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Do You Need an Experienced Auto Injury Lawyer? Here are Some Hints to Look Out for After Your Wreck
Most often, it takes a Texas personal injury lawyer to assure that accident victims recover the full worth of their medical bills, pain, suffering, and damages to their vehicle and its contents if liability for the accident is contested. And as we said at the beginning of this article, depending on the circumstances surrounding the accident and its coverage level, it’s possible for a reasonably intelligent accident victim to handle his or her claim on their own, without the assistance of a lawyer. So below, we’ll discuss the instances where achieving a full recovery for your total damages is best-served with the assistance of an experienced, local auto injury attorney. More about our Car Accident Lawyers in San Antonio here
You Can’t Afford to See a Doctor or Pay your Medical Bills – Even if an accident victim might have some sort of healthcare coverage, the odds become less and less every day that their treatment needs will be sufficient to cover them. And even if they have such coverage, many are reluctant to get treatment for their injuries because they don’t think they can afford to take the time off of work that they’ll need to see a doctor, or maybe they have higher-than-normal deductibles which preclude even using their health insurance to treat their accident-related injuries.
But seeing a doctor and getting treatment for your injuries after an accident is not only essential to your health, it’s absolutely necessary to your injury claim or lawsuit. If you can’t afford treatment, or if you already have medical bills that you can’t pay, there’s probably something that we can do to help. We regularly work with doctors and healthcare professionals and can refer you to the right one who will take your situation into account. We have helped many of our clients receive vital medical care after an auto accident at no initial out-of-pocket cost to them. And we can explain how the time you take off from work for treatment may be included in the damage compensation owed you by the defendant in your case.
You’ve Suffered Bodily Harm in the Wreck – If you suffered any sort of physical injuries in your accident, it’s best for you to have an experienced lawyer handle your claim. A good rule of thumb is whether or not you need to see your doctor after being treated for your injuries in an emergency room, or your physician sends you to some other healthcare specialist to continue your medical treatment. When you seek damages for bodily injuries, insurance companies don’t have to abide by any pre-existing guidelines when deciding how much to pay you. And since by their very nature, insurance companies are more about premiums than claims, they can arbitrarily decide to pay you nothing by default and tell you to sue them. A sad fact of civil law is that no one automatically owes you anything. You have to make them pay. This is the first benefit of having a lawyer who is looking out for your interests regarding your claim. If you’ve suffered broken bones, head injuries, back injuries, or any other sort of injury in your wreck, do the smart thing and call a good attorney quickly.
The Other Driver is Hard to Deal With – It’s also a good idea to call an auto accident attorney if the driver who hit you gives you a hard time either at the scene of the wreck or later, or if that other driver doesn’t want to give you his contact or insurance information. This is never good. Belligerent accident “victims” usually have something to hide, either from the law or their insurance company. When this happens, it’s an early clue that he’ll make it as difficult as possible for you to recover what you deserve. If you encounter such a driver you need to seriously consider hiring a lawyer, or at least have a serious conversation with one.
The Insurance Company Pressures You to Settle Your Claim or Harasses You – Insurance companies can be extremely difficult to negotiate with. They take up a lot of your time if you don’t have an experienced attorney on your side. Insurance companies are out to protect their own interests at your expense; which involves collecting premiums and paying out as little as absolutely necessary. So they’ll use adjusters to try to find ways to deny your claims. These adjusters may call you repeatedly, asking innocent-sounding questions about your accident. Their inquiries may seem proper. But these contacts are usually calculated to induce you to say something that could be used against you to deny your claims. Whatever you say to them will probably be recorded and could come back to haunt you as evidence against your claim in the future.
Our accident injury clients have learned the best way to deal with insurance adjusters is simply to not deal with them at all. Adjusters don’t call our clients’. We make them call us instead. When adjusters can’t talk to you, they can’t twist your words around and use what you innocently say against you.
Many other times an insurance company usually pressures you to settle your lawsuit for less than your claim is worth: sometimes much less! We believe accepting a fair settlement can be beneficial for you. But accepting an unfair settlement can be devastating for your legal rights. When you accept a settlement offer, your right to sue the defendant for more compensation money in the future ends then-and-there. So it’s important not to accept an offer unless it’s fair and meets all your financial needs. And the only way to determine a fair settlement from an insurance company that wants to victimize you is with the assistance of a Texas car wreck lawyer with our Law Firm.
Insurance companies’ strategy is to entice accident victims with small amounts of fast cash that might get them back to even. But what if that’s not the end of your expenses? You know it’s not the end of your financial obligations, or even your recovery. Settlements you accept from an insurance company before you have a lawyer on your side never benefit you in the long run. But they’re almost always binding. Don’t let the defendant’s insurance company get away with paying you less than your case deserves.
If you’re lucky, and none of those circumstances applies, then you can probably handle your case on your own and reasonably resolve it without the assistance of a lawyer. Sometimes, plaintiffs can successfully protect their own rights when they’ve been involved in a wreck which resulted in property damage only. If your car was damaged, but you’re not injured, insurance companies are bound by strict guidelines surrounding what they have to pay you in compensation for the damage to your car. Since these guidelines give them little wiggle room, insurance companies have very little opportunity to rip you off when they reimburse you for your repair bills.
Put our years of experience to work for you. If you want to know what your rights are, how to proceed with your claim, and how much compensation you can secure from your auto injury case, call the auto accident attorneys with our Law Firm now for a free consultation and find out how we can help you recover the full fair value of the damages you have suffered through the negligence of another driver.
