Insurance

Saving Money in Car Insurance and Protecting You

I was in the gym the other day and overheard a guy telling another that you shouldn’t be paying $110 a month in car insurance. He told him that you should only have liability insurance because the rest is just fluff. This is the type of thinking that can leave you without a way to recover money for your injuries suffered in a car accident. I told him what insurance he should have in why. This is a breakdown of what insurance you should have and what you could skip on.

What insurance should you absolutely have?

You should have UIM coverage at the very least with liability coverage. As a Seattle personal injury lawyer, I have been heartbroken to see the times where a person is severely injured and comes into my office with no insurance and no insurance on the other guy. If there is no insurance on either side, you have no realistic chance to recover any money in the case. This is because the person who caused the car accident without insurance probably doesn’t have any money to pay for your injuries. Additionally, it’s not likely that a Seattle personal injury lawyer will take your case because there is no realistic hope of ever recovering any money without insurance.

Some studies have show that nearly 30% of drivers are driving without insurance on the road and another 25% have the bare minimum of insurance coverage $25,000. This is why everyone should have UIM insurance. UIM insurance steps in and covers your personal injury damages if you are hit by someone that doesn’t have car insurance or doesn’t have enough car insurance to cover your injuries suffered in a car accident injury case.

PIP insurance is often skipped by people because they believe their medical insurance will cover their medical costs in a car accident. Most medical insurance does not cover chiropractic care and most people have high deductibles that make it so insurance pays very little for their car accident injury treatment. PIP covers all medical costs no questions asked up to your policy amount. Most people choose the $10,000 option but I recommend the higher amount of $20,000. This is because a hospital visit could take up almost all of your $10,000 in PIP leaving you with not much to cover any other treatment you will need like chiropractic, massage, physical therapy, and other doctors appointments.

What insurance could you skip on?

If your car is not worth much, the one insurance policy you could skip is collision coverage. Collision coverage covers the repair and replacement value of your car if you cause a car accident. This is one of the most expensive insurance policies on your policy and may not make sense to have if you have an older car that the cost to repair would be less than your deductible or not much more than it. If your cars value is less than $5,000, it may not make sense to pay extra for collision coverage.

The same goes with comprehensive collision coverage. This covers you in case your car is damages by road debris, rocks, or anything else not caused by a car accident or collision. This is expensive and can usually be avoided. Check your policy on the price.

If you have been injured in a Seattle car accident injury case, you need a Seattle personal injury lawyer. Contact us today for a free consultation on your car accident injury case today.

Andrew CherinSaving Money in Car Insurance and Protecting You
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How long will it take to settle my case?

People injured in car accidents in Seattle may think twice before hiring a Seattle personal injury because they believe it will take too long to settle their case if they hire a lawyer. This could not be further from the truth.

Seattle car accident injury lawyers will not try to settle your case until you are fully healed or until they approach the statute of limitations if you have not fully healed by then. The reason for this is because you do not want to try to settle your case until your injuries are fully healed in order to fully know the amount of cost of your treatment.

People will some times try to settle their own case without a Seattle personal injury lawyer before their injuries are fully healed because they are pressured by the insurance company to settle their car accident injury case early. They will also do so because they believe that they are a good negotiator and know how much money they want in their pocket. However, if you settle before you get all your treatment, you may be surprised on how much the treatment you need to get you better is going to cost you out of pocket. This could leave you with nothing in your pocket after you pay for everything out of the settlement if you try to settle your case before your injuries are fully healed.

A Seattle personal injury lawyer will be able to make sure all of your treatment is paid for before trying to settle your case or at least know how much your out of pocket costs are going to be so they can include this in the settlement. Not knowing how much your treatment is going to cost or has costed you so far can leave you with nothing in your pocket once you are fully healed.

Seattle personal injury lawyers will try to settle your case after you are fully healed. Most personal injury lawyers can settle a car accident injury case without filing a lawsuit if they are trained at negotiating. This means that your case can be completely settled within two to three months of being completely healed and resuming normal activities at 100%.

Filing a lawsuit is necessary where insurance companies are not offering fair compensation for your injuries and leaving you with little or no money in your pocket. Most insurance companies are good faith negotiators that will try to make a fair deal.

Andrew CherinHow long will it take to settle my case?
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Is it safe to buy a used car seat or rent one?

