One of the most important questions for a victim of a car accident is: when will I get paid for my injuries? By Carolina Schottland, Personal Injury Attorney
This is sometimes the hardest thing for somebody to understand. We cannot get any kind of settlement from an insurance company until you are done treating so the answer to the question of when you get paid depends entirely on how long it takes you to treat fully for these injuries.
Beyond that, we then need to finalize all of our documentation and make certain that we have everything associated with your case. So when you are finally done treating, we can then get all the final medical documentation and records that we need to substantiate the demand that we will eventually make. That could take several weeks as well.
Once we have all of the medical documentation and bills and other information that we need such as wage loss verification, we will then start to work on a demand. That demand will go over the negligence of the other party.
It will review the medical history that you have received. It will review the damages that you have suffered and it will discuss the final demand that we are asking for as a result of all of those things.
We formulate a demand review with the client and then send it out to the insurance company. The insurance company can take any amount of time to review that, they are just people, some are particularly good, some are particularly bad.
Generally within 24 hours of sending off the demand I will follow up with the insurance company to make certain that they have received it and put them on notice that I will be following up within two weeks to see whether or not they have had the opportunity to review the case.
Some insurance adjusters take longer but generally between 4 to 6 weeks we have our first offer. That offer is usually not accepted and then we begin a negotiation back and forth between our client and the insurance company until we are able to determine an amount that satisfies all parties.
Most cases are settled. Very few cases are ever taken to trial. We file suit against very few cases.
The kinds of situation where we might file suit are ones where the insurance company denies the claim immediately or for a reason that we believe is unjust or we run out of time.
You must file a claim against the other person generally within two years of the car accident having occurred. There are certain other rules that apply but generally speaking, that’s a two-year statute of limitations which means that if you do not file suit within two years, you lose your ability to bring suit against the other person.
So occasionally we run into a situation where treatment takes so long or a client doesn’t come to us until too far down the road and we are forced to file suit in order to preserve our clients rights.
If you are anywhere near the two-year mark, it is very important for you to discuss the matter with an attorney to preserve your rights because you might be led to believe from the insurance company that simply because they have been discussing the matter with you and they have opened the file, or you have started to discuss the negotiations, that your direct rights are reserved and that’s simply not true.
You need to discuss the matter with an attorney to make certain that you understand how to preserve your rights and that you understand that an attorney is in the best position to help you preserve your rights.
Preserving your rights would mean filing a suit in either the county where the accident occurred or the county in which the majority of people live and that means filing a complaint and in certain other documentations with that court system.
Call us for your free consultation today at 815-459-8800.