Were you seriously injured in a motor vehicle crash and need help? Check out our 3 car accident tips, then contact our Boise attorneys today.
1. Insurance Investigation
The insurance company for the other car that was in the wreck with you has called and you’re wondering if you should talk to them. The short answer is no, not without preparing for it completely. I often explain to people that when we’re in a lawsuit involving a Boise, Idaho car accident, the lawyer for the other side will get to interview you. That’s a process called a deposition. In preparing for that deposition, we’ll spend hours, sometimes days, getting the client ready to tell their story and talk about what happened. You don’t need to prepare at that level to deal with the insurance company, but you do need to be prepped about what they’re looking for.
What they’re looking for are things to use against you. They are looking for you to engage in behavior and use language about your Boise, Idaho car accident that they can twist in the future to minimize the amount of money that they have to pay so you don’t receive full and fair compensation for all the losses that you’ve incurred. That can be language that they twist to say you have some responsibility for a collision when you really have no responsibility, or that you have damages that are lesser than the damages you’ve actually incurred, or your injuries are different from the ones you’ve actually incurred. It’s just the way they ask questions and the way you answer those questions—they use these techniques against people with regularity.
You don’t want to talk to your insurance company or the other person’s insurance company after your Boise, Idaho car accident claim without preparing for it before you do so. In preparing for it, there’s a number of things that we will talk to you about, including what you should do, to think about and prepare for that discussion with the other driver’s auto insurance. The same holds true if your own insurance company wants to call you. Recognize that they will transcribe that statement, that discussion, and that may ultimately become a piece of evidence over the course of a trial against the person who caused the wreck, so you might cause yourself some problems even talking to your own insurance company.
2. Common Mistakes To Avoid
One is talking to that insurance company right away without having spent the time to understand what the person who caused the Boise, Idaho car accident, did and what that insurance company is trying to do to protect him. They’re not here to protect you when they represent the other person. Whether it’s one of the big insurance companies or the small insurance companies, whether it’s a commercial insurance company for a commercial carrier or just a private auto insurance company, they’re all trying to minimize what they pay you. When they talk to you, they’re looking for things to use against you. Talking to insurance companies without preparing is one of the number one mistakes people make in their Boise, Idaho car accident cases.
Another one of the mistakes that we regularly see people make is not treating their medical course of care as they should in a Boise, Idaho car accident case. You need to treat your medical course of care not just as medical care. It also amounts to a diary of what’s actually happened to you. The documentation in your medical records will be the most important straightforward documentation in the case. Recognize that insurance companies and insurance adjusters are big bureaucracies, and they need certain things. One of the things they need is documentation. If you have a problem, report it to your healthcare provider. Make sure it gets in your record. Otherwise, later, when you’re trying to claim that problem further on in your case, if you haven’t reported it, the insurance company will point to your medical records and say, “It’s not here, so we don’t believe it happened.” It doesn’t matter that you’re telling the truth. What matters is that you didn’t get it documented in time.
Another mistake involving medical care is not doing everything your doctor says. Sometimes people choose to not follow the course of care that their healthcare provider wants them to follow. You have a right to do that, but in a personal injury case you want to follow your healthcare provider’s direction and guidance to a T. Otherwise, the insurance company is going to try to use that against you and say, “See? If you had just done what they said, you would’ve been better sooner, so your claim doesn’t have full value; your claim has reduced value.”
Those are some of the basic mistakes. There are lots of other little things that people do wrong because they don’t understand the situation, because they haven’t been through a collision case or an injury case in Idaho before, but those are probably the big ones.
3. Liability
One of the things that people don’t often realize is that their own auto insurance, their medical payments coverage portion of their auto insurance, is the primary bill payer for medical bills incurred because of injuries in an Idaho accident. You have to have chosen to purchase medical payments coverage. It’s not automatic coverage that you’re required to purchase.
Once you choose to purchase it, it applies to the first $5,000, $10,000, or however much coverage you’ve purchased of your medical bills. After that, your standard health insurance will kick in. That means your deductibles, your co-pays, or those portions of that insurance that are out-of-pocket, are going to be out-of-pocket for you. Both your medical payments coverage and these other costs that you have to pay out-of-pocket and your health insurance pays are subject to reimbursement.
A subrogation right is one of the words that lawyers use in Boise, Idaho car accidents. Subrogation means the right to be re-paid. Sometimes medical care can be provided on a lien – that means a right to be paid the first time – where the physician or other healthcare provider says, “Alright, I’ll provide the care and wait and hold off, until you’ve resolved your personal injury claim, to be paid for the services I’ve provided.”One of the problems with that is, in a situation where your health insurance paid the bill, it may get billed $100 and only have to pay $75, whereas if a provider is providing a lien, they’re not going to provide that write-down, so you have that additional cost you may not have otherwise had.
It’s surprising how complex medical expenses can be. At the end of the day, the bad guy only has to pay once, so you have to manage your payment of expenses from the time the injury happens forward to make sure that you’re taken care of. That can be done through discussions with the billing offices and stuff like that to help them understand your situation. Good Boise, Idaho car accident injury attorneys will help you deal with these issues over the course of your claim.
Were you injured in a crash in Boise and have questions about our 3 car accident tips? Contact our experienced Boise Car Accident Attorneys at Hepworth Holzer today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
We are committed to helping individuals and families throughout Idaho navigate the world of personal injury litigation as quickly and efficiently as possible. Let us get results for you and your family.
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