You should always buy a new car seat, if possible. It is one of the few things that you should go out and buy new for your baby as it can keep him or her safe in a car accident. However, there are some times where you may want to borrow a car seat from a rental car agency because you are on vacation or you simply cannot afford a brand new car seat. All car seats that have been in a car accident need to be replaced, even if not visually damaged – this is something that you can get compensation for through your own insurance if you have comprehensive coverage or through the person that caused the car accident when negotiating the property damage portion of your car accident injury case.

If you are going to borrow or buy a used car seat, you should verify that the car seat has not been in a car accident, is not over 6 years old, has not been recalled by the manufacturer, comes with the original manufacturer number and instructions, and has no visible damage or missing parts.

Verify The Age of The Car Seat

Do not buy a used car seat unless you can verify the age of the seat. Most car seats have a manufacturer’s label on the back or bottom of the car seat that gives the manufacture date or a specific expiration date. Harnessed car seats generally last 6 years from the date of manufacture, unless there is a different expiration date marked on the seat.

Verify Expiration Date By Calling Manufacturer

If you’re not sure about the expiration date, call the manufacturer. The date of manufacture and manufacturer contact information must be on one of the seat labels by law. If the labels are missing from the car seat, it’s best not to use it, as the labels would also give you important model information that would alert you to potential recalls.

Check to See if There Has Been a Recall

Check to see that your car seat has not been recalled for some reason. You cannot use a car seat that has been recalled. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have a website that shows all of the recent recalls for car seats.

A Car Seat In a Car Accident Needs to Be Replaced

NHTSA and manufacturers encourage replacement of car seats if there was a car accident in moderate to severe car accidents. They used to encourage getting a new car seat in every car accident but they lowered their standards recently because some people were unable to buy a new car seat and newer car seats are much stronger than car seats used to be.

The NHTSA has recently lowered their standard for determining whether a car seat needs to be replaced in a minor car accident. The NHTSA dictates that a crash is considered minor if it meets all five of the following criteria:

• There is no visible damage to the car seat that might have been caused by the crash.

• The vehicle was capable of being driven from the crash site.

• The car door nearest to the child restraint was undamaged.

• No one in the vehicle was injured in the crash.

• The air bags did not deploy.

However, you probably won’t be able to get all this information from someone that is selling you a used car seat because they may be untruthful or may not have any information about the car accident. It is hard to determine whether a car seat was involved in a serious car accident or not just by looking at it because it may show no visible signs of being damaged.

Original Parts All Intact

You must also determine whether used car seats still have all of the original parts needed for safety. Some parts can be lost over time. One illustration of this is a harness on a combination seat that is removed when the child outgrows it, and is later replaced without a seemingly small piece that affects the function of the harness in a crash.

Insurance Will Pay For a New Car Seat in a Seattle Car Accident

If you have been injured in a Seattle car accident, you should make sure your car seat is replaced and covered in the car accident by the insurance company. Call a Seattle personal injury lawyer today to make sure you get a new car accident included in your car accident injury case.

 

 

 

Andrew CherinIs it safe to buy a used car seat or rent one?
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What you post on Facebook can be used against you?

If you are injured in a Seattle car accident, chances are high that the insurance adjuster as searched your Facebook, Twitter, and instagram pages to see your activity level. If you have just been injured in a car accident and all of a sudden you are posting pictures of you on a skateboard doing tricks, the insurance company is going to be skeptical and use that against you even if those pictures posted after the car accident were actually pictures taken before the car accident.

Insurance companies can look at your Facebook and other social media if you have your privacy settings set to public. The pictures you post on social media could be from a long time ago but they insurance company may believe that they are of you today and a jury will think the same. Your Seattle personal injury lawyer can prove that these were pictures from a long time ago before the car accident but it makes it much more difficult.

You social media may be discoverable at trial so your privacy levels may not even matter. Courts are somewhat up in the air about whether your social media accounts are discoverable by insurance companies in car accident injury cases. However, it would be a good idea to keep your social media private so they are not easily witnessed by insurance adjusters who then will not offer anything for your case and make it much more difficult to settle your case outside of trial.

You generally cannot fake injuries in car accident injury cases and the truth will come out one way or another. There are too many barriers for someone to fake the insurance industry and the insurance industry has too many resources to be faked. Your doctors will not treat you if they think you are faking an injury because they could lose their license. A lawyer will not take your case if they believe you are faking because they could lose their license. The truth will come out one way or another in the end. Insurance fraud is no joke and could come with monetary fines as well as jail time.

