In this Google Hangout, Phoenix personal injury lawyer John Kelly provides some tips on how you can potentially double your personal injury settlement, with our without using an attorney.
If you have more questions, John has agree to answer your questions. Simply post them in the comments section below and he'll get back to you with an answer.
The first one is that you want to try to establish liability. What that means is that the insurance companies are going to wonder who caused the accident. And you want to get that taken care of as soon as possible. So, you got to keep your evidence of photographs at the scene, talk to witnesses. If you're able to, get the police report.
The second tip. Do not give statements to any insurance companies. What this means is that you'll have both insurance companies, your own and the others. The one's who hit you. There'll be calling you and requesting a statement from you. I would advise you to hold off on giving any statements of not only your accident, how it happened, but also your injuries.
The third tip. Get diagnosed for any injuries that you have. So what this means is that if you have an injury, just don't sit on it and assume that the insurance companies going to give you credit for that injury based on what you tell them. You need to have a professional doctor diagnose that. So you might have to make an appointment with your primary care doctor. If you've already been to the hospital have referrals that you need to follow up with and get those scheduled. That's very important.
The fourth tip. Follow your doctor's orders for your treatment. So this seems like this would be self-explanatory but it becomes difficult with people that are in injuries and car accidents. That's because they have a lot going on. What you want to do is make sure you follow up with all of your doctor's orders. You do the treatment that they've recommended.
The fifth piece of advice. Get all your full bills and records. Now remember, most of these first ones that I'm going over, you don't need an attorney for these. There are cases where you may need an attorney to get involved. But these initial steps are all steps you could do to help you make sure that you're on the right track, right off the bat. So, the fifth step. Get full bills and records. So after you're done treatment or after you get out of the hospital.
The sixth point is to hire an expert to follow up with any deficiencies and outstanding issues in your case. If there's a problem with liability you may need to get someone to review your police reports, go to the scene, do an accident reconstruction. If there's issues that you've had, or preexisting injuries or preexisting conditions that the insurance company is telling you.
The seventh tip that I have. Once you have all this together, you make a demand on the insurance company. And typically you would just want to request a policy limits or an inflated amount that you believe covers all your medical records, pain and suffering and a few future costs that you have. It's sometimes easier to just ask for the full policy limits.
The eighth tip. You want to follow that up with some kind of threat of lawsuit. Understand that these insurance companies, if they see that you're representing yourself they think that you may not have the bite that comes along with them denying you your claims. So, you want threaten a law suit, and if you want to you can get an attorney involved at that point to write a letter for you to have that backing.
The ninth tip. Consult with an attorney regarding any timelines that you have. This may need to happen a little bit earlier because you want to know your statute of limitations. Every state is different. Some statute of limