Complicated Crashes: Handling Injury Claim Roadblocks In Georgia

The personal injury claim system exists to let injured Georgians claim compensation to cover their costs and losses after an accident. Unfortunately, it is a complex system, with many hoops you have to jump through and pitfalls for the unwary. This article explains some of the complicated situations that can arise and, in the process, covers some of the nuances of the personal injury claim process in Georgia, including:

• How fault and blame impact the personal injury claim system after an accident in Georgia.
• How to handle claims when injuries were caused by uninsured and underinsured drivers.
• How property and personal injury damages are calculated and covered in Georgia.

I Was Injured By An Uninsured Or Underinsured Driver. Can I Still File A Personal Injury Claim?

Most people have some form of uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage on their vehicle. If you are hurt in an accident with an uninsured or underinsured driver, this coverage allows you to bring a personal injury claim against your own insurance to cover the costs.

This insurance is vital to have. If you do not have any right now, it is worth getting some because, unfortunately, too many people drive around with either no insurance or very little. You cannot control what coverage the other person has, but you do have control over how much uninsured motorist coverage you have.

Sometimes, depending on the person(s) responsible, there may be someone with deep pockets an attorney can help you pursue, but generally speaking, that will not be the case. If someone is uninsured or underinsured, they are not usually going to be able to personally pay a judgment against them. So, it is more often a viable case to pursue uninsured motorist coverage or underinsured motorist coverage.

There is also the potential that there could be another party that is responsible, in which case that third party may be liable and can be made to pay. This brings us to another complication: the question of blame and responsibility in car accidents.

If I Was Partially At Fault For The Accident, Can I Still File A Personal Injury Claim In Georgia?

Car accidents are complicated, and often, the question of who is to blame is somewhat ambiguous. Fortunately, as long as the other driver’s fault exceeds 50%, you can still file a personal injury claim against them to recover your losses and costs.

That does not mean, however, that you should not hire a personal injury attorney, even when the blame is clearly on the other side.

Attorney Jacob Weldon is a relentless Georgia personal injury attorney who has helped accident and injury victims just like you recover millions after accidents and premise liability injuries. Guided by faith in the pursuit of justice, attorney Jacob Weldon helps injured individuals and their families take on the big insurance companies that would take advantage of them.

If you have been injured in Georgia, contact the Sexton Weldon Law Firm as soon as possible to schedule an initial consultation and begin the personal injury claim process.

Call For A Free Consultation - (470) 693-8777

The Other Driver Was Clearly At Fault. Do I Still Need To Hire A Personal Injury Attorney?

Unfortunately, blame is just one of the many games insurance adjusters will play to try and deprive you of your much-needed compensation.

Even when their client is clearly to blame, the insurance company is still going to try to nickel and dime you and try to get out of their obligations to you as cheaply and as quickly as possible. If they can get away with low balling you before you are even done with treatments, they will. Additionally, even if they admit fault, they will dispute the cause of the injury, its existence, or its severity.

An attorney who’s skilled in practicing personal injury is going to be able to better assess the value of your case and obtain a much greater settlement. They can even help make sure the costs of damages to your vehicle are covered.

Who Will Pay For Damage To My Car After An Accident Caused By Another Driver?

While medical costs are often far greater, vehicle costs can feel even more urgent after an accident for Georgians who depend on their car to get to work.

Normally, it should be the other party’s insurance that pays if they are at fault. If that liability is disputed, then it could be your insurance that pays for it in the short term, and then goes after the at-fault parties’ insurance for a repayment later.

Most often, you will not need the help of an attorney with these costs, as they are easier to demonstrate and much lower than medical and personal injury costs. However, sometimes when they are disputed or you get a lowball offer for the value of the vehicle, you might need our help.

If the at-fault party refuses to pay the claim, you can also get a lawyer involved to file a suit against them and their insurance company for bad faith failure to pay. We have obtained settlements against insurance companies in such circumstances in the past, where they refused to pay and it was clear that their client was at fault.

