Category: Personal Injury

Nobody wants to have to deal with an insurance company. This may be truer than ever after you have been in a car accident. The logistics and red tape abound. The hurdles you have to jump to get access to the benefits you need can be stressful and frustrating. Taking things one step at a time, however, can help make things a bit more manageable. It all starts with filing a claim.

Take These Steps to File an Insurance Claim After an Accident

After an accident, there are two types of insurance claims that you may be able to file. There is a first-party insurance claim that you file with your own insurance company. Then, there is a third-party insurance claim that you file with the insurance carrier for another person involved in the accident, such as the at-fault driver who caused the accident.

To file a claim, you will notify the insurance company of the accident and submit the police report as soon as it is available. Doing so sooner rather than later is usually best practice. This is especially true considering there is likely to be a provision in your own insurance policy requiring you to notify your insurance company of an accident within a certain amount of time. Failure to file a claim in a timely manner can also jeopardize your ability to collect on the claim.

Upon being notified of the accident, an investigation of your claim will be launched by the insurance company. They will try to gather as much information about the accident as possible. This can include getting statements from witnesses as well as getting a statement from you. Regardless of whether a request for a statement comes from your insurance company or that of another person’s insurance company, proceed with caution. You may be contractually obligated to provide a statement to your own insurance company, but that is not true in relation to someone else’s insurance provider. Insurance companies are businesses, after all, and they are out to protect their bottom line. They will look for any weakness in your statement and any possible loopholes to try and get out of paying on your claim. Keep all answers to their questions concise and to the point. Do not speculate and, if it is someone else’s insurance company, consider not giving a statement at all.

Based on the investigation, your claim may be denied. Alternatively, the value of your claim may be calculated and a settlement amount proposed. You may accept or reject this settlement offer. There is likely an appeals process outlined in your policy. If you are unable to reach an agreeable settlement, you may have to file suit.

Personal Injury Attorneys

Don’t go up against the insurance companies on your own. The tenacious team at CDH Law is here to fight for you. Contact us today.

After your insurance company or an insurance company for another party involved in an accident is notified of said accident, the phone calls are likely to begin. Insurance companies begin contacting claimants and potential claimants right away. They are on a mission to gather as much information about the accident and resulting injuries as possible. Be warned, however, that their motivations are far from altruistic. Insurance companies will begin immediately exploring any potential way to get out of paying on a claim totally or at least in part. One of the ways they try to gather information to support a loophole is through requesting and conducting a recorded statement. If you are asked by an insurance company to give a recorded statement, proceed with caution.

What Do I Do If the Insurance Company Wants a Recorded Statement?

After a crash, it is not uncommon for your insurance carrier and the insurance carrier for the at-fault party to request a recorded statement with you. The best course of action when you receive such a request is likely to be ignore it or outright deny it. The insurance carrier for the at-fault party will often request recorded statements from everyone involved in the accident, injury victims included. As previously stated, the main motivation of this insurance carrier is often, if not always, to use recorded statements as a means of finding some way to get out of paying on accident claims. They will even look for ways to blame you, the accident victim.

While you are under no obligation to provide the at-fault carrier with a recorded statement, you may have a contractual obligation to comply with a recorded statement request from your own insurance carrier. In that case, you would have a duty to cooperate with your insurance company. Refusing to comply with the request for a recorded statement, should it violate the terms of your contract with your insurance carrier, is likely to result in your carrier denying the payment of benefits.

During a recorded statement, a representative from the insurance carrier, likely to be an insurance adjuster, will call you and begin with questions relating to basic identifying information such as your name and birthdate as well as your address. The line of questioning is then likely to turn to details surrounding how the accident happened and any injuries you may have sustained in the accident. Be sure to only answer the question you were asked. Keep your answers as simple and direct as possible.

Saying as little as possible is usually best practice for recorded statements. Avoid speculating. If you do not understand a question, ask for clarification instead of trying to guess what was meant by it. If you do not know the answer to a question, simply say that you do not know the answer.

Syracuse Personal Injury Attorneys

Interactions with insurance companies can be stressful. This can be especially true if your right to full and fair compensation for accident injuries is at stake. The team at CDH Law is not intimidated by insurance companies. We stand up to them to fight for our clients. Contact us today.

Being injured in an accident can take its toll physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. Medical bills can reach staggering heights. You may be missing out on work due to your injuries and necessary recovery period. All of this can compound to spell significant stress for your finances. Through a personal injury claim, fortunately, you may be able to recover full and fair compensation for the financial toll, as well as other harm, sustained as a result of the accident caused by the negligence of someone else. The bulk of a personal injury award is, most times, compensatory damages. We’ll take a closer look at compensatory damages, what they are, and what they include here.

