If you’ve been injured in an accident, your first step is going to be medical treatment. Your next step? Making a successful personal injury claim to ensure you are fully compensated for your costs, losses, pain, and suffering. In this article, we provide 6 key tips for making sure you receive a fair settlement for your personal injury case.
Key Tips to Maximize Your Chances and Win Your Personal Injury Claim
Tip #1: Get Medical Treatment and Gather Evidence
Immediately after the accident, make sure you get a police report. A police report is an unbiased account of the collision that will provide important evidence for your case. Taking photos or even videos of the accident scene and talking to eye witnesses are also important for pieces of evidence.
But don’t worry if you’re too injured to do these things! An experienced personal injury attorney will be able to investigate, pursue, and gather evidence, even if you aren’t able to do so at the time.
Next, you need to focus on healing from any injuries due to the accident. This will require one or even multiple visits to the doctor’s office or the hospital, depending on the severity of your injuries.
You may require physical therapy to fully recover after a severe auto accident. To build a strong case, you’ll want to see a doctor right away. Keep track of your medical bills: these are now evidence of the full extent of your injuries, and will also help your attorney determine your future medical costs.
Tip #2: Hire an Experienced Personal Injury Lawyer
At Breaux Law Firm, we get asked this question all the time: Does it really help to work with a personal injury attorney? Do I really need to consider hiring a lawyer? Will working with a personal injury lawyer really help me receive a higher settlement?
Yes, absolutely. Personal injury cases can be complex, and trying to file your own claim with an insurance company is daunting. Speaking with an attorney as early as possible will improve the odds of a client’s claim being successful. Our article, “Do Personal Injury Attorneys Get You More Compensation From Insurance Companies After Car Accidents?” covers all the ins and outs of why this is true. A few reasons why?
- A seasoned personal injury attorney knows how to accurately calculate the right amount of compensation for a victim’s physical injuries, trauma, vehicle or property damage, wage or earning loss, and future pain and suffering caused by the accident. Victims trying to file a claim on their own may not understand the full extent of their injuries or be able to project into the future when considering their recovery. In other words, a victim may not know the true value of a claim—but a personal injury attorney will.
- Insurance companies want to pay a victim as little as possible. They have many tactics to achieve this. One thing they often do is offer a victim a quick sum of money that seems impressive at first, but won’t cover everything—and in taking the money, the victim may have signed away the ability to ever pursue the claim further. That means an injury could get worse in the months or years after an accident, but by accepting the first payment offer, you are now financially responsible for any additional costs related to your recovery. A personal injury lawyer, like our team at Breaux Law Firm, knows these bullying tactics and has your back! We know that the impact of the accident can be far-reaching. Your attorney will literally push back against tactics an insurance company may use to dissuade you from pursuing legal action or to encourage you to settle for a smaller amount than you deserve.
- In short, insurance companies know that if a victim has hired an attorney, the insurance company cannot settle the case as quickly and as cheaply as they would with an unrepresented person. Winning a favorable settlement is hands-down more likely if you work with a lawyer.
Tip #3: No, Really—Call a Personal Injury Attorney Soon!
Waiting too long to speak to a personal injury attorney often leads to the loss, destruction, or deterioration of relevant evidence, such as:
- Early vehicle inspection
- Video surveillance
- Scene and injury photos
- Witness testimony
With increased time after the accident, witnesses may become difficult to locate or they may have a less clear memory of what they saw, what they heard or what they did as time passes. Retaining an attorney early on can assist in counteracting these issues. To receive the maximum settlement after any injury occurs, call a personal injury attorney soon after the collision.
Tip #4: Let Your Lawyer Do the Talking—Especially to Insurance Companies
Clients often say things they should not to adverse parties or to witnesses that may hurt their case later down the road. Once an attorney is retained, the adverse party’s representative is prohibited from communicating with the client without explicit permission, and this helps alleviate these problems.
Again, this increases the chances of a favorable outcome, because the victim is not having to negotiate with the insurance company. Find an attorney you trust and who understands what winning a personal injury lawsuit takes—and then let him or her represent you in all legal matters. This tip will help maximize your personal injury settlement, because your attorney is using their expertise and knowledge to fight for the maximum compensation and to represent you well.
