Legal Advice: How To Properly File A Claim After An Accident
Being involved in an accident can be a sudden and confusing event. Many people have no idea what to do after being injured, or how to file an insurance claim for compensation. In order to properly file a personal injury claim after an accident, you should immediately seek legal advice from an experienced attorney who specializes in personal injury claims. In general, however, there are some things you should do in order to file a claim properly after an accident.
1. When To File A Claim
When you have been injured in an accident, you must seek legal advice as soon as possible about the proper way of getting compensation from the third party involved. This is because there are time limitations for filing a claim against a person or persons who were responsible for your injuries. According to https://www.brookslawgroup.com/car-accident-lawyer/how-long-after-an-accident-can-you-file-a-claim/, the time limitations are called the statute of limitations, and it’s specific to each state. In several states, a personal injury claim must be filed within one year of the accident, while in others you can file one up to four years after the fact. For example, the statute of limitations in Florida for car accidents is 4 years.
If you do not file your claim before the deadline has passed, you may have waived your right to receive compensation for injuries or damages suffered in an accident. There are some cases where the court recognized the claim as valid even after the time limit had passed, but that happens very rarely when there are unusual extenuating circumstances.
2. Contacting The Insurance Company
If another person is responsible for causing the accident that injured you, it’s likely that person has some sort of insurance coverage to compensate you for your injuries and damages. In many cases, the other person’s liability insurance carrier may already have been in touch with you or your attorney about receiving full and fair compensation from them. If that hasn’t happened, it is important that you immediately contact this company if they haven’t gotten in touch with you already.
Insurance companies may also be willing to negotiate an additional settlement through mediation or arbitration, but this depends on the circumstances of your accident and claim. If you are unable to come up with a separate agreement, then you will likely need to file a lawsuit against the responsible person or their insurance company.
If you can, it would be great to get everything you talked about in writing. Ask them to send you an email detailing the agreement, or better yet – send them one asking to make sure you understood what was said correctly, and write down the details of the agreement in the email so you have a letter from them. This could later be used as evidence in your case to show you aren’t the reason for them refusing to provide compensation.
3. Medical Expenses
If you’re looking to file a claim, then it’s likely that an insurance company will want to closely examine all of your medical records associated with your injuries and accident. This is because much of the evidence surrounding your claim will be in your medical records. It’s also because insurance companies are looking for any reason to deny you of receiving compensation, so they’ll want to scrutinize everything closely. It’s important to save every piece of paper related to your accident, all medical bills, prescriptions that were given, costs of any treatments or surgeries you received because of the accident.
If you are unable to go to your job after an accident, then proof that you were unable to work will also be helpful evidence in seeking compensation. When filing a claim, especially if you file a legal one too, the number of things you had to go through after the accident will be important in determining if and how you’re going to be compensated, so it’s important that you have a record of everything.
4. File A Claim
If filing an insurance claim for compensation because of injuries received in an accident, it is important to file this claim with the proper jurisdiction so that everything will run smoothly and your evidence won’t be considered invalid because of technicalities. It’s important that you don’t wait too long before seeking legal help after an accident, as we’ve already mentioned, and it’s important that you do all the administrative work with care.
Filing an insurance claim, as well as a legal one, will mean that there’ll be a lot of paperwork involved. It’s not uncommon for people to think that insurance companies only look at the most recent bills, if they even have them in your file, but they’ll definitely be looking over everything you submit so it’s important to keep records of everything. If your accident happened because of another person’s negligence or wrongdoing, you should consider seeking legal advice.
After an accident, it’s important to file claims with your insurance company, as well as any other necessary claim, so that you can receive full and fair compensation for the damages the accident has cost you. Since being in an accident can affect us both physically and mentally, it might be a good idea to contact a lawyer so that your interests are being well-represented while you’re still recovering.
