Frequently Asked Questions on personal injury related topics
California drivers involved in any type of traffic accident are under specific legal obligations to report the crash. If you plan to hold the driver who caused the accident financially responsible for the losses you incurred, California has some laws that could substantially affect your case.
If you have a personal injury claim that you are seeking to settle, it may not be smart to rush it because your compensation may be less than fair.
Should you become injured or harmed in some way due to the negligence or actions of another, you may be legally entitled to compensation from the responsible party. Unfortunately, this often requires the filing of a personal injury lawsuit. These lawsuits take time and typically go through a number of stages before winding up in court.
The statute of limitations states how much time you have to file a lawsuit if you’ve been wronged. The law requires most lawsuits to be filed within a specified time frame. Generally speaking, once the statute of limitation passes, your claim is no longer legally valid.
The length of time you have to file a lawsuit depends on which type of legal claim you’re making.
Personal Injury Claims
If you’re making a personal injury claim, you have a full 2 years from the date you were injured to file your lawsuit. However, if you did not realize you were injured right away, then you are given 1 year from the date you discovered your injury.
If you live with stress and anxiety, you know just how great a toll both can take on your life. Worry, anxiety and other forms of emotional distress may make it difficult for you to concentrate at work, enjoy your downtime or live a generally happy existence. If another person or entity caused your mental anguish due to their negligence, you may be able to gain compensation for your suffering.
Mental Anguish as a Non-Economic Damage
More often than not, the courts will classify emotional anguish as a non-economic damage. If this is the case, the courts will likely categorize your distress as "pain and suffering." Depending on in which state you live, and the nature of your accident, you may not be able to recover for pain and suffering. If you can recover compensation for these damages, the state may cap the amount you can recover.
Emotional Suffering as a Medically Documented Illness
In extreme cases, stress is a medically-documented illness. For instance, PTSD is a medically-documented form of strain. Signs your anxiety is a medical condition and not just pain and suffering are as follows:
Documenting Emotional Damages
Regardless of the cause of your stress, you need to document your damages to maximize the amount you may recover. Some steps you can take to strengthen your personal injury claim are as follows:
Emotional distress can be just as damaging to your life as physical injuries. If another person's actions caused you to live with emotional agony, contact a lawyer for guidance today.
If you’ve ever been in a car accident you know what a hassle it can be just dealing with your own insurance company. But if the accident isn’t your fault, just think what you’ll be dealing with when it comes to the insurance company of the stranger who plowed into your car.
Here are a few tips to help you file a claim with the other party’s insurer, which would be a third-party claim:
Get complete information
Whoever caused the accident is supposed to report it to their auto insurance company. But, sometimes they’re reluctant to do so. To play it safe, you should also call their insurance company and advise them of the accident.
To do this you are going to need the other driver’s complete information, which you should gather at the scene of the accident. This is what you should get:
This is the evidence you will need to substantiate your position on who caused the accident. Some auto insurance companies have mobile apps that help motorists document an accident on the scene right after it occurs. Some of these apps provide a checklist telling you how to gather the information for your claim with them or the other driver’s insurer.
Furthermore, there is a free smartphone app called WreckCheck provided by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners that can help gather the information you need and provide yours to the other driver.
Make the proper notifications
Take it upon yourself to notify the other driver’s insurance carrier that there has been an accident involving one of their policyholders and that you were involved as well. Just give them the facts of what happened, even if you are convinced the other driver was at fault.
It is up to the police to decide who was at fault and whether they should issue a ticket. On their own, the insurance company will make their own determination as to who was at fault. This might or might not agree with the assessment made by law enforcement. In making their determination, the insurance company will consider the police report and statements from the drivers and any witnesses as well as physical evidence.
Even if you think you were not the cause of the accident, it is always best to call your insurance company to inform them of the accident. This shows good faith on your part and this will help you if the other driver’s insurance carrier denies that their policyholder was responsible for the accident, in which case you would need to file a collision claim.
