Call 911 As Soon After An Automobile Accident As Possible
Take These Steps To Protect Your Legal Rights After a Car Accident [2022] – If you are in a car accident, it is important to take steps to protect your legal rights. A lawyer can argue the facts in a light most favorable to your case, but they cannot change what happened. This is a guide that you can use after an automobile accident to help you make better decisions to protect your legal rights. One of the steps in this guide is to consult a lawyer for legal advice. The information here is supposed to help you, but it is not legal advice. For legal advice about your Rights After a Car Accident, dial 866-NAPOLIN.
Call 911 To Protect Legal Rights After a Car Accident
Identity and Valid Insurance Policy From The Other Driver
The first thing to do is call 911 and request emergency medical attention as necessary. If you are too injured to call 911, then obviously you should wait for emergency medical attention to reach you.
It is also important that someone calls to request that a traffic officer come to the scene immediately. This will help ensure that an official investigation is conducted, and that you have documentation of the event. If your loved one has just been injured and you are reading this post, then you should make the call for the traffic officer.
Identity and Valid Insurance Policy From The Other Driver
When the police respond to the scene to take a report, they often separate the parties. This is standard protocol to keep everyone safe and to conduct private interviews of the parties and independent eye-witnesses.
Under this scenario, you are relying on the police officer to collect the identity and insurance policy information on the other people involved in the incident. Usually, the officer will make everyone wait till the report is ready, usually 7-10 business days, to obtain the information on other parties and their insurance carriers. But sometimes the officer doesn't do a great job or takes weeks to obtain the report. In the meantime, you cannot report a claim to the other party's insurance carrier. This is a big issue that frustrates many people. Here is the deal.
The way you get around the issue is to request that the other party hand you their insurance information before the officer arrives at the scene. Snap a photo and now you can report the claim immediately without having to wait. Another solution that isn't as fast is to request the “face page” of the traffic collision report. Doing this allows you to view the party information including insurance company name, address and policy number of the other auto drivers in the car accident.
Seek Emergency Medical Attention For Injuries Sustained in the Traffic Collision
If other's are injured, do what you can to help them. If you are injured, take an ambulance to the emergency room. Having all of your injuries form the accident identified, diagnosed and documented by a medical professional is important to protect your legal right to financial compensation.
If you fail to have your injuries documented, then you won't be able to prove where they came from. This is especially true for chronic issues that are exacerbated by the current incident. If you suffer a weak back after a surgery and suddenly this auto accident damages your hardware, then you need to get in to your surgeon and make sure it's documented that the auto accident did the damage. If you let a couple months go by without proper diagnosis, then it doesn't appear the incident and the damage are related.
Follow Up With Your Primary Doctor or Urgency Care And Report All of Your Complaints
Take These Steps To Protect Your Legal Rights After a Car Accident
Diagnosis of injury is one thing, prognosis is another. The medical treatment that is required to cure or relieve the injury varies widely from case to case. To protect the value of your case, be sure to follow up with your doctor and get into a course of treatment going.
So don't forget to follow up with your primary doctor and get the treatment you need to get better. If you have health insurance, then you can use it. But keep in mind that your health insurance has a right to get reimbursed from your bodily injury claim proceeds. If you don't have health insurance, then you need to find private doctors who will extend medical services to you in exchange for a direct right to get reimbursed from your bodily injury claim proceeds. In any case, you need to find treatment and go for it if you want the other party to pay for it.
Report The Traffic Collision To Your Insurance Company
It's important to report the traffic collision to your insurance company as soon as possible. This starts the claim process and provides a record of the accident.
Your insurance company will have its own protocol to follow. It will likely assign an insurance adjuster to your claim who will contact you about the incident. The insurance adjuster will likely want to take a recorded statement from you about the accident. It's important that you do not give a recorded statement to the other party's insurance company without consulting with a personal injury lawyer first.
Call A Personal Injury Lawyer Because It's Affordable And Why Not
Max Out Your Settlement – Take These Steps To Protect Your Legal Rights After a Car Accident. And call a personal injury lawyer. Many people think they can't afford a lawyer. This is not always the case because many personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis which means you don't pay the lawyer anything upfront. The lawyer only gets a percentage of the proceeds if you win or settle your case.
The other reason to call a personal injury lawyer is because you don't have to do anything on your own. You need an advocate who will help you through the process, negotiate on your behalf, and be a zealous fighter in court if necessary.
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