Andrew CherinWhat you post on Facebook can be used against you?
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Debunking Seattle car accident injury calculators for case value?

If you are injured in a Seattle car accident injury case, you have probably searched for your case value and came across personal injury calculators. You have probably looked into personal injury calculators to figure out how much your case is actually worth. Many of these websites will say that your case is worth 3 times the medical bills and lost wages, however, this is highly misleading and inaccurate. However, this is still not how much you will see in your pocket. This is generally what the personal injury lawyer says your case is worth before you have to pay back medical bills and your personal injury lawyer. Additionally, lost wages are generally not included in the multiplier, only added in after the multiplier.

Your Seattle personal injury case could be worth far more 3 times the medical bills or your personal injury case could be worth less than 3 times the medical bills. What determines whether a case is worth more or less is the type of treatment you receive, the permanency of your injuries, and the other factors. Every case is different so it is hard to pinpoint exactly what a case is worth but these are the general factors that are considered when determining a case value. You should set up a free consultation with a Seattle personal injury lawyer to learn more about your case value.

Most importantly, no one can accurately determine your case value or give you an estimation on your case value until your injuries are fully healed and you have completed 100% of your medical treatment or gotten as close to 100% as possible. There are too many factors that go into determining car accident injury case value that cannot be predicted without fully being healed, medical bill totals, lost wage totals, and permanency of injuries calculated.

What makes a case worth more than 3 times the medical bills and lost wages? These are car accident injury cases that have permanent, life changing injuries. Typically, these cases involve a surgery, lengthy hospital stay, and permanent impairment of some ability you used to have but no longer have because of the car accident. Additionally, these cases could have giant loss of income ability and lost wages that make the case value worth more than 3 times the medical bills calculation.

What makes a case worth less than 3 times the medical bills and lost wages? These are car accident injury cases that generally only have diagnostic costs such as MRI, x-rays, or CT scans that are expensive with little or not medical treatment. This is typically where the diagnostic tests are more expensive than the actual recovery medical treatment that is given like physical therapy, chiropractic treatment, etc. These cases are worth some money but generally not worth as much as cases where someone has gone through long treatment and has permanent or temporary debilitating injuries. Additionally, cases where massage therapy is the only form of medical treatment is generally not worth as much as other treatment.

Andrew CherinDebunking Seattle car accident injury calculators for case value?
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Waiting too long to hire a personal injury lawyer may wreck your car accident injury case?

Waiting too long to hire a Seattle personal injury lawyer can wreck your personal injury case and make it much less valuable than it could have been if you hired one from the get go.

If you wait too long you could lose out on great advice and rights you could have been entitled to but waited too long. A Seattle personal injury lawyer will let you know from the outset of your case how to pay for the medical treatment that you need right now. Your car accident injury lawyer will be able to find insurance coverage to pay for the medical treatment that you need or possibly find you a doctor that will give you the medical treatment that you need and wait to be paid out of the settlement via a lien that your attorney signs as do you.

By delaying getting the treatment that you need at the outset of the case, you are giving the insurance adjuster the ability to argue that you were not injured by the car accident and this must be from some other act. Additionally, if you don’t get treatment early, the jury will think that you are not that injured otherwise you would have got treatment immediately or soon after the car accident.

Additionally, if you wait too long to hire a Seattle personal injury lawyer you could lose out on your case. In Washington State you have three years from the date of your car accident to either settle or file a lawsuit. If you do not settle or file a lawsuit within this time period, you no longer have any avenues to seek recovery against the defendant.

If you wait too long to hire a Seattle car accident injury lawyer, you may lose out on potential defenses that you may have had to mitigate defense insurance arguments limiting the value of your case. Some times a person in a car accident could have potential holes in their case such as partial liability or fault. A personal injury lawyer can mitigate this by going to the car accident scene, taking pictures, getting witness statements before they disappear, or more. Additionally, hiring an accident reconstructionist early can avoid potential pitfalls by insurance adjusters hanging their hat and withholding money because of their view that there is partial liability.

It is best to find a Seattle personal injury lawyer at the outset of your case so you know your rights and they can limit the arguments that the insurance company can use against you to make for a less contentious settlement.

Andrew CherinWaiting too long to hire a personal injury lawyer may wreck your car accident injury case?
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Why you shouldn’t give a recorded statement to defendant’s insurance?