When that is the case, as long as you and your attorney have set up the claim correctly, after all, by properly demanding the amount of the property damage with notice that we intend to seek bad faith damages, then the at-fault party’s insurance will be responsible for paying not just those damages, but also our attorney fees and a $5,000 penalty as well.

The real challenge, however, is usually getting them to cover the full cost of your medical bills and figuring out how to pay for them while you wait for the case to settle.

Attorney Jacob Weldon is a relentless Georgia personal injury attorney who has helped accident and injury victims just like you recover millions after accidents and premise liability injuries. Guided by faith in the pursuit of justice, attorney Jacob Weldon helps injured individuals and their families take on the big insurance companies that would take advantage of them.

If you have been injured in Georgia, contact the Sexton Weldon Law Firm as soon as possible to schedule an initial consultation and begin the personal injury claim process.

Call For A Free Consultation - (470) 693-8777

How Am I Going To Pay For My Medical Bills While I Wait For My Car Accident Claim To Settle?

There are three ways to get your medical bills paid after an accident and injury in Georgia.

1. The first option is to use medical payment coverage if you have purchased it from your own insurance company. This is paid regardless of who is at fault, and there is no requirement to reimburse the insurance company.
2. The second option is to use your health insurance. Because of the collateral source rule in the state of Georgia, you can still receive damages from the at-fault insurance through a personal injury claim, even if your own insurance has already covered them.
3. The third option helps if you do not have any medical payment coverage or any health insurance. It involves working with an attorney to get you treated on a lien basis, which means the doctors will only get paid once you settle or win your claim. Similarly, if you have already gotten the treatment, we can ask the medical providers to forego collection in exchange for a letter of protection that ensures they will be paid out of any settlement or verdict we obtain for you.

While these medical costs will often make up the bulk of your personal injury claim, there are plenty of other damages to take into consideration as well.

How Are Personal Injury Damages Calculated In Georgia In Car Wreck Injury Cases?

Personal injury laws allow injured Georgians like you to claim all losses, harms, and costs caused by the negligence of another person, for example, the driver who caused your car crash.

Starting with your medical bills. These are often the most concrete portion of a personal injury claim, as the damages are straightforward to calculate.

To these you will add any lost wages, as the income you lose because you are unable to work is also a loss caused by the accident. These are not quite as easy to calculate, but an attorney and financial or economic expert can help.

Then, we get into the more complex damages, notably pain and suffering. These are harder to calculate, but a strong attorney can often convince a jury of them. Your attorney will paint a picture to the jury as far as how much suffering you have endured, for how long, and how it impacted your life. While this may not always be easy to calculate, it can become a major source of compensation in many cases.

Depending on your answers to the following questions, you too might be eligible for pain and suffering damages:

• What are the things that you have missed out on or did not get to participate in because of your pain and suffering?
• How do you see it impacting your future?
• Has it affected your relationship with your spouse? In law, this is called a loss of consortium.

If your spouse or family has to care for you, they may have to miss work or take on chores and responsibilities that you used to do, or used to be split or shared. These are also costs caused by your injury, even if there isn’t any strain on the relationship – and all too often, there is. This means your spouse can also be named as a plaintiff in the claim or lawsuit, as they can claim a loss of consortium, which is the negative impact that the injury had on their relationship.

So, while there is no set formula for calculating damages, it is derived from the totality of all medical bills, the severity of the injury, any disability, the ability or lack thereof to earn income in the past, present or future, even scarring, trauma, and pain from an injury factor into the total.

Claiming all these damages is not easy, however, and requires a great deal of work done by highly experienced personal injury attorneys. This is why if you have suffered an accident or other injury, you should contact us as soon as possible to make sure everything is done properly and accounted for in your claim.

For more information on Filing An Auto Accident Injury Claim In Georgia, an initial consultation is your next best step. Get the information and legal answers you are seeking by calling (470) 693-8777 today.