In theory, you should just need to notify the other driver’s insurance company of your damages plus any injuries, tow your car to the body shop, see a doctor and just wait for the insurance company to pay these bills.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t always play out as it should. Auto insurance companies often insist that you get their authorization for any car repairs and medical treatments. If their insurance adjuster does not give authorization for your car repair before it’s taken to the body shop, there can be a problem. At the very least, make sure that the insurance carrier has already accepted liability before you start having your car repaired. Get them to email all of this to you so you have their authorization in writing.
You need to know that no insurance company can demand that you take your car to a certain repair shop. Most states allow insurance companies to recommend car repair shops, but they are not legally allowed to insist that you use the auto body shop they name. It is your choice.
You may need an attorney
The other driver’s insurance company may tell you to have your own insurance company pay for the repairs, claiming they have no reason to believe their policyholder was at fault. While there are laws in most states that make it illegal for an insurance carrier to deny a claim without making a reasonable effort to investigate the facts, or to deny a claim when it is reasonably clear that they are liable, it may not be easy to fight with the other driver’s insurance company.
You may choose to file a claim with your own insurance company and they might very well decide to fight it out with the other insurance carrier for compensation if they determine the other driver caused the accident.
If you do decide to fight with the at-fault driver’s insurance company by yourself, you’ll need a good lawyer, especially if you have serious injuries. Your attorney will help you understand and navigate the insurance laws.
You may have even collected evidence that proves the other driver was at fault, he may have even admitted this at the scene, but your claim is still denied by his insurance company. How can this be? Because he may very well have told them a different version of what caused the accident that does not fit with your version of events. His insurance company may prefer to believe him just to get out of paying your claim.
The truth is that sometimes the insurance carrier will side with their policyholder, even when their version of events conflicts with the police report.
It is not at all usual for an insurance company to side with their policyholder when there is no accident report by the police and it’s not clear who is at fault. In many states, the officer that shows up at the scene of an accident may look at the damage and determine that it’s only minor (usually under $500), and the officer won’t file any accident report. Estimates by body shops for that same damage can total in the thousands. You need to take your car yourself to a reputable repair shop in order to get an accurate determination of the extent of your car’s damage.
If the damage won’t cost a whole lot to repair, you can always file a case in small claims court against the other driver. Insurance companies are well aware that the longer they can drag out a claim, the more apt you are to cave and settle for less or just go away.
If you’re getting nowhere, turn to your insurance carrier
Even though you did not cause the accident, you can still file an accident claim with your own insurance company if you have this sort of coverage. The claim would be for them to pay for your damages and injuries.
You can do this if you are adequately covered with collision insurance. In this case your insurance company would pay for the repairs on your car or compensate you if your car is a total loss. If you decide to do this, you would still be responsible for paying the deductible towards the repairs. But, you may actually get that amount of money back if your insurance company ends up settling with the at-fault driver’s insurance carrier.
If the other driver has no car insurance and you have what’s called “Uninsured Motorist Property Damage” or UMPD coverage, you can file a claim with your insurance for the damage to your car. On UMPD claims you do not have to pay any deductible.
If an accident is not your fault and you are forced to file a claim with your insurance company, this does not necessarily mean that your insurance rates will go up.
There are laws in most states prohibiting insurance carriers from surcharging or raising their policyholders’ premiums for accidents that were not their fault. Unfortunately, these laws won’t stop your insurer from dropping you when it comes time to renew your policy if you’ve filed a slew of recent claims.
Understand your coverage for injuries
In most states, if you sustained injuries in a car accident in which you were not at fault, you would file your injury claim through the other driver’s insurance company. If they do not have any car insurance, you could file a claim under your coverage for Uninsured Motorist Bodily Injury, but only if you are covered for this. You could also file a claim with your health insurance provider.
Do not pay too much for a rental car
Insurance companies naturally look for ways to cut costs, and saving money on reimbursing policyholders for the cost of a car rental is an easy target.
They do this by advising accident victims that they’ll only pay so much per day for a car rental. If you’ve been the victim of another driver’s negligence, you do have rights when it comes to recouping the costs involved in resolving the disruption in your life, and this includes the cost of a rental car while yours is being repaired.
