Nobody ever chooses to get injured. When you are injured in an accident that was the fault of someone else, it’s particularly infuriating. You made good, responsible and safe choices, yet someone else’s mistake led to your injury. Perhaps your injury has left you unable to work, and given you financial hardship on top of coping with your health. Whatever the case, if you’ve been injured as a result of the negligence, oversight, or wrongdoing of another person or party, you should talk to a personal injury lawyer right away about a potential settlement.
Sometimes, the factors involved in the incident make it confusing over whether or not you should talk to a personal injury lawyer. Maybe the liable party has offered you a settlement, so you think you don’t need a personal injury law firm to fight for you (when in reality, if the liable party is offering you a settlement, it’s because they’re definitely guilty, and want to get away with giving you far less than they’d get away with if you had an attorney). Maybe you aren’t sure there even is a liable party and a auto accident attorney would just cost you money for nothing (when in reality, many accident lawyers only charge you anything if they win you money. Not to mention, even if you think the accident was partially your fault, a good auto accident attorney might be able to recover some settlement for you.) Whatever the reason, here are a few occasions you might not think you need a personal injury attorney, when you really do:
Three Signs That You Need a Personal Injury Lawyer
- Your injuries have led to permanent (or long-term) disability.
When you’ve sustained an significant injury in an accident, you should be given enough of a settlement that the injury does not cause you significant financial hardship. The attorneys for the other party might be offering you a settlement that seems like a large payout, but when you consider how much money you are subject to lose over the course of your long-term future, you could be due to receive far more than that (keep in mind, the liable party is going to want to pay as little as possible through the settlement). You need a personal injury lawyer on your team, to fight for you and make sure that you get the full settlement that you deserve. - If there is more than one injured party, or the at-fault party is ambiguous.
If you were not the only person who sustained an injury in the accident, the settlement money has to be stretched a lot further. Since a part of the calculation of how much money you are due is based on the extent of your injury (and that’s not a hard and fast number), having a lawyer to work on your behalf to ensure that you get the settlement you deserve.
When the fault of the accident lies on the shoulders of several parties (perhaps even yours, to an extent), the attorneys for the other parties will try to argue that your blame (or the blame of other involved parties) leaves their client free of wrong-doing. This situation is very complicated for insurance companies to sort out. You need an attorney on your team, fighting for your cause. - The insurance company who owes you money is not cooperating with you.
In a perfect world, when you are injured in an accident, the insurance company who covers the guilty party will immediately cut a check for the amount of money that you deserve. In reality, insurance companies are businesses who want to lose as little money as possible, and the payout they owe you is money that they don’t want to lose. Of course, there are enough fraudulent or over-blown insurance claims in the world to make in necessary for insurance companies to do their due diligence before offering you a settlement. That should be expected. However, if the insurance company you’re working with is not cooperating with you, if communication has broken down altogether, or if they are aggressive in their answers to you, you need to contact a personal injury attorney right away.
Knowing when to get a personal injury attorney could mean the difference of thousands of dollars in your settlement.
