Making sense of a car accident is rarely ever easy, but it can be made all the more difficult when the other driver lives in another country.
Here is what you need to know about:
Your Rights After An International Car Accident
Medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States.
Even if you have strong savings and good insurance, a serious accident is more than enough to upend most working families’ finances. Co-pays, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs can quickly whittle away at bank accounts and retirement funds, depleting years’ worth of hard work in a matter of weeks.
You should not have to pay for an accident that was not your fault, but personal injury lawsuits do not resolve themselves overnight. Here are three ways you could obtain relief before your claim is settled:
Serious accidents can have serious repercussions.
Under ordinary circumstances, securing compensation often feels like an uphill battle. You could have the strongest case in the world, and that often is not enough to stop the insurance company from trying to shortchange you. But when the other driver does not even have coverage, trying to break even, let alone reclaim your former financial independence, could feel downright impossible.
However, you may have more options than you expect. Here is what you need to know about:
Car accidents really can happen in the blink of an eye.
If you live in New York, no-fault insurance provides something of a financial cushion. However, a standard policy is rarely enough to cover all the costs of a life-altering accident. If you have sustained serious injuries in a crash that was not your fault, you could be entitled to file a personal injury lawsuit against the person or party who caused your collision.
Here is what you need to know about:
You cannot always avoid adjusters after a car accident, but that does not mean you should ever let your guard down while talking to the defendant’s insurance company.
Here is what you need to know about:
The Insurance Company’s Motivations
Whiplash is caused by the forceful and rapid back-and-forth movement of the head.
Although whiplash is common after car accidents, the diagnosis itself has long been controversial. Much of this controversy is a façade created by the insurance industry. Since whiplash cannot be confirmed through medical imaging or laboratory tests, adjusters are much more likely to challenge these kinds of claims than others. In some cases, they might accuse victims of either lying about or exaggerating their symptoms.
For survivors, though, one of the first and greatest challenges in winning a whiplash settlement is simply getting diagnosed. Unlike most physical injuries, whiplash is not always noticeable, at least not at first. Symptoms can take hours, days, or weeks to appear. Oftentimes, these early-warning signs are so subtle that they are either ignored or attributed to a pre-existing condition.
You should not feel bound to pay the price for another person’s mistake.
In New York, accident victims have a legal right to file a claim for compensation against the person who caused their injuries. You can still sue even if you were partly to blame for the accident, and you do not have to have a rock-solid case to talk to a lawyer and schedule a consultation.
However, filing a personal injury lawsuit is often much easier than fighting one, let alone winning and walking away with enough money to begin building back.
Insurance is financial protection for the unexpected.
An insurance coverage is supposed to guarantee peace of mind. Even though no amount of money can undo an accident, a strong policy can, at the very least, ensure that victims have a way to obtain relief without having to hire a lawyer and take them to court.
If an insurance company wants to stay competitive and turn a profit, it cannot pay more in claims than it takes in premiums. The less money an insurer spends resolving claims, the more profitable it is.
Buffalo’s roads are not always safe.
According to a recent Allstate report, Buffalo’s accident rate hovers more than 33% above the national average. In fact, crashes are so common that the New York Department of Health has identified motor vehicle collisions as a leading cause of preventable hospitalizations among Erie County residents.
Accidents can happen anywhere in the city, but some streets are more dangerous than others.
Uber has completely changed the way that people travel.
It was not all that long ago that getting home from the airport or going out on the town with friends meant flipping through the phone book and calling a cab. Today, rideshare companies like Uber have a presence across New York state, with drivers plying the roads in just about every big city between Buffalo and the Five Boroughs.
Most Uber rides begin and end without incident, but accidents are not uncommon.
Buffalo Personal Injury Lawyer News