If you’ve been injured in a car accident, read these 6 frequently asked car accident questions. Contact our Phoenix lawyers to get started.
1) What Should I Do After a Car Accident?
Our biggest concern, and it’s always going to be our biggest concern, is your health and well-being. That’s the number one priority. If you’re injured in a motor vehicle accident, the first thing that you want to do is make sure that you seek out proper medical treatment. Go to the hospital. Go to all of your appointments. If they recommend going to a chiropractor, go to the chiropractor. If they recommend physical therapy, go see a physical therapist. Our concern should not be with how long it is going to take to recover money for you or how long it’s going to take for us to get paid. That’s not our biggest issue. Our biggest concern is your health. We will ultimately recover for you, but we want to make sure that you take care of yourself first.
2) How Do I Go About Contacting a Car Accident Attorney?
If you’re ever seriously injured in a motor vehicle accident, maybe you’re unconscious, maybe you’re transported to the hospital. My recommendation to you would be to call an attorney as soon as you’re able to. You want to make sure that you call an attorney right away so that they can make sure that you don’t do something that could harm your case.
For example, insurance companies, immediately following an accident, are going to call you. They’re going to try to get statements. That can hurt your case, but then also after the accident, there are certain things that you can use as evidence that can help preserve your case like for example, taking pictures of the vehicles, where the cars are positioned, and pictures of the damage to the vehicles. All those things can really help us when we’re trying to establish liability. I would recommend contacting an attorney as soon as you possibly can after a motor vehicle accident.
3) Should I Seek Out Immediate Medical Care?
If you are in a motor vehicle accident, as soon as you see any sign of injury whatsoever, back pain, neck pain, leg pain, you should immediately seek out medical care. It certainly makes it easier for us to recover for those injuries if we can show that the injury is related to the accident. Now, if you’re in that situation where you didn’t seek out care and it did take some time for the injury to manifest, that does not bar your claim.
We would rather you have sought treatment right away, but if you did not, that’s not unusual. That happens from time to time. If that happened to you, seek out counsel from an experienced injury attorney in Arizona.
4) How Do I Deal with Insurance Companies?
Many of our clients have advised us that immediately after an accident, they have been contacted by their insurance company asking for statements. There have been situations where, after an accident, you think that you should immediately contact your insurance company. You really shouldn’t do that. We recommend that you contact your attorney and let us call your insurance company for you. The reason we say that is there are certain things that you could say that could hurt your case. Now, most people think that their own insurance company is on their side. The sad reality is that the insurance companies may be trying to limit their exposure so that they can pay you as little as possible.
5) Should I Accept the First Settlement Offers?
Many of our clients have received offers from insurance companies that are far below what the value of their case is. With any kind of a negotiation to resolve a case, there’s going to be some back and forth. Usually, the first offer is not something that a client should ever consider taking. There may be that rare instance where somebody received a fair offer the first go around, but that’s not usually the case. We would not recommend taking an offer from an insurance company right away. We would recommend consulting with an experienced attorney and determining whether or not that’s the proper value of that case and whether or not you should consider accepting that offer.
6) How Much is the Value of my Car Accident Claim?
That is a very difficult question to answer. A lot of times it comes down to the specific nature of that person’s injuries. Not only the physical injuries but sometimes there can be some mental injuries as well. It can be very difficult assessing or valuing a case. We can look at precedent. We can look at other cases that have been settled in the state of Arizona. There are other things that we can do to help you determine the value of your case. There’s no set formula for determining the appropriate value of a case. It can be difficult. You need an experienced attorney in Arizona to help you determine what the value of your case is.
If you’ve been involved in a car accident, you probably have questions. After reading our 6 frequently asked car accident questions, contact our dedicated Phoenix car accident lawyers for a free consultation and let us fight to make sure your rights are protected.
Read Our FREE Personal Injury Guide
Review Attorney James Green on Avvo