What Are Compensatory Damages?

For the losses sustained and the harm suffered in an accident, compensatory damages are intended to compensate a plaintiff. In fact, compensatory damages are often awarded in civil cases where the negligence or recklessness of someone else has resulted in another sustaining a loss. Compensatory damages will likely be awarded when the plaintiff, the injured party, can prove negligence on the part of the defendant. To prove negligence, the plaintiff must be able to demonstrate that the defendant owed them a duty of care, that duty was breached, and the breach of that duty was the direct and proximate cause of the plaintiff sustaining damages.

The plaintiff must be able to quantify or put a number, on the amount of damages or loss sustained as a result of the defendant’s negligence. The appropriately named compensatory damages are intended to compensate the plaintiff for that which was lost and suffered as a result of the accident. The bulk of a compensatory damage award is likely to include medical bills, among other costs incurred as a result of being injured in the accident. Things included in a compensatory damage award may include:

• Medical bills
• Rehabilitation costs
• Physical therapy expenses
• Lost wages
• Increases in living expenses

Transportation to and from such things as doctors’ appointments are also compensable in a personal injury claim. Costs associated with home care for injury victims as well as modifying a home to meet the needs of a person physically disabled by their accident injuries are also compensable.

The above-mentioned damages are considered to be economic damages includable in a compensatory damages award. They are referred to as economic damages because they represent easily quantifiable economic losses sustained by the plaintiff. There are also non-economic compensatory damages available in most personal injury claims. Non-economic damages pose just as real an impact on the injury victim but can prove exceedingly difficult to quantify. Non-economic damages can include:

• Pain and suffering
• Mental anguish
• Loss of opportunity
• Loss of consortium
• Inconvenience
• Loss of enjoyment of life

It is important to remember that compensatory damages will likely make up the bulk, if not all, of the available damages in a personal injury case. In some cases, punitive damages may be available, but this is pretty rare. Compensatory damages are meant to compensate the plaintiff for harm suffered. Punitive damages, on the other hand, are intended to punish the defendant for particularly egregious behavior that resulted in harm suffered by the plaintiff. Punitive damages are meant to deter such conduct from occurring again.

Syracuse Personal Injury Attorneys

The team at CDH Law is here to help you get the compensation you deserve for harm suffered in an accident. Contact us today.

In order to get a license plate and the ability to legally drive their vehicle on public roads, New York car owners must register their vehicle with the state. During the registration process, the vehicle owner must provide proof of financial responsibility. Financial responsibility can be established with proof that the owner has enough out-of-pocket savings to cover injuries resulting from an accident, but, more commonly, it is established with proof of no-fault insurance in a minimum amount of $50,000 coverage per person. This is why New York is considered to be a no-fault insurance state, but what does no-fault really mean?

New York is a No-Fault State. What Does that Mean?

New York requires drivers to carry no-fault insurance cases, with limited exceptions. No-fault insurance coverage is also known as “personal injury protection” insurance, or “PIP.” PIP coverage pays out to the policyholder regardless of who is at fault for an accident resulting in injuries. There is no need to prove that anyone was negligent in causing the accident when trying to access PIP benefits. Regardless of who was at fault, the PIP policyholder will be entitled to certain benefits.

PIP benefits can cover certain losses resulting from an accident. These benefits may include coverage for things such as medical expenses and lost wages. PIP benefits can provide critical financial support after an accident. The fact that no-fault has to be proven to access these benefits means that they are usually available fairly fast. PIP benefits, however, may not be enough to cover all of your losses. In this case, you may also be able to file a claim against the person, or their insurance carrier, who caused the accident.

In order to file a PIP claim, you must provide your insurer with written notice within 30 days of the accident. The claim is filed with the insurance company providing coverage to the vehicle that was involved. Any passenger of the vehicle involved in the accident may file a claim against the PIP policy as can any member of the insured’s household if injured as a pedestrian. The claimant must be sure to comply with the 30-day time limit as this time frame is rarely extended. Sometimes, if the claimant can provide written proof of a reasonable justification for the delay, then there may be a time extension granted.

The written statement that must be provided to the insurance company within 30 days of the accident must detail as much about the accident as possible. The time, date, and location of the accident should be provided as well as other circumstances surrounding the accident.

Syracuse Personal Injury Attorneys

Have you been injured in an accident? Talk to the team at CDH Law about your options for accessing financial compensation for the losses you have sustained. Contact us today.