How an Attorney Can Help With Your Car Accident Claim
If you've been injured in a car insurance, you might be wondering exactly how an attorney can help you. In this article we'll cover what a car insurance lawyer brings to the table, including:
organization and analysis of key evidence and records
a network of investigators and experts who can help strengthen your case, and
negotiation skills that will get the best outcome for your car insurance claim.
What Will My Car Accident Lawyer Do?
While much depends on the specifics and the complexity of your car insurance case, in general a lawyer can:
communicate with the other driver's insurer
obtain the necessary evidence with respect to fault for the insurance
organize your medical records and bills
communicate with your health care providers to obtain missing records
work with your doctors to make sure they provide the medical information you need so that you can prove damages in your claim
organize and present the evidence in order to prove liability and damages
negotiate with lien holders on your claim (such as health, disability, or workers' compensation insurers) to potentially reduce the amount of those liens, and
negotiate a satisfactory settlement with the insurance adjuster or defense attorney.
Let's look at a couple of these things in-depth.
Your Lawyer Will Communicate With the Other Driver's Insurer
In any personal injury case, your lawyer will open up a line of communication with the insurance adjuster for the other driver (or other parties) involved. The adjuster has the pocketbook, and so it's critical for a plaintiff's lawyer to have good communications and a good relationship with the adjuster.
Your Attorney Will Gather the Right Evidence of Car Accident Fault
A good lawyer can help obtain all the evidence you'll need to prove liability in a car insurance claim. Although you may have already taken photographs of the insurance scene, your lawyer will probably go back to the scene him/herself to see what it looks like. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, actually seeing the scene can be worth a thousand pictures.
The lawyer will make sure to get all of the insurance or police reports in the case and will often speak with the investigating police officers and witnesses. A good lawyer will leave no stone unturned when it comes to getting their hands on evidence of car insurance liability. Learn more about proving fault for a car insurance.
Establishing Your Car Accident Losses ("Damages")
This is where a good lawyer can be essential to your case, especially when you've suffered significant car insurance injuries, and you need to document the nature and extent of your compensable losses ("damages" in the language of the law).
Obtaining Car Accident Medical Records
It's critical to obtain all documentation related to your injuries, but it isn't always easy to get your hands on those records and bills from health care providers. Although the records are technically yours, and you have an absolute right to them, sending medical records to patients and lawyers just isn't a health care provider's first priority.
Small doctors' offices may not have the
staffing or the time to respond to medical record requests on a timely basis. Large hospitals may have specific procedures that must be followed in order to respond to medical record requests. If you don't follow their procedures (which they often don't publicize very well), they simply won't respond to your request.
Then, when the health care provider does respond to the request, the records may be incomplete. Any lawyer's secretary or paralegal will tell you that they often have to request the same records more than once, and they may have to follow up numerous times with the provider's office.
Making Sure Your Car Accident Medical Record Picture Is Complete
It may turn out that the doctor did not use the "magic words" as to critical issues like causation, prognosis, and disability in their notes. In order to successfully prosecute most types of personal injury claims, you must be able to prove, through medical evidence:
exactly what your injury, disability, or physical limitation is, and
that it was caused by the defendant's negligence.
Doctors often don't mention causation and the extent of a patient's injury or disability in their medical records. If this happens in your case, your lawyer will write the doctor and ask for a special letter in which the doctor gives their opinion that:
the insurance caused your injury or disability and
as a result of the insurance, you'll be limited or disabled for a specific period of time.
Negotiating With Lien Holders
If you received benefits from a health, disability, or workers' compensation insurer, that insurer will have a lien on your claim. A lien means that the lien holder gets paid before you do, out of any settlement or judgment you receive.
A good lawyer will work to get the lien holder to reduce its lien. This is important work. Every dollar less that the lien holder takes is one more dollar that goes into your pocket. Learn more about health care provider liens on personal injury settlements.
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