How an Injury Attorney Can Help With Your Car Accident Insurance Claim

Every year, car accidents cost American drivers more than $240 billion in damages. Victims can struggle under the weight of injuries, lost work time and wages, and complicated insurance claims.

Many motorists assume that they should be able to handle claims themselves. Yet doing so is rarely in their best interests. Working with the best injury attorney can improve your post-accident experience and outcomes.

Here are the top five ways a great attorney can help with your claim.

1. Attorneys Manage Information Flow

Personal injury cases involve a tremendous amount of information and communication. Even simple cases tend to include:

• Police reports
• Medical records
• Insurance policy and claim information
• Vehicle repair estimates
• Communications with employers about time off and the impact on wages or salaries
• Calls, letters, and emails from insurers and other parties involved

This flurry of communications back-and-forth could be overwhelming for anyone. For accident victims also dealing with severe injuries and their complications, it can be impossible.

To make matters worse, even small mistakes in handling communications around an accident can have big consequences. A misspoken word or misunderstanding of what you are signing can potentially cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost compensation.

When you hire a personal injury lawyer in Las Vegas, NV to help you with your injury claims, they take over the flow of communication. They work with your insurance company and other involved parties on your behalf. With years of experience in working with insurance companies, your attorneys will easily side-step verbal traps and avoid the pitfalls that can ensnare unsuspecting victims of car accidents and truck accidents.

Personal injury lawyers keep your options open. They also free you from the administrative burdens associated with your claims. This allows you to focus on healing and getting back on your feet.

2. The Best Injury Attorney Will Investigate on Your Behalf

Nevada is an “at fault” state. This means that when an accident occurs, the party responsible for causing the accident is the one required by law to foot the bill.

That much is straightforward, but the details can quickly become complicated because Nevada also has “shared fault” rules. These laws state that motorists more than 50 percent responsible for an accident cannot bring injury claims in Las Vegas, NV against the other parties involved. Motorists less than 50 percent responsible for an accident can file claims.

However, the damages they can recover are limited by their liability. For example, Molly and Sarah fail to negotiate a stop sign properly. The police report suggests that both drivers played a role in the accident. Molly is assigned 80 percent blame and Sarah 20 percent.

Since Sarah is less than 50 percent at fault, she can file for damages. However, since she was 20 percent responsible, that 20 percent is deducted from Molly’s liability. Sarah can therefore only receive compensation equal to a maximum of 80 percent of the total damages she incurred.

So if she experienced $50,000 in damages, Molly’s insurance is not obligated to pay out more than $40,000 in compensation.

What This Means for Accident Victims

What this means for car accident victims in Vegas is that insurers will look for any possible way to lay blame on a driver. Misallocated blame can prevent drivers from receiving compensation. Alternatively, it can unfairly limit the compensation they can receive.

This can leave motorists dealing with the costs of catastrophic injuries and pain and suffering on their own.

Las Vegas personal injury attorneys investigate cases on their clients’ behalf. They use the facts to counter insurance companies’ claims of liability. Your attorney will make sure you keep your rights to compensation, regardless of insurers’ efforts to the contrary.

3. A Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer Will Keep You on Track With Deadlines

After an accident, there can be dozens of individual deadlines to keep track of. Victims may have a limited amount of time to:

• File police reports
• Get their vehicles inspected and get damage repair quotes
• File their initial injury claims
• Submit medical records
• Answer communications from insurance companies

Missing deadlines can hurt your case. But staying on top of deadlines can be a nightmare, especially when you’re dealing with severe injuries and intensive medical care.

Your attorney and the assistants at their law office can help you track and manage all of your deadlines. They can handle many of the filings for you, leaving you with as little as possible to do aside from taking care of your own health.

4. The Best Personal Injury Attorney Will Push for the Money You Deserve

In an ideal world, no accident victim would ever have to fight for the money they need and deserve. Insurance companies would simply write a blank check to cover all victims’ costs and get them back to full functioning with no questions asked.

Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world. The burden of making sure that they get the compensation they are due falls on accident victims. It is a weight few victims are able to bear in the wake of the injuries and damages they’ve suffered.

This is why too many victims settle for only a fraction of the total amounts they might otherwise have claimed.

When you work with a personal injury law firm, you gain a team of qualified and capable fighters who will work on your behalf. They will push back against unfair offers and unjust claims of liability. Your attorneys will hold their ground and force insurers to recognize and respect your rights.

They will use their deep knowledge of the law to:

• Identify costs you didn’t know you could recoup on
• Prove other parties’ liability to maximize your ability to recover on damages
• Hold insurers and other parties accountable for what they owe

Your attorneys may also be able to connect you to solutions and supports you didn’t know were an option. This can be important in buying you time to push insurers for full compensation instead of settling too soon.

5. Trial Lawyers Can Represent You in Court

Around 95 percent of all personal injury cases settle out of court. Often, this is because insurers know that the costs of going to court will be higher than the cost of simply paying higher settlements. In other cases, accident victims avoid court because there is nothing to be gained by going.

For example, if you are hit by an uninsured motorist you might be inclined to sue for damages. But if that motorist has no assets, going to court may be a bad idea. Even if you won, there wouldn’t be any money to recover.

Thus you’d have legal bills but no award to pay them from. A good attorney, then, does more than just represent you in court if it comes to that. They also offer key guidance on when going to court is not a good choice.

Medical Malpractice

In some cases, personal injury attorneys can assist you in secondary cases related to your accident. For example:

• Premises liability cases
• Product liability cases
• Medical malpractice cases

These cases might arise if your situation is due in part to:

• A person or business failing to maintain a property they were responsible for
• A manufacturing defect in your vehicle or the other driver’s vehicle
• Medical errors made during treatment for injuries received in a vehicle accident

These cases can be separate from your initial insurance claim for the accident itself. These claims may go to court individually or separately, or settle out of court. In any case, they will be too complicated to pursue alone.

Your attorney can advise on when such claims are appropriate and how to act on them.

Tips for Finding an Attorney

When filing injury claims in Las Vegas, NV, don’t settle for just any attorney. Choose a personal injury lawyer with experience in car accident cases specifically and a strong reputation for success. Consider also focusing your search on attorneys with good track records around the types of injuries you sustained.

For example, head injuries and their consequences can be complex. Attorneys with experience in head injury cases will be much more capable of managing the messy details and translating them into compensation than attorneys experienced in only more generalized cases.

Moreover, look for an attorney and law firm that you are comfortable with. A good legal team will make you feel heard and respected. They will communicate in ways that are easy to understand and help you feel confident about your case.

Finally, don’t be afraid to interview attorneys before choosing one to represent you. Most law firms make free initial consultations available. These appointments can provide an invaluable opportunity to ask questions, get informed, and make great choices.

Schedule a Consultation Today

If you’ve been in an accident, don’t wait to secure the best injury attorney to protect your rights. We offer free initial consultations to help you get the information you need about how we can help in your specific case. Make an appointment today to learn more.

***Disclaimer: This blog is created by Heidari Law Group for educational purposes. This article provides a general understanding of the law. It does not provide specific advice. By using this site and reading through this blog, there is no attorney-client relationship created between you and any member of Heidari Law. Further, due to the constant change of the law, some parts of the information above may no longer be good law.