia may, therefore, be held liable. Technically, auto insurance coverage does extend to family members, but this situation creates a grey area and it’s possible to have a hard time getting compensated.

What Should You Do?

These cases can be incredibly difficult because you are not dealing with a reckless driver, but with a very sick person. Still, you still have the right to be compensated. Reach out to a St. Louis car accident lawyer to find out what your legal options are.

A car accident often leaves the victim in a personal financial crisis, with high medical bills, lost wages and other expenses they might have during the recovery phase. With all this stress involved, it may seem that hiring a St. Louis auto accident lawyer would only add to the cost of an accident.

Some victims feel confident enough in their own negotiating capabilities to consider representing themselves during the car accident claim trial. However, this decision rarely saves them more money. On the contrary, not having an attorney to represent you can drastically reduce the settlement you will obtain.

Here are the main reasons why you should not represent yourself during a car accident claim:

You Should Invest All Your Time and Effort into Your Recovery

If you got injured, then you will most likely have to visit doctors and specialists, take time from work to rest and recover, and undergo treatment for your injuries. Depending on the severity of your injuries, you are more or less capable of moving around and the discovery period of your trial can be really tiring: gathering evidence, submitting all necessary documents in time, contacting witnesses and experts, and much more.

You May Lack the Experience and Knowledge an Attorney Has

No matter how well you know the law, if you are not a car accident attorney yourself, you may not understand all the legal details that will be relevant to your case. Laws are also updated periodically and they might be interpreted wrongly by an untrained eye. You may also lack the experience related to the court, the judges, the jury, etc. An experienced attorney can navigate smoothly through this process, focused on getting you a fair settlement.

It’s Likely That You Will Settle for Less Than You Should

When you represent yourself, you are more likely to be tempted by the first offer the insurance company will make. Too many times, this offer is lower than you should rightfully get, and the insurer only proposes an amount this low because they also expect negotiations. Taking the first offer might get you money fast and release you from the stress of handling the case, but it’s a loss in the long run.

Time Management

Think about the actual time you will have to spend doing representing yourself in a car accident case. Split between doctor’s appointments and legal documentation, it’s easy to miss a deadline or just make mistakes.

If you have been involved in an accident, it is in your best interest to speak with an experienced car accident attorney. At The Hoffmann Law Firm, L.L.C. we have over 20 years of experience handling these claims. We can evaluate your case FREE of charge and we work on a contingency fee. Simply put, we only get paid and if and when you get compensated.

Call (314) 361-4242 for a FREE case evaluation.

Recovery after a car accident can be long and expensive. Medical bills may be piling up, you may be forced to miss days from work and your finances may be a mess. But, you were aware of all these consequences and hopefully with the help of an experienced St. Louis auto accident attorney, you decide to file an insurance claim to cover the costs.

But, what if the insurance company denied your claim? Can you still get compensated for your injuries?

Let’s see how you can maximize your chances of getting your claim through with these six steps.

Finding out Why Was Your Insurance Claim Denied

One of the first things you should do is to find out why exactly was your claim denied. The company is obliged to give you the exact reason why they denied a claim, and it’s usually included in a list of codes that will be sent through a standard form. If you don’t fully understand the reason listed in the standard codes, your attorney should be able to explain it you in understandable terms.

Check and Solve the Easy Issues First

If there are a number of reasons why your claim didn’t go through, start solving the easy ones first to get them out of the way. These small issues can include misspelling some words or names, a wrong piece of information accidentally provided by your doctor, etc. Go through all the papers and check if there is anything like that. Once you find a mistake, report it to the insurance company and make sure they have the right data when resubmitting. Working with an experienced attorney will, of course, minimize the number of mistakes that are made when filing a claim.

Gather as Much Evidence as You Can

If your claim did not have enough evidence to support it, get back to your doctor and gather all the information needed to appeal the denial. If needed, get tested again, gather more medical documents and build a stronger case. Getting in touch with an attorney as soon as possible after an accident will ensure that you build a strong case right from the start.

Submit All the Needed Documents

Make sure to follow the insurance company’s standard procedure when appealing, as it can go through faster this way. If you do need to write a letter to the insurance company to explain things better, make sure you always include the reference number of your claim and all the needed information about you.

Write Down All the Details of the Communication with the Company

To keep organized and to avoid wasting time explaining things twice, it’s helpful to have a clear timeline of your communication with the company. Write down dates, important notes after every phone call, and ask for the names of the agents you are speaking with, and reference numbers for any documents you include in your appeal.

File an Expedited Appeal

If your situation does not allow you to waste much time doing this appeal, make it faster by submitting an expedited appeal.

