A number of things could delay your personal injury case and cause you extra stress as you wait for the payout you need to reimburse you for all your losses. There are some ways to avoid these delays, but the best way of all is to get a Gillette, Wyoming auto injury attorney working with you on your case as soon as possible. An attorney can help you avoid any mistakes that might delay your case and keep things moving in the courts and with the insurance company.
From an Auto Accident Attorney in Gillette, Wyoming: Common Personal Injury Case Delays and How to Avoid Them
Late Filing and Slow Investigation
Wyoming has a four-year statute of limitations on most personal injury claims, including after an auto accident. There are only a couple of exemptions that might apply. For medical malpractice or wrongful death, the statute of limitations is two years. For intentional torts (where you are bringing a personal injury claim against someone for injuring you on purpose), the statute is just one year. But the later you wait to file, the slower the investigation tends to be and the more delayed your case.
You can avoid this by talking with an auto injury attorney as soon as possible after your accident. One of the reasons a late filing can delay an injury case is that the longer you wait to investigate, the easier it is for important evidence to be lost or to degrade to the point that it can’t be used. Video footage may be written over, marks on the road disappear, witnesses become confused about what they saw, and damage to vehicles and other personal property get fixed. The longer you wait to start, the longer the investigation often takes, and the more room there is for battles between you and the insurance company over precisely what that evidence is saying.
Insurance Company Bureaucracy
The insurance companies are large corporations, and thus bureaucracy is part and parcel of who they are. Some of this bureaucracy can’t be helped because of the many steps that are involved. Some of it is quite deliberate. Insurers know that if they delay and wrap up a victim in red tape, the victim may just give up. And if they don’t give up entirely, they may at least be willing to sign a lower settlement than they really deserve just to get something.
Even if the insurance company has to pay your full damages in the end, it is still in their best interests to do this at the last possible minute rather than right away. They always want to hold on to the money for as long as possible. To avoid a delay here, you need to take several important steps.
First, you need to report the accident to the insurer the moment it happens. Next, you need to talk to a lawyer as soon as possible after the accident and get your lawyer to talk with the insurance company. This alone will keep things moving more quickly, as your lawyer will keep pressing the company, and the company will be aware that you are serious about getting your reimbursement.
The Severity of Your Injuries
In most cases, you can’t bring a personal injury claim until you reach what’s known as the “point of maximum medical improvement.” Hopefully, you have fully recovered at this point, but if not, this is the point at which your doctor says that whatever treatments or disabilities you now live with are either permanent or likely to last for so long that you will not see any immediate improvement or further improvement is uncertain. The more extensive your injuries are, the longer it typically takes to get to this point.
The reason for this rule is to make it possible to properly calculate what your medical damages and losses actually are. Medicine is not an exact science: some people heal more quickly than others, and sometimes secondary injuries or infections can develop unexpectedly. Until you’ve reached the point of maximum medical improvement, it is hard to say what your final medical costs will be.
Unfortunately, there is very little that you can do to speed this up other than to follow your doctor’s orders to the letter. But what you can do is talk to your lawyer about how to cover bills during this period. If you are planning to bring a claim, your lawyer can give your medical providers a letter to that effect, and that may be enough for them to delay collecting bills until the settlement has reached. Your lawyer can also help you explore all other options to take care of costs during this time.
Disputes Over Liability
Wyoming uses something called a modified comparative fault system for deciding who should have to pay after a car accident. Anyone who is found to be more than 50% at fault for an accident cannot recover any damages. Everyone else can, but only in proportion to their fault. If you were 25% at fault for the accident, then you would only be able to collect 75% of your damages.
Technically, final fault can only be determined by a court, but since not every case goes to court, insurance adjusters have to determine fault to negotiate settlements. The problem comes when there are disputes over how much fault should be awarded to each party involved. As you can imagine, the insurance companies have enormous incentive to reduce the fault of the person they cover and maximize the fault of everyone else.
Even a few percentage points of fault shifted over onto you could mean thousands of dollars the insurer doesn’t have to pay (and thousands of dollars that you are now out of pocket). The best way to minimize delays caused by disagreements over fault is to have a lawyer defend you. If the insurance company is creatively interpreting the evidence to try to make you pay more, your lawyer can do an independent investigation and even bring in expert witnesses to show exactly what your true level of fault is and push back.
Human Errors
Sometimes, delays have nothing to do with anyone doing anything deliberately. The reality is that humans make mistakes, and you may have made a mistake in filing a claim with the insurance company, the police may have made a mistake in writing up their report, or someone at the insurance company may have made a mistake in filing the paperwork or taking your report. Any of these mistakes could innocently cause a major delay in your claim.
Again, the best way to avoid this issue is to have a lawyer. Your lawyer will make sure that your claims and paperwork are all done right, filed on time and with the right person, and that you’ve provided all the supporting documentation. Your lawyer will also look over everything the insurance company sends to make sure that no errors have been made that could easily be fixed with a phone call or some added information. Even if there is a mistake on the police report, your lawyer will know how to deal with this.
Your personal injury claim is always going to go more quickly when you have an experienced lawyer on your side. Reach to the Ochs Law Firm today for help in Gillette and throughout Wyoming and in Idaho Falls, ID.
