CAR ACCIDENT
Car Accident FAQ
- How does someone report a car accident? Immediately contact the police after an accident and report any and all injuries that have been sustained. The police will arrive at the scene. They’ll take an accident report. They will interview witnesses, get witness contact information. They will also, if necessary, assist in getting you being transported to the hospital.Once the accident has taken place, never admit fault. Let the police conduct the accident report and investigation themselves, then contact an attorney. Once the police have finished conducting their investigation, they are going to issue an incident report number and ultimately generate an accident report.
- What should someone say or not say to other drivers involved in an auto accident? Again, you never want to admit fault during an accident. You can certainly express empathy and concern for the situation, but ultimately never admit fault.
- What should I do after a car accident? After your car accident, it’s important that you:
- Seek medical attention, even if you don’t think you were seriously injured. You may have internal injuries that can get worse over time. A medical report from a doctor also can strengthen your auto accident claim.
- Review the police report of the accident either online or by calling the police department to get the names, phone numbers, and other contact information of witnesses and other drivers.
- Call Michigan Injury Lawyers. We’ll do everything we can to help you move forward after your accident.
- When should someone get an attorney for a car accident? Immediately following the accident. It’s important from the onset to start off things on the right footing. By contacting an attorney immediately they can begin the process of gathering evidence, and bringing your claim together in the proper context.
- When someone doesn’t contact an attorney immediately following the accident, what are some of the problems that are encountered? Oftentimes people have a delay in reporting the onset of symptoms associated with an accident, which can make it difficult in establishing the timeframe of when the injuries occurred in relation to the accident. Oftentimes the insurance companies or the defense attorneys will exploit that time delay and it will ultimately affect the value of the case.
- What is the statute of limitations for filing an auto-accident claim? In Michigan, accident victims have one year to file a lawsuit with their own insurance companies for No-Fault insurance benefits. They have three years to file a lawsuit against the at fault driver for pain and suffering damages. If you do not file within this time, it is very difficult to recover from your car accident.
- Can you report a car accident after 24 hours? Yes. You have to report a car accident within 3 days. However, it’s important to report the car accident with as close of proximity to the actual accident as possible.
- Why should someone report an accident as close in proximity as possible? Because it begins the process of preserving evidence. Like anything else, you want to build a strong foundation. If you’re building a house you want to start with a very strong foundation. An injury case is very similar of where you need to start with a very broad spectrum of gathering evidence, information, facts, and then bring the case together with all that information.
- How does someone win a car accident claim? Well, there are really no winners in an auto accident case. I always tell people you don’t want to have a good claim because if you have a good claim that means you have very substantial injuries. But ultimately how you get compensated for the injury that you have sustained is by immediately contacting an attorney—an attorney that’s familiar and that’s going to take a personal interest in your case. Oftentimes people contact larger firms that just operate on a burn and churn basis. It’s a numbers game for them of how many cases they can get in and how fast they can process them. We try to take each case on an individual basis and maximize the amount of recovery for each individual client.
- How long does a car accident claim take to settle? No two cases are the same. You can often resolve a claim in three months and they can take as long as two years. It really depends on the individual, the claim, the facts, oftentimes the insurance company that’s involved, but each case is an individual case and must be looked at under the totality of the circumstances. Often where it’s filed come into play to determine how fast a case can be resolved.
- In terms of dollar figures, what is the range you’ve seen in Michigan for settlements or jury verdicts? The ultimate value of a claim is going to be on an individual basis given the nature of the injuries, the severity, and the impact that it’s had on an individual. In order to even file a third-party claim against an at-fault driver, an individual must overcome the tort threshold in Michigan. Meaning they must suffer a serious bodily impairment that affects one’s general ability to lead a normal life or a permanent serious disfigurement. So in order to pass that threshold an individual must have very serious injuriesThe amount that a person ultimately attains is often going to depend on the amount of insurance that’s available for that party to access. That’s why it’s imperative people are insured themselves, but also carry underinsured motorist coverage and uninsured motorist coverage.
- What can I receive compensation for? You may be able to file a claim for some of your accident-related expenses, such as:
- attendant care
- hospital bills for current and future treatments
- lost wages if you’re disabled and can’t work
- pain and suffering
- replacement services
- transportation costs
- and more
- What is someone entitled to in a car accident? Depending on the extent of a person’s injuries under Michigan law, there are what are called first-party cases and third-party cases. A first-party case is where you’re entitled to personal injury protection benefits. You’re entitled to all of your medical care arising out of the accident for life. You’re entitled to a wage loss up to a certain amount, attended care services, replacement services, and transportation services.A third-party case is where you would ultimately file a claim against the at-fault driver or the at-fault driver’s insurance company. In a third-party case you would be seeking noneconomic damages such as pain and suffering, compensation for your injuries, and also economic damages above and beyond what you were compensated for as a result of your personal injury protection benefits.
- What would be considered economic damages above and beyond? Economic damages are capped at 85 percent up to a certain amount for only 3 years. Depending on the severity of injuries, someone may have economic damages for the rest of their life. They can often go 20, 30, 40 years into the future. So it’s important that you get compensation for yourself and for your dependents arising out of that third-party claim.
- Who pays for my car accident expenses? Because Michigan is a no-fault auto insurance state, all drivers are required to purchase personal injury protection (PIP) insurance. This insurance provides compensation for medical costs and partial lost wages after car accidents. But even after you receive money from your PIP, it’s still important to file a claim—especially if your injuries were serious, disfiguring, or disabling—as PIP insurance often doesn’t fully cover accident-related expenses.
- Do I have to go to court? Most car accident cases settle out of court. While the insurance company may offer you an initial settlement after the accident, these are usually “lowball” offers, and if you accept, you may forfeit your rights to full compensation. Our Michigan auto accident lawyers will fight to help you get the money you deserve—even if it means taking your case to trial.
- How can a lawyer help me? When you need experienced, passionate, and caring legal help in your corner, consider Michigan Injury Lawyers. At our law firm, we’re not afraid to do hard work on behalf of our clients, such as:
- collecting evidence
- analyzing the crash scene
- interviewing witnesses
- maximizing recovery
- and more
- How important is it for someone to retain legal counsel in terms of pursuing a settlement? It’s imperative that someone obtains legal counsel. The legal field is ripe with pitfalls and landmines. Frankly some attorneys that don’t practice in this area of the law on a continuous constant basis aren’t even abreast of all the latest changes in the law. Having an experienced attorney might allow a person to collect additional monies that may otherwise be missed. Insurance companies are not your friends. Their whole business model is predicated on paying out less money than they take in and how they do that is by denying claims and by minimizing injuries and minimizing the amount they pay out to injured individuals.
- Can someone sue for negligence in a car accident? Absolutely. If another driver is at fault for causing the accident and you were insured at the time of the auto accident, you can file a third-party claim against the at-fault driver.
- What happens if you’re at fault in a car accident? If you’re more than 51 percent at fault for causing the automobile accident, you are going be barred from filing a third-party claim. But under Michigan’s no-fault system, if you sustained any injuries at the time of the accident and they arose out of the accident and were insured at the time of the accident, all of your medical care associated with that will be covered for life, under your first party benefits.The state of Michigan has been trying to change the law on how that operates by instituting $1 million cap. Unfortunately the vast majority of drivers don’t realize the affect this change would have on our state. Michigan is currently one of the best no-fault statutes in the country.
- Who determines at-fault percentages and can those be challenged? They absolutely can be challenged. Even if a police report ultimately says that one driver is at fault. The determination of who is at fault is going to be done by what’s called the trier of fact. Either a judge, or more often the case, a jury will ultimately decide who is at fault in a specific incidence.
- What happens in a hit-and-run car accident? During a hit-and-run car accident under Michigan law even if you’re unable to locate the driver that caused the accident and fled the scene, if you were carrying uninsured motorist coverage you would be able to in turn look to your own insurance company for compensation for your pain and suffering, your noneconomic damages, and economic damages above and beyond what you’d be entitled to under your personal injury protection benefits.
- How much compensation can someone get for whiplash in a car accident? Whiplash cases are very difficult in the state of Michigan because Michigan has the tort threshold I mentioned earlier of a permanent serious disfigurement or a serious bodily impairment that affects one’s general ability to lead a normal life. Soft tissue injuries such as whiplash are often difficult to establish. There needs to be substantial medical documentation that evidence the injury and how that impacts that individual’s ability to lead a normal life.
- How does someone get a car accident police report? After the police have finished conducting their investigation, they’re ultimately going to generate a report number. It varies from department to department of how long it takes for them to ultimately generate the accident report, but you’ll contact the police department that responded to the accident and give them the incident report number and they will ultimately give you a copy of the accident report.
- How much can you get from a car accident lawsuit? Compensation varies on a case-to-case basis. I always say that no two cases are the same. It depends on the individual, it depends on their injuries. It depends on how that individual responds to those injuries… Read More
- Is there an online resource to find jury verdicts and settlements for auto accident cases in Michigan? People often look to Google to get information, but oftentimes the only thing that Google reports are things we in the legal field call outliers. These are cases that are either extremely low or extremely high… Read More
- How does injury recovery time factor into an auto accident settlement? That’s a very complex question. Just starting from the baseline of how long a case can take, that can vary from where the accident even took place. It depends on the county that it took place… Read More
- What other car accident questions do you get asked frequently? The most common one is, “What is my case worth?” and again, it’s a subjective standard, it really depends on the individual and the injuries that they’ve sustained. Anyone that walks into an attorney’s office… Read More