Although denials can happen, the risks decrease when you are working with an experienced St. Louis car accident lawyer. Get in touch with one soon, even if we are talking about minor injuries and damages. Your time is best spent focusing on recovering after an accident. Leave the car accident claim to an experienced attorney who can ensure your legal rights are protected and get you the full amount of compensation you legally deserve.

A car accident settlement negotiation will establish how and who will compensate the victim(s) for the damage they suffered.

Being in a car accident can have an important impact on your life, from keeping you from working and earning money as usual to having to visit doctors and go through treatments or surgery. You can also expect an increase in your stress level or even depression.

In most cases, a car accident caused by someone’s negligence is followed by a car accident claim, a settlement negotiation that will establish how and who will compensate the victim(s) for the damage they suffered.

If you are already in that situation, it’s probably not a convenient one, as it does require you to look for evidence, visit experts and find a good St. Louis car accident attorney. It’s a stressful process for both you and the defendant. Because of that, you might be tempted to accept the first offer from the insurance company. Should you take it? It depends.

The First Offer

If your car accident is minor and your injuries are easy to diagnose and treat, you might be ok when signing the first offer. But beware of any possibility of your health being affected in the long-term. Only sign the first offer if your doctor assures you that your condition cannot get worse in the future. Most of the time, the first offer proves to be insufficient to cover all the areas which have been damaged in your life.

The first offer an insurance company makes is usually well below the real value you could get for your injuries. If the news is delivered by an insurance adjuster, he might be quite persuasive and seem well-intentioned. Always remember that an insurance adjuster’s job is to save the insurance company money by minimizing what they have to pay out.

Negotiating for a Higher Settlement

The insurance company already expects a negotiation and this is why they start with the smallest possible offer. You should make a counter-offer for the maximum amount you are expecting to get for your injuries, which can be established realistically with the help of an experienced St. Louis auto accident lawyer.

Negotiating can prolong your settlement case for months, so be prepared to delay getting that check. Still, it’s better than signing the first offer, then discovering that you have health issues that are no longer covered by the insurance company.

During the negotiations, the insurance company will try to demonstrate that you had your own fault for the accident or that the impact it had on your life is not as bad as you say. Saying the right thing and presenting the right evidence is key to getting the amount you are hoping for, so it’s best to rely on the experience of a lawyer when it comes to such subtleties.

Make the most out of your car accident claim by speaking with an experienced car accident attorney before accepting or signing anything the insurance adjuster offers you.

When you think about holding a person who’s caused you harm accountable, you most likely picture being in a court, presenting your case in front of a judge and jury. However, some statistics show that as many as 95% of car accident cases end in a settlement.

Here are a few reasons:

Most Car Accident Cases Go Through Insurance Companies

You can technically sue the driver who caused the car accident in civil court, but your St. Louis auto accident attorney may advise against it. In Missouri, it’s mandatory to have auto insurance, so when you are asking for damages from a driver, that compensation won’t come from their own pockets, but from the insurance company.

Missouri courts prefer this option as well, as it’s a way to make sure they don’t get overcrowded. The judge may hear your case, but it most likely won’t make it to trial.

You Can Sue the Insurance Company as a Strategy

It’s possible not to sue the driver directly, but the insurance company if they are not being reasonable with your claim. However, this is most often a strategy used by lawyers to show you are serious and get the company to agree to terms.

In fact, it’s in the best interest of the insurance company to settle, because they can somewhat control how much they get to pay a victim. In a trial, they cannot negotiate the settlement and will be forced to pay the amount decided by the judge.

Trials Are Unpredictable

If you do manage to get in front of a jury, then you’ll constantly have to prove you are in the right, as the plaintiff has the burden of proof, while the defendant just has to, well, defend themselves.

But juries can be unpredictable. They are not experts, so they can often rely on their feelings rather than the evidence presented. If they feel or think the other side was more convincing, you may lose the case, even if you have the evidence to prove your side of the story.

Trials Can Take Longer

It’s not to say that insurance claims get resolved quickly, but you can potentially reach a settlement a lot faster. In a trial, both sides will present their evidence, and there is a lot of back and forth, which can drag on the process a lot. Additionally, there’s no way to know how long it will take a jury to reach a decision.

Trial or Insurance Claim?

Make no mistake, in some cases, it may be better to go to trial. For instance, if the other driver intentionally caused you harm, but they have not been arrested for whatever reason. To know what you should do, get in touch with a St. Louis car injury lawyer to see what your best legal options are. Give us a call 24/7 at (314) 361-4242 for a FREE consultation.