If you suffered property damage or got injured in a car accident, you might be thinking how a lawyer can help you solve your problem or whether it is a good idea to deal with insurance companies and settle insurance claim on your own. While everything depends on the complexities and specifics of the case, a lawyer or car accident law firm can:
Communicate with the other party’s insurer.
Get all the necessary evidence.
Organize all the medical records, as well as the bills of their client.
Communicate with their client’s health care provider to get all missing records.
Work with the physicians to make sure that they can provide the important medical information that their client needs so that they can prove the damages in their claim.
Organize, as well as, present all the evidence in order to prove the damages and liabilities.
Negotiate with the lien holder on their client’s claim like disability, worker’s compensation insurers or their health, to reduce the amount of the lien.
Negotiate satisfactory settlements with the defense lawyers or claims adjuster.
Let us take a closer look at these things
Communicate with the other party’s insurer
In any personal injury cases, the lawyers will open a communication line with the adjuster for the defendant or other party involved in the case. The insurance adjuster has pocketbooks, that is why the lawyer of the victim must have excellent and steady communication, as well as a good relationship with the insurance adjuster.
Get all the necessary evidence
A great legal counsel can help the victim get all the necessary evidence that they need to prove the liability in their claim when they are involved in a car accident. Although the victim may have already taken pictures of the accident, the attorney will probably need to go back to the accident scent themselves to see what the accident looks like.
To find out more about legal liabilities, visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_liability for more information.
While photos may be essential, seeing the scene with their own eyes can be as necessary, or even more. The car accident law firm will make sure that they will get all the required accident reports on their case and will usually speak with the police officers investigating the case, as well as the witnesses. A good law firm will leave no stones unturned or evidence unchecked when it comes to getting proof of liability.
Organize all the medical records, as well as the bills of their client
It is where most good lawyers can be very important to the case, especially if you are suffering or suffered serious injuries in connection to a car accident. It is very crucial to get all the documents related to the victim’s injuries, but it is not always easy to obtain these records and bills from hospitals or health care providers.
Although the files are the property of the victim and they have the right to use them whatever they deem fit, sending medical records of the patient and their lawyers is not the hospital or health care provider’s priority. Small clinics may not have enough staff or time to respond to record requests immediately.
Know your rights about your medical records, and visit http://www.mbc.ca.gov/Consumers/Access_Records.aspx to find out more
Big hospitals may have standard operating procedures that their staff needs to follow in order to respond to these requests. If you do not follow their procedures, they will not respond to the request. Then, when the hospital or clinic does respond to the medical records request, there is a big chance that the records are incomplete.
Any legal counsel’s secretary also known as a paralegal, will tell you that they usually have to request the same files at least twice and that they need to follow up regularly with the health care provider’s office. And lastly, it may turn out that the physician did not use the “right” words as to prognosis, causation, as well as the disability in their notes.
To execute any form of personal injury claims successfully, you need to be able to prove it with necessary medical evidence, exactly what your disability, injury and physical limitation are, and the other party’s negligence caused it. Physicians usually do not mention the extent of the disability or injury and the causation in the medical records.
To find out more about the importance of having a good medical record, click here.
If this happens, the legal counsel will write the physician and ask for a specific letter in which the physician gives their opinion that the accident has caused your injury or disability. As a result of the said accident, the victim will be hindered or disabled for a specific period.
Negotiate with the lien holder
If the victim received benefits from disability, worker or health’s compensation insurer, the insurance company would have a lien on the victim’s claim. Lien means that the holder can get paid before the lawyer, out of any settlement or judgment that the lawyer received. A competent legal counsel will work with the holder to try and get them to reduce its lien. It is important and a lot of work. Every penny less than the holder takes, is one more penny that goes in the lawyer’s pocket.
Negotiate satisfactory settlements with the defense lawyers or insurance adjuster
And lastly, the legal counsel will help the victim negotiate with their settlement. It is hard work, and negotiation is a specific skill. A car accident law firm and their lawyers are always going to be better at settling car accident cases than a regular person. A good firm knows how much the injury case is worth, and they know what to do with the case and conduct the necessary negotiations to get the highest possible claim from the insurance company.
Click here to know what liens are and how they work.
When can the victim handle car accident claims by themselves?
Most victims do not need law firms for small cases. If they are very comfortable at gathering the necessary documents and evidence by themselves and they think they can negotiate the settlement better, it is probably in the victim’s best interest to do it.
They can save at least 1/3 contingent fee that most injury lawyers take. The big question is, what is considered as small cases? As a general rule, if the victim’s medical bills are more than $3,000 and the victim was out of work for at least seven days or one week, the best thing to do is to consult a law firm.