A potential pitfall for Seattle car accident injury victims is when it comes to talking to the other insurance company and giving them too much information. While the truth will always come out, it is a good idea to not give them the opportunity to spin your words into something that is untrue or misleading.

At the outset of a Seattle personal injury case, the other insurance company will ask for you to give a recorded statement. This may seem harmless but it is ripe with danger. The insurance adjuster is trained in asking questions that may be misleading or lead to inaccurate information.

Some of these questions can include talking about your medical history and your current symptoms. The insurance adjuster loves talking about prior injuries and trying to relate those injuries to the current car accident injury case. If you had prior injuries, they will ask if the injuries seem like the same injuries you suffered in this car accident and if they were present before this car accident. This could lead you into a hole that may be hard to get out of.

Additionally, insurance adjusters will try to ask you about your current injuries. They may try to downplay your injuries on the phone and ask you how you know you are that hurt. They may ask you how you are feeling right now and you may say fine. However, they will not ask you about how you felt last night or when you were driving in your car. Moreover, many injuries manifest themselves over a period of days after the car accident. The sooner they talk to you and get a recorded statement, the harder it is for you to say all of a sudden you are injured and need all this care.

They will and can use the recorded statement in court as a prior inconsistent statement or to show that you were not hurt. If all of a sudden you are hurt but during the recorded interview you said you were fine, the jury may look down on you as untrustworthy or lying about your injuries and the severity of them.

Additionally, the recorded statement may have to do with how the car accident happened. If the car accident happened because of anything but a rear end car accident, they may try to put words in your mouth like you ran the red light or you ran the stop sign. They could say that you saw my client right? So why did you continue if you saw them. They didn’t see you. Even if you didn’t see them or you had no time to stop. They can easily put words into your mouth on how the car accident happened and potentially make it your fault if there are no independent witnesses to say otherwise.

If you have been injured in a car accident, you need a Seattle car accident injury lawyer to represent you before you talk to the insurance company. You don’t need to make a statement to the defendant’s insurance company but you may need to give one to your insurance company. Make sure you have a lawyer representing you before you give any statements to anyone.

 

Andrew CherinWhy you shouldn’t give a recorded statement to defendant’s insurance?
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Failing to Attend Medical Treatment or Having Gaps in Treatment Will Hurt Your Case

If you fail to attend your medical treatment or are having gaps in your treatment, you are hurting your Seattle car accident injury case. Your case will be worth far less if you have large gaps in treatment or miss your medical appointments.

Insurance companies and juries will believe that you are fully healed if you stop going to your medical treatment, miss appointments, and have large gaps in treatment. It is hard to make three chiropractic sessions a week, massage therapy, and physical therapy appointments with a full work schedule, parenting duties, and everything else. However, if you want to get better and help your case, you need to make all your appointments that your doctors believe that you need. If you don’t, you are sending the message that you are fully healed or not injured.

Not being able to pay for your medical treatment out of pocket is not a good excuse that will work with the insurance company. A Seattle personal injury lawyer can find you coverage or ways to get the treatment that you need. A Seattle personal injury lawyer can never personally pay for your medical treatment, as this is illegal. However, they can sign letters of guarantees or liens with medical personnel such as doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists, massage therapists, etc. so that you can get the treatment that you need without a gap in treatment and then pay them back out of the settlement. Most medical providers will not allow you to do this without a Seattle car accident injury lawyer representing you and guaranteeing payment back to them.

Additionally, if you have exhausted your PIP, you may have other coverage that can pay for your medical treatment such as medical insurance, other PIP coverage or something else. A Seattle personal injury lawyer can find this coverage if it is available to you. Medical insurance may initially deny paying for your treatment but a Seattle personal injury lawyer can make them start covering your treatment if you have the coverage. This can include paying for surgery, doctors bills, etc. It may not cover chiropractic or massage, however, as most medical insurance policies do not cover these types of treatment.

 

 

Andrew CherinFailing to Attend Medical Treatment or Having Gaps in Treatment Will Hurt Your Case
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Mistakes That Can Wreck a Seattle Car Accident Injury Case: Statements made to doctors and massage therapists

As a Seattle personal injury lawyer, I have seen many things that can help or hurt a car accident injury case. Here are some of the top mistakes or misconceptions that clients have that I have seen that hurt Seattle car accident injury cases. A misconception is that doctors, chiropractors, massage therapists, and others will only write in your records what helps

What you say to your doctor, massage therapist, chiropractor, or any medical personnel will be put in your medical records and potentially used against you. You may think that because your doctor has treated many people injured in car accidents before that they know what will hurt your case and what will help your car accident injury case. However, most doctors and other medical personnel have no clue about what will help your case and what will hurt your case. They are simply a recording device and focused on you getting better.

