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When to Contact a Michigan Auto Accident Lawyer
When to Contact a Michigan Auto Accident Lawyer
No, you don't always need to hire an accident lawyer. There are many cases (even when people are injured in a car accident), where the victim really doesn't need to hire a lawyer. But you should at leasttalk to a lawyer to find out what your legal rights are, and to make sure you are not unknowingly extinguishing important insurance benefits or legal rights forever by mistake or inadvertence.
There are five specific types of situations where it's imperative to at least TALK with a personal injury attorney to protect yourself following a Michigan car or truck accident.
No. 1 When the auto insurance adjuster sends you a legal release
Anytime your insurance company sends you ANY documentation to sign, even if it appears to be a harmless vehicle damage waiver, you should contact a personal injury attorney immediately to preserve your legal rights.
True story: Three people were injured in a car accident in Michigan. They contacted their own No-Fault insurance company. Seven days later, the adjuster sent these three people a mini-tort (car damage) release. But this release wasn't just for the mini-tort. This was a full release that was sent to these injured people for all of their Michigan No-Fault insurance rights including the right to future No-Fault insurance benefits and the legal right to sue the driver who caused the car accident for pain and suffering damages. In other words, this "mini-tort" release was a full and final legal release that extinguished all of their future legal rights and car accident claims.
And it was sent seven days after the accident by their own insurance adjuster.
Unfortunately, these unsuspecting auto accident victims spoke with injury attorneys too late after they had already signed the release. They unknowingly gave up all of their rights to No-Fault benefits and the right to claim pain and suffering.
A legal release like this is almost always sent at the end of a case, sometimes after a lawsuit has been filed, but always after an injury lawyer has read and reviewed it.
Don't sign away any legal rights, especially future rights to medical care or your right to sue - without at least talking with an accident attorney first
This is a scary but trueexample of how important it is to always at least consult with a personal injury attorney before signing ANY sort of legal release after a car accident. Almost all injury attorneys will never charge for a consultation and many today will not charge an attorney fee at all, unless there is a legal recovery. Certainly, a good accident lawyer should nevercharge a dime to answer questions about your No-Fault rights or explain how long you have to file a claim with your own insurance company.
No. 2 When underinsured motorist coverage comes into play
Many people have Underinsured Motorist Coverage on their auto insurance policies to protect them if the at-fault driver's insurance is not sufficient to cover excess medical benefits you may be entitled to. But this doesn't mean you're in the clear to collect this coverage even after you've been offered the full policy limits from the insurance company who caused the car crash.
You MUST get written permission from your own auto insurance company before you can settle, or you LOSE your entire right to collect the Underinsured Motorist policy limits you purchased from your own insurance company.
This means even when the insurance company is offering you what they represent as the "full insurance policy limits" involved (and even when those policy limits are clearly inadequate for the injuries caused from the car crash), you will still lose forever the right to collect your own UIM coverage from your own insurance company, if you do not have written permission from the insurance company first.
Experienced auto accident attorneys have seen many people who have lost a family member in a fatal truck accident or people who have suffered catastrophic personal injury lose millions of dollars by falling into this trap. Here's why you must hire an experienced car accident lawyer in these types of cases: There are many insurance companies that will almost NEVER give you permission to settle, EVEN when the other insurance company is offering the full insurance policy limits.
No. 3 When any auto accident claim involves "policy limits"
Policy limits tells you the amount of insurance coverage available. To make sure you know the correct insurance policy limits, you must demand a certified declaration page from your auto insurance company.
If your car accident involves a corporate vehicle or truck, there will also likely be excess or umbrella layers of coverage involved. These are completely different policies. Often, they will be hidden or not voluntarily disclosed by your auto insurance company. In other words, even when an insurance company says its offering you policy limits after a catastrophic car accident or wrongful death, there is a good chance it is not.
In catastrophic personal injury cases and death cases involving trucks, or in any serious truck accident case, you will need an attorney to review for additional coverage. When the trucking company representative is telling the family of the person their driver just killed that this is all the insurance coverage, although technically true, it omits several other additional sources of insurance coverage that could add millions of dollars to protect the family.
It can take literally hours of reading the different policies, but finding that extra layer of coverage or additional defendant can add $5 million in coverage. And most umbrellas for the bigger trucking companies are higher.
It should cost you nothing to have an experienced lawyer review the insurance policies to make sure there is not money being hidden from you. A good accident lawyer will review the policy limits and insurance contracts without charging you.
No. 4 When there is a No-Fault attendant care claim
No type of case has more insurance fraud than cases involving Michigan attendant care claims.
Attendant care (also called nursing care services) refers to activities of daily living that you are unable to perform yourself due to the severity of your personal injuries. Therefore, you require the help of someone else (the attendant) to provide the care.
Even when a claims adjuster does disclose that a person is entitled to attendant care, there is still the battle over what is a fair hourly rate for the attendant care that is needed, and how many hours should the attendant care be paid.
In many, if not most attendant care injury cases, an experienced No-Fault insurance attorney can usually double or triple (or more) the voluntary hourly rate of attendant care being offered, or increase the number of hours the insurance company will pay for attendant care (or both), following a car accident causing serious personal injury.
It's at least worth a phone call to an experienced insurance attorney to review the attendant care rate being voluntarily offered by the auto insurance company to make sure it is fair. You want to make sure you are receivinga fair and correct attendant care rate, and are not being shortchanged on the number of hours that attendant care is required.
One great example - night-time attendant care for supervision and monitoring is almost never voluntarily paid, even when it is clearly medically necessary and even when it is prescribed by the doctor. At eight hours a day, this quickly adds up.
There are many cases, and types of claims, where people will be well-advised to at least review what they are entitled to and what is fair with an experienced Michigan insurance attorney.
Remember, auto insurance claims adjusters make their bonuses on the amount of money they save the insurance company every year - not on what they pay out to you.
No. 5 When the at-fault driver is disputing fault
When it looks like the at-fault driver is disputing fault, contact an auto accident attorney immediately. An accident attorney has the knowledge and resources to protect you in ways that you simply cannot if you're trying to settle the case alone.
For instance, sometimes "black box" electronic data recorders can be downloaded shortly after an accident involving a semi-truck to prove the truck driver who has caused the accident is now changing his or her story. If people wait, it is often too late. This is one type of case where you have to contact an experienced accident lawyer immediately or the data will be "wiped" and lost forever.
Often, there are errors that may appear on a police report. In these cases, hard evidence, whether the black box, physical debris in the roadway or yaw and tire marks can prove fault.
Many insurance companies, and especially trucking companies today, are aggressively contacting people injured in auto accidents before they can hire an accident lawyer to represent them. It makes good sense for the insurance companies, because the insurance industry's own statistics show that a claim with a lawyer will settle for more than four times as much as a claim where the injured party is not represented by a car accident lawyer.
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