PIP Claims in Florida
PIP Claims in Florida
Understanding Insurance For Personal Injury Protection Claims
The costs associated with being injured in a car accident can be astonishing. From the bills for emergency medical treatment, ambulance transportation, hospitalization, and ongoing care, to the lost income during recovery and the potential for reduced earning power, car accident injuries will often leave the victim with significant financial struggles and difficult decisions such as whether to pursue necessary medical care which may be too expensive to afford.
When you have been injured in an accident, you should not be forced to worry about money, but should instead be allowed to focus on healing and recovering. Fortunately, you are most likely entitled to claim compensation for your expenses. Obtain the appropriate legal help by retaining a Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyer and begin filing your PIP claims in Florida today.
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Looking At Florida Laws
Under Florida’s Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law, all registered vehicle owners are required to carry personal injury protection (PIP) insurance coverage, specifically to pay the expenses which follow in the wake of a car accident. The law mandates that all PIP policies will provide a minimum of $10,000 in coverage for bodily injury, as well as $10,000 for property damage. You can file a car accident insurance claim under such a policy regardless of which driver is at fault for the accident, and you are entitled to receive prompt payment of your claim.
Big thanks to Eric and Doug for doing a great job with the handing of my auto accident. I highly recommend them!
– Demarco D.
Necessity For A Fort Lauderdale Personal Injury Attorney
The downside of no-fault insurance is that it only covers a percentage of medical costs and partial wage replacement, and does not make it possible to recover damages for pain and suffering. Moreover, the insurance company will often attempt to delay or deny the claim, or may offer a smaller settlement than the policy holder deserves.
At Ace You Case, P.A., we have extensive experience representing accident victims in PIP claims and know how to get results in the system. A from our team can work to help you receive full coverage under the terms of your policy, in addition to taking legal action to recover any amounts in excess of the limits of your coverage. We know how much may be at stake for you, and will fight tirelessly on your behalf.
Contact our Fort Lauderdale injury lawyers today for a no-obligation, free consultation!
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Plantation Personal Injury FAQs
When Is It the Right Time to Call a Personal Injury Lawyer?
The right time to call is as soon as possible after your accident. There are many reasons why you need to begin the legal process as quickly as you can. The legal process may even begin without you, with many calls from the insurance company trying to either rush you or to pressure you to give a statement. They may try to catch you unaware and trick you into compromising your legal rights. Hiring an attorney could prevent this from happening.
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Equally important, as time passes from the time of your accident, the evidence that could help your claim can become harder to find. People might quickly clear the scene of the accident, and you may lose the ability to contact witnesses. The witnesses that you have may begin to lose their recollection of what they saw. When you hire a personal injury lawyer, they will get to work immediately to gather the evidence before it is lost.
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Calling a lawyer to get started on your case is a crucial step in the legal process. Knowing that you have someone on the job with the experience and tenacity to fight for you can give you at least some peace of mind during an undoubtedly difficult time.
How Do Insurance Settlement Negotiations Work?
An insurance claim is just like any other negotiation. You have a number in mind for what you think that you should receive for your injuries, and the insurance company has a much lower number in mind for what it wants to pay. Your insurance claim begins when your Plantation personal injury attorney files a demand letter with the insurance company. This is when the adjuster goes to work to try to save money for their bosses.
The insurance adjuster may outright deny your claim or question liability. They may come back with a settlement offer. When the number seems low, and it will, know that this is just their opening offer. Your Plantation injury attorney will likely reject the offer and respond with your own demand.
Eventually, you will lower your number, and the insurance company will raise theirs, and you could meet somewhere in the middle. This is a time-honored dance that personal injury lawyers have been doing with insurance companies since the advent of courtrooms. Even when you seem very far apart from the insurance company, most cases eventually will settle.
What Happens After I File a Personal Injury Lawsuit?
Filing a personal injury lawsuit is an early part of the claim process. Most cases will never go far enough to see the inside of a courtroom. Statistically speaking, a vast majority of personal injury cases are settled out of court. However, if your case does make it to court, you should expect going into it that the trial process may take one to two years to complete. The legal system is far from rushed, as courts and judges have busy schedules and full dockets.
In the short term, you can expect motions and attempts to obtain evidence. Many people associate a lawsuit with a trial, but that only happens after many months of the nuts and bolts of the legal system. The phase of your case that will take the longest time is discovery. This is when the two sides obtain evidence that the other has in their possession. At this point, you may even need to sit for a deposition.
Filing a lawsuit will not cut off settlement negotiations. As was previously mentioned, most cases will settle without a trial. If anything, litigation may give each side more incentive to settle. The two parties usually continue negotiating right up until the point when the jury is seated.
What Evidence Can Prove My Injury Claim?
Negligence is the basis of every personal injury claim. When you file a lawsuit in court, you have the burden of proof. It will be up to you to show that what you say is more likely than not to have happened. You need to back your claim up with evidence.
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Your Plantation personal injury lawyer will work to gather things that can backup your side of the story, including:
— Witness statements from people who say your injury or accident
— Pictures of the scene of your accident
— Security camera footage
— Expert witness testimony that could reconstruct the accident
— Maintenance logs of the area or vehicle involved
— Medical records that can help prove damages
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These are things that can be difficult to get on your own and piece together to tell the story of what happened. Injury lawyers in Plantation, Florida, know how to both get the evidence and use it to prove that someone else was responsible for your accident.
What if I Cannot Work Due to My Injuries?
Your personal injury damages include both economic and non-economic compensation. Economic compensation aims to pay you back for the actual money that you lost. This includes bills that you paid and earnings you lost. This specifically pays you back for lost wages from your job when you are unable to work. Since you would have worked, this is money out of your pocket.
Lost wages in a personal injury settlement are much broader than you think. Of course, this includes the time that you have already missed from work. It also encompasses time that you will miss from work in the future. You do not need to outright miss work to receive compensation for this. For example, if you were qualified for a promotion but cannot get it now because your injury limits you in the type of work that you can do, you can get compensation for the reduction in your earning capacity.
Lost wages are often a very contested part of your personal injury claim because you can bet that the insurance company will see things differently to try to lower its bill. They may dispute what your possible earnings are or use a lower rate of inflation to calculate what they may be in the future.