Doctors, massage therapists, and other medical personnel want to see you get better. In fact, it is their number one goal to get you better from the injuries you suffered in the car accident. Their goal is to get you better as fast as possible. When they see that you state that you are feeling good, they write it down. When you say you are no longer feeling pain in a certain area, they write it down. They often will not differentiate between how you are feeling right now and how you felt last night after work or how you felt as you drove home from work yesterday. However, the good ones will.

It’s important to understand that you are not lying and they are not lying when they put down this information, only that it is not the complete truth. A lot of time doctors will ask how you feel right now, which is fine but you need to be honest with them and tell them how you felt last night, how you felt driving here in the car, and how you feel when you do something that causes you pain too. This will allow them to put this into their notes as well.

It’s not a lie to tell them you are feeling ok right now because you are just sitting here. Additionally, a lot of people are anticipating feeling good because of past experiences and comfortability with your doctor, massage therapist, chiropractor, etc. who have made you feel good in the past. This can dull the senses in some ways and make you think of the future instead of the past.

What can you do to make sure that you are not hurting your case when you talk to your doctor, massage therapist, physical therapists, or chiropractor? When the doctor asks you how you are feeling right now, always think of they are asking how you have been doing since they last saw you. Think of the time you had a lot of pain with your car accident injuries since you last saw this doctor. It’s important to report both the good and the bad.

A lot of times doctors will focus on the good because they want to see you improving so they feel satisfaction with their being a part of your healing, which is great but give them the whole story.

 

Andrew CherinMistakes That Can Wreck a Seattle Car Accident Injury Case: Statements made to doctors and massage therapists
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If the defendant doesn’t pay for medical bills up front, who is going to pay now?

In a Seattle car accident injury case, the defendant will not pay for your medical bills until you settle with them. You don’t want to settle with them until you have gone through 100% of your treatment and are back to normal. The question remains then, how do you pay for your medical treatment up front until you get your settlement?

There are many ways to pay for your medical bills while you are waiting to settle with the insurance company for the person that caused the car accident. This includes PIP insurance, medical insurance, cash, and paying on a lien.

You can pay for your medical treatment immediately if you have personal injury protection on your car insurance policy. This is a great insurance policy to have and should not be skipped over. Some people may think that their medical insurance will pay for their medical bills so they don’t need to pay extra for personal injury protection insurance. However, most medical insurance policies will not cover car accident injuries without a lawyer showing that there is no other way to pay for the medical treatment you need. Additionally, your medical insurance probably will not pay for chiropractic adjustments and massages, which are great to help her ripple heal faster from a car accident.

The best thing about PIP is that you don’t need a referral for PIP to pay and they will cover just about every medical treatment procedure or treatment that you need from car accident related injuries. This includes ambulance bills, hospital, massage, doctors visits, chiropractors, acupuncture, physical therapy, surgery, X-rays, MRI’s, and more. PIP will even pay for your lost wages, baby sitting, child care, and landscaping or housekeeping if you can’t do it but used to before.

Medical insurance will cover some bills such as hospital bills, physical therapy, ambulance bills. However, most medical insurance policies will not cover chiropractic or massage therapy. Additionally, they may be reluctant to cover any bills if they are related to a car accident and you don’t have an attorney. This is because they believe the defendant who caused the car accident will pay or other insurance is primary. However, if you can show you have exhausted your PIP insurance and have no other way to pay right now, so long as your policy covers the treatment normally, it will be covered.

Getting medical treatment on a lien is available to most people who are injured in a car accident and have a lawyer representing them. This is because most medical providers are reluctant to provide treatment to people injured in car accidents with a promise to pay them back out of the settlement alone. Most will trust a lawyer to sign a lien and guarantee payment out of the settlement. This is a good alternative to paying out of pocket and not getting the treatment that you need.

If you are injured in a car accident, you need a Seattle personal injury lawyer to represent you now. Consultations are free and car accident injury lawyers are paid out of the settlement. Therefore, everyone can afford a Seattle personal injury lawyer but you can’t afford not to have one against the insurance companies in a car accident injury case.

Andrew CherinIf the defendant doesn’t pay for medical bills up front, who is going to pay now?
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