Of course, with issues like property damage, we typically suggest that the client communicate directly with the insurance adjuster regarding getting their car appraised and fixed in New Orleans or elsewhere in Louisiana.
Tip #5: Reply Quickly To Your Personal Injury Attorney
Besides hiring an attorney at the earliest possible time, the client can do several things to improve the success of their claim. One thing is to promptly respond to their attorney’s requests.
A personal injury attorney will initially file a personal injury claim. Their expertise in injury law and their guidance in the claims process will help maximize your chances of getting the compensation you deserve. However, they can only help you to the extent that you are communicative, timely, and clear.
If your lawyer needs information from you for the legal process, you need to reply to their phone calls or emails quickly. Because of Louisiana’s one-year statute of limitations, your lawyer may need to work extremely fast to meet this deadline. After one year has passed from the date of the accident, you will no longer be able to pursue a claim.
Know that your lawyer wants to help, but this requires your cooperation and collaboration.
Tip #6: Be Honest With Your Personal Injury Attorney
Be upfront and honest with their attorney. An attorney needs to know what they are working with so they can best formulate a representation strategy.
A client who neither overstates nor understates their injuries makes a reliable, believable witness—and one that the insurance company fears most. Being trustworthy, honest, and able to maintain a realistic understanding of the value of your claim are all things you can do to improve your claims experience.
In order for an attorney to maximize the value of your claim, they need to know all the details of your injuries, which requires you to first get medical treatment. You need to have a trusting, reciprocal, and honest relationship with your attorney. If you feel you can’t be honest with the attorney you’re working with, you may need to seek out a different personal injury law firm. Personal injury can bring a lot of chaos into your life; when it comes to engaging with your lawyer, you should feel a sense of calm, respect, and trust.
Your personal injury attorney wants to help you maximize your compensation and strengthen your case, but that can only be achieved with honesty and trust between the two of you. Exaggerating or lying will not strengthen your position.
Tip #7: Hire a Lawyer You Can Trust
An experienced personal injury lawyer is going to file a claim on your behalf with the at-fault party’s insurance company. The at-fault driver’s insurance company will either offer the victim a settlement or the case will go to court. In our article “Personal Injury Settlement Amounts and FAQs,” we cover everything from what a settlement is, how a settlement works, how much compensation is typical in a personal injury case, how settlement amounts are determined, and how a qualified personal injury lawyer can help a victim get a fair settlement.
Some car accident settlement examples:
- Breaux Law Firm has won $2,250,000 for a motor vehicle accident injury.
- Breaux Law Firm won $1,045,000 for our client, a middle-aged woman hit by another car in New Orleans.
- Breaux Law Firm was able to secure $1 million in compensation for a seven-year-old child who was struck by a commercial vehicle while attempting to run across New Orleans’ busy Airline Highway.
- Browse through our case studies to read more examples of successful settlements or verdicts Breaux Law Firm has won for our clients.
One tactic your personal injury lawyer may try in order to increase your chances of securing a fair compensation is to refuse the insurance company’s initial settlement offer. Often, the first few offers will be a low-ball amount that does not cover all of a victim’s costs and damages. A lawyer has the ability to file a lawsuit and/or take a case to trial.
Once a case goes to trial, the outcome will be determined by either a judge or a jury. Most insurance companies do not want to go to trial! A trial costs the insurance company money and time. It is likely that an insurance company will negotiate a settlement out of court. A settlement can be reached in a mediation or through various means of communication among the parties.
This is one way that a personal injury attorney can improve your chances of winning a personal injury case or increase your chances of receiving the compensation you deserve. A lawyer is skilled at negotiating a settlement amount, knowing the value of your case, fighting for a fair settlement or verdict, and winning your case. By playing hard ball with the greedy insurance companies and threatening to go to trial, your attorney increases the chances of a successful outcome for your claim or suit.
Involved in an Accident? Call Breaux Law Firm Today
If you’ve been involved in a car accident and have suffered an injury due to another driver’s negligence, contact the attorneys at Breaux Law Firm right away. Winning your personal injury case is always our goal. In fact, you don’t pay anything until we do win.
Our team of personal injury attorneys personally interact with each client throughout the client’s case. Call us 24/7 for a FREE consultation if you or a loved one has had an accident in New Orleans or elsewhere in Louisiana.
