Here is a scenario that, unfortunately, plays out all too often- a person is badly hurt in a car wreck. They have to spend days or weeks in the hospital and months or years to recover. While they’re in the hospital, the insurance company for the person who hit them calls and offers to tender their insured’s policy limits. All the hurt person has to do is sign a few documents, and the insurance company will send them a check. The insurance limits aren’t enough to cover the hospital bills, but that’s all there is the insurance company says. If this happens to you, you may think you don’t need a personal injury attorney. However, in a situation like this, it is important to have an experienced personal injury attorney to help maximize your recovery. An experienced personal injury attorney can do this by helping to locate additional insurance coverage to make sure that you get all the insurance payments you are entitled to, and by also helping to navigate medical bills and health insurance liens to make sure that the medical providers and health insurers don’t get all the money, while you don’t get any. An experienced personal injury attorney in Greenville will also make sure that you don’t sign any documents that hurt your case in the long run or keep you from recovering all the available insurance coverage.
Maximize insurance recovery
The first job of an experienced personal injury attorney in a situation like this is to maximize the amount recovered from insurance companies. There are several ways to do this. First, a personal injury attorney will check to make sure that the insurance limits that the insurance company claims are their actual limits. South Carolina Code Section 38-77-250(A), allows a person to request the insurance company’s limits and requires the insurance company to produce their insured’s declarations page or a sworn statement setting out the insurance limits.
Next, a personal injury attorney will look for additional insurance coverage and make sure that the injured person gets all the coverage they are entitled to. South Carolina law allows an injured person to collect punitive damages on property damage coverage. This means that if the at-fault driver acted recklessly in causing the car accident, you may be able to collect the at-fault driver’s property damage limits in addition to the bodily injury limits. See GEICO v. Poole, 424 S.C. 1, 817 S.E.2d 283 (2018). There are also additional insurance policies that may apply to your case. One type of additional insurance policy is excess liability- if the at-fault driver doesn’t own the car that they were driving in the wreck, they may have insurance policies on their own vehicles that would apply as excess liability. Another is umbrella insurance policies. Umbrella policies are insurance policies that people can purchase in addition to their normal car insurance policies to cover damages in excess of the car insurance policy. A third type of insurance policy is underinsured motorist coverage. Underinsured motorist coverage is an insurance coverage that you can purchase on your own policy to cover situations where the at-fault driver’s insurance coverage isn’t enough to cover all of your injuries and damages. Under South Carolina law, a person is allowed to stack underinsured policies in certain circumstances, so it is important to have an experienced personal injury attorney who will make sure that all available underinsured coverage is being tendered.
Minimise what you have to pay back
A personal injury attorney’s job isn’t done when they get all the money they can for you from insurance companies. The next step, after maximizing your total recovery, is minimizing how much you have to pay back for medical bills and health insurance. Even though you didn’t cause the accident, you’re still responsible for paying back your medical bills. When an auto insurance company gives you a check for their insurance limits, they aren’t also paying off your medical bills. Often, an injured person will get a check for the car insurance limits, which is a lot less than the hospital bill they incurred as a result of the accident. Further, if your health insurance paid for any of your medical bills resulting from the wreck, then they are likely entitled to get paid back for what they paid out of the car insurance settlement. The same goes for Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare. This means that, even after getting the car insurance limits, you’re stuck with no money in your pocket and huge medical debts. However, an experienced personal injury attorney can work to negotiate down your medical bills and liens to not only ensure that you’re not left with huge medical debts for something that wasn’t your fault, but also to make sure that you’re getting to keep some of the money for all the pain and suffering that you had to go through.
Get the compensation you deserve – Call Today
If you get badly injured, it’s important to hire an experienced personal injury attorney, even if the insurance company is offering to pay out their insured’s policy limits. Our personal injury lawyers are ready to help you secure maximum compensation for your injuries. Contact us online for a free consultation today.