If you rent reasonably you can avoid paying a portion of those costs. Do not buy a collision damage waiver if your rental company offers this because you are covered under your own insurance policy for any damage to a rental car.
If you rent a car at a reasonable price and your insurance company tries to short-change you somehow on the reimbursement, ask them to put their reason in writing. Insurance companies must advise you in writing when they decide to deny or somehow reduce payments to their policyholders.
Know what you are entitled to
It would be very helpful for you to become familiar with the prompt-payment law in your state. Every state has an Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Act that spells out the how long an insurance company can take to give you a check to cover your damages.
One thing to consider: Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Acts very often do not give you the same rights if you are filing a claim against the other driver’s insurance company as opposed to filing your claim with your own insurance company. Check out California's Fair Claims Settlements Practices Regulations to find out more.
Sending a factual letter off to the at-fault drivers insurance carrier would be the best way to advise them of what you expect, letting them know that you know your rights. In the letter you would tell the insurance company that you expect them to cover all reasonable costs incurred by you due to the accident. This would include them paying for car repairs or the car’s total-loss value, diminished value, lost wages, medical expenses, pain and suffering plus the cost of renting a car. All of this points out the insurance company’s responsibilities according to public policy.
Keep detailed records and copies of all correspondence. Make a note of the dates and times you speak to customer service reps as well as their names.
If you or a loved one has been the victim of motor vehicle negligence and would like to speak with an Automobile Accident Attorney, please contact us at O'Connor, Runckel & O'Malley LLP. We are here to answer your questions and discuss how to protect your legal rights.
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Published on behalf of O'Connor, Runckel & O'Malley LLP. The information presented in this article is not legal advice, is not to be acted on as such, may not be current and is subject to change without notice.
If you can’t work because you’ve been injured in a car wreck caused by someone else, you are entitled to recover lost wages from that driver’s car insurance company. However there will be limits on how much money you can recover for lost wages due to the accident.
If the driver who hit you does not have sufficiently high limits to recover all your medical expenses plus the wages you lost from missing work, you can put in a claim on your own auto coverage for the balance. This would be done under your coverage for an “underinsured motorist.” If you reside in what’s termed a “no-fault state (California is NOT a no-fault state)” your lost wages can be paid by your PIP coverage up to whatever limit is specified on your policy.
When some other driver totals your automobile to the point where it cannot be repaired, that driver’s insurance company is supposed to pay you an amount equal to your car’s actual cash value prior to the wreck. The industry defines “actual cash value” as the “replacement cost” of the car minus the “depreciation” on the car. Replacement cost is how much it would cost to replace your car with one that’s similar. Depreciation would be how much your car has gone down in value over time.
The insurance company should also cover the sales tax on the car that you bought with your insurance settlement money.
It is possible that the other driver’s insurance company will tell you to have your own insurance company pay for the repairs, claiming they have no reason to believe their policyholder was at fault. If you decide to fight the other driver's insurer on your own you'll need a lawyer — especially if you've been seriously injured.
The automobile accident attorneys at O’Connor, Runckel & O’Malley are well known and respected throughout the legal community and among our clients. From our offices in Contra Contra Costa County, San Francisco and Sacramento, we serve clients throughout Northern California. Our experience and expertise are available to you.
The term "damages" in relation to a personal injury case refers to the amount of money claimed or awarded in compensation for a loss or an injury. In order to maximize the award, it is important to take into account all damages suffered by the victim.
If you have been seriously injured due to someone else's negligence, you have the right to seek compensation. In the case of a personal injury lawsuit, the injured person, also called the plaintiff, seeks compensation from the person or company that is legally responsible for the accident: the defendant or their insurers. A damage award can be agreed upon out of court in a private, negotiated settlement, or it can be ordered by a judge/jury following a court trial.
To determine how much your case is worth, it is important to know just what factors into a personal injury claim. The following components will have significant impact of the value of your claim:
The information on this website is general information and should not be taken as legal advice. Viewing this information, or making an inquiry through the contact form does not constitute an attorney-client relationship.
