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Drivers and passengers can be seriously injured in car accidents, leading to hospitalization, surgery, and long recovery times. Not only that, but a car accident can set you back financially for years. The cost of repairing or replacing a vehicle can be high, and medical bills might be insurmountable. We can be as careful as possible, but there is always the chance that another irresponsible driver will cause an accident. If and when that day comes, you need to be prepared.
All drivers are required by law to have insurance, but insurance can only go so far. Insurance can also be a hassle to deal with. While you lie in pain in a hospital bed, an insurance company is arguing with you about how they do not believe you deserve the money you need to cover your expenses. When negotiations with an insurance company break down, you can file a personal injury lawsuit to claim the compensation you need and deserve.
Our car accident attorneys are here to help you get your life back. Get in touch with our legal team at Wruck Paupore for a free, confidential case review. Call us today at (219) 322-1166.
Car accidents are notoriously expensive. From costs of repairs to medical bills to lost wages from time away from work, paying for a car accident is incredibly difficult. All drivers on the roads are legally required to have insurance in case of an accident. However, the help from insurance companies might not make things easier.
Different states have different insurance systems after car accidents. In some states, insurance is paid on a no-fault basis, meaning insurance companies and providers must pay their customers no matter who is at fault, at least up to a certain amount. Indiana does not follow this system. Instead, you must file a claim with the other driver’s insurance to pay for your damages after a car accident. You must also show that the other driver is at fault and that you are not to blame for the collision.
In a perfect world, this would be a simple and easy process. Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world. While insurance companies are here to pay for our expenses after an accident, they love doing the exact opposite. Insurance companies have been known to conduct their own investigations to determine who truly caused an accident. If they think you share some of the blame, they will offer you less money. If their offer is unacceptable, our car accident lawyers can help you file a personal injury lawsuit.
Everyone who gets behind the wheel of a car must be covered by auto insurance. Not only is driving without insurance illegal and likely to lead to an expensive traffic citation, but it can really complicate things if you are involved in a car accident. If another driver caused an accident but you were uninsured, ask your attorney about your legal options, as they might be more restricted.
Indiana is one of a handful of states that has “no pay, no play” laws regarding car accidents. Essentially, these laws mean that if you are involved in a car accident but do not have insurance, your options for compensation to cover your damages may be significantly limited. According to I.C. § 34-30-29.2-3(a), if you were uninsured during an accident and had a prior violation, you may not recover non-economic damages related to your bodily injuries or property damage from another driver involved in the collision. However, it is important to understand that this only applies if the driver who was the victim of the accident had a prior violation for not carrying insurance, so it is important to talk to a lawyer if you think this might apply to you.
What if the other driver is uninsured? In that case, you should have no problem claiming the full extent of your damages. However, your claim must take the form of a civil lawsuit rather than an insurance claim. Since the other driver is uninsured, there is no way you can file a claim with their insurance company. Even so, you might have other insurance options.
You may turn to your uninsured motorist coverage if you have it. This insurance policy may cover you in the event that another driver causes an accident but does not have auto insurance. While all new car insurance policies must include uninsured motorist coverage, drivers are permitted to reject the policy as long as they do so in writing.
Car accidents are unpredictable. People might walk away from a bad crash miraculously unharmed. Others might be badly hurt in an otherwise unremarkable collision. You never know what could happen. In any event, you should get to a hospital for medical care as soon as possible, even if you do not think your injuries are serious. Your attorney can help you take stock of your injuries and losses from the accident to calculate your damages.
Economic damages are losses that cost you money and can be proven with evidence of your costs, like receipts or bills. Chief among your economic damages is likely your medical expenses and your damaged vehicle. Medical care is expensive at the best of times, and you might need extensive treatment if your injuries are severe. It is not unusual for injured victims to spend thousands or more on medical bills. Your damaged car also must be repaired or replaced, which can also be quite expensive.
Non-economic damages are often rooted in your personal experiences during and after the accident. Since these damages are unique to each plaintiff and highly subjective, they usually cannot be proven with evidence of monetary costs. In fact, many non-economic damages do not have a direct monetary cost. For example, you might claim physical pain, mental distress, psychological injuries, loss of enjoyment of your life, damages for scarring or disfigurement, and more.
