Atlanta Car Accident Attorney

When it comes to car accident claims, there are several mistakes we regularly see that are detrimental to a claim, even if the client doesn’t realize it. The first thing that we often see is a client who doesn’t contact the police to get an incident report. This is essential because it gives us documentation of the claim and it lets us know who it is that we need to pursue the claim against. Another thing is failing to take photographs of the vehicle involved to show the property damage. Often, police officers don’t accurately record the amount of damage that has occurred to the vehicles in the police reports, and if we don’t have the vehicle photographs showing the damage, an insurance company can use the police report to try to minimize the extent of the impact and, therefore, argue that you shouldn’t have had that big of an injury.

Car wrecks are things that people in the community deal with on a regular basis. People frequently ask me how they should go about hiring the best lawyer for that situation. There are many things that need to be taken into consideration. The first one is the experience of the lawyer that would be handling the case. There are a lot of things that go into investigating and working up car wreck cases. If you have someone representing you who’s not handling car wreck cases on a daily basis, there are a lot of things that they may miss and not know to look for that can severely harm the value of your case.

We’re often asked by people whether they should give a recorded statement to the at-fault party’s insurance company when one is requested. The answer to this is, no, don’t ever do that, especially without a lawyer present. When a car wreck has occurred, the at-fault driver’s insurance company will often ask the injured party to give a recorded statement of what occurred. The injured party may think they’re doing their claim a service in making it, but in reality they are only causing hurting themselves. Insurance companies utilize trained insurance adjusters who will ask questions that may be confusing and misleading. Don’t ever participate in one of these statements, especially without the presence of your attorney.

One of the primary concerns we see with clients who come to see us after being injured in a motor vehicle accident is what to do when they’re unable to pay their bills. Many people after being injured are forced to miss time from work and are not paid for work time that they would’ve had, if they had not been injured. Most of us are dependent upon our weekly or bi-weekly paychecks in order to pay for our basic necessities in life, such as a place to live and food to eat. When we’re not able to work and we don’t have the funds that we would have to pay those bills, we often deal with people who are attempting to collect money that we may not have. Oftentimes, the bill collector in those situations does not care that you have been in an accident and have not been able to work. We often have bill collectors chasing clients who are already having to deal with issues related to pain and not being able to work.

One of the first things we are asked when working with new personal injury clients is who is going to pay for their medical expenses. If you are reading this, it may be because you have been injured due to the negligence of someone else and you are trying to determine who is responsible for paying your medical expenses. The first thing to consider is whether you have health insurance and if you should use it. I always advise my clients— and would advise you— that if you have been injured in an accident of some sort and you have health insurance, make sure that health insurance is applied to every medical visit you have. In the end, as long as liability is established, the other party’s insurance will compensate you for those medical expenses, but if you have utilized your insurance, we are able to maximize the recovery in a more effective manner for you.

When clients contact us about injuries they sustained in car wrecks, one of the questions that they often have is if they need a certain amount of medical expenses in order to warrant pursuing a claim. The answer is that not every case is alike and that can vary. Some cases can have significant injuries and relatively minor medical expenses, and those cases are worth pursuing. Other cases can have minor injuries and minor expense and not be worth pursuing. For example, we may have a case where the only injury someone sustained is a gash to their forehead, and all they had in medical expenses was the expense of having it stitched up, but they’re left with a permanent and visible facial scar, and that’s the type of injury that has some compensation value. Those cases are worth pursuing, even though you may only have a small amount of medical expenses.

We are often asked by clients what type of car insurance they need to have to protect themselves if they are in a motor vehicle collision. We recommend two types of coverage to everyone that drives an automobile and has insurance coverage. The first is called underinsured or uninsured motorist coverage (generally referred to as UM coverage). The second type is called medical payments coverage, and we generally refer to it as MedPay coverage. These can be very important and can have a big impact on your claim in many situations.

One of the first questions people ask us when they come to us for a car wreck claim is how long it will take to resolve their case. The answer varies greatly depending on the severity of the injuries and whether liability is disputed or not. In these cases, generally we are going to want the client to finish their treatment before we pursue a claim. In these types of lawsuits, you only get one chance, so you don’t want to resolve the claim before the full extent of your injuries are revealed. You don’t get to go back and negotiate after the fact.

When we see clients with injuries suffered in car wrecks, one of the first things they want to know is how much their case is worth. That’s a very difficult question to answer because there’s so many variables to the value of a case. A case is generally going to depend on things such as the amount of the medical expenses, the permanency of the injury, and how much it’s disrupted your life. In Georgia, things that you can recover for personal injury are special damages, which are lost wages and the value of medical expenses, and what’s called non-economic damages, which includes things such as pain and suffering and the disruption of your life. Those are the categories that you’re looking at in terms of how much your case is worth.