The time it takes to complete a personal injury lawsuit is different for each case. Some cases are over and done with almost as soon as they begin. More contentious cases have been known to last months or even years. How much time your personal injury lawsuit takes will depend on the strength of your supporting evidence and the willingness of the parties to compromise.
In any personal injury lawsuit, including a car accident case, you must prove that the defendant was at fault for the accident. Demonstrating fault in car accidents can be difficult, as strong evidence is not always available. Car accidents tend to happen very quickly, and emergency responders are more concerned with treating injuries than gathering evidence. However, your recollection of the accident and information about how you were driving will be important. Additional evidence, like video footage of the accident from surveillance cameras or eyewitness testimony, may make things go a bit faster.
If you have a strong case, the defendant may be more willing to make a settlement offer. If you feel the settlement is satisfactory, you can take the settlement and avoid a trial completely. This is probably the fastest way to get your compensation. Unfortunately, if one or both parties are unwilling to negotiate a settlement, your case will take much longer.
Car accident scenes are often teeming with evidence, but it is lost when the authorities clear the scene away from the road. Even though we might lose some important information and details, we do not have to lose all of it. It is common for drivers to take pictures of accidents so they have something to show the insurance company. Your pictures may also be used as evidence in a civil case. Your photos might preserve important details we can use to prove what happened and how the defendant is responsible. In short, take as many pictures as you can.
Videos of the crash may also be extremely helpful to your case. Depending on where the crash happened, a security camera or traffic camera might have recorded everything. People or businesses own private security cameras, and we may need to reach out to them quickly before footage is erased. Local or state authorities usually operate traffic cameras, and we might need to jump through a few more hoops because we can access the footage. On the other hand, many cars today have dashcams that record things like crashes. If you or someone near the accident had a dashcam, we might have some very strong evidence on our hands.
After a crash, try to exchange information with the other driver and to the various people who might be near the scene. We may need to track them down later and interview them regarding their potential eyewitness testimony. If other drivers, passengers, or even pedestrians see anything important, we should speak to them right away.
Settlements are quick ways to get compensation from defendants without enduring a trial. While many cases reach settlement agreements, they are not required, and some cases end up going through a full trial. Settlements may help you avoid an expensive and time-consuming trial, but they require negotiations that could take a while to finish.
The stronger your case, the more likely the defendant will be willing to settle. Most parties in any lawsuit prefer to reach a settlement agreement because it allows everyone to avoid paying expensive legal fees. With more evidence on your side, we may be able to persuade the defendant to make an agreeable settlement offer.
However, if your evidence is weak and the defendant is less willing to cooperate, a settlement may be difficult to reach. If there is a settlement offer, it might be very low and not cover all your damages. While we have the opportunity to negotiate, we must be prepared for negotiations to break down and ready ourselves for a trial. Our car accident lawyers can help you effectively negotiate a favorable settlement.
While most of us know that we can sue for accidents and injuries in a civil court of law, exactly how we get started is a little less clear. While a lawsuit begins with the filing of some legal paperwork, preparing the case is often a lengthy and difficult endeavor. Your first step is to hire an experienced attorney who knows how to handle car accident cases like yours.
If you have not done so yet, get medical attention. People sometimes skip the doctor if they do not think their injuries are severe. While you might not need an ambulance or emergency medical attention, you should still get checked out. Not only might you have internal injuries, but we need official medical records from the doctor to help us prove the extent of your injuries. Medical records are often key to establishing damages.
Next, your attorney can help you investigate for evidence. First, they can help you take stock of any evidence you might already have in your possession. This includes photos you took, videos you recorded, and witnesses that we know of. If there is other evidence out there that your lawyer believes would help your case, they can begin panning out how to obtain it.
Once the necessary information has been collected, we can prepare a formal legal complaint. The complaint is the document that kicks off the case when we file it with the court. It must contain specific details about the people involved in the accident, your damages, evidence, and any other information that is key to the case. Complaints are often lengthy and take time to draft. They are also extremely important, as the complaint may set the tone for the rest of your case.
If you were in a car accident in Indiana, you might be facing a grueling legal battle. Our car accident attorneys can deal with insurance companies and take your case to trial. Get a free, private case assessment by calling Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 today.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
Contact Us:
Wruck Paupore P.C.
Injury Lawyers
275 Joliet St. Suite #250
Dyer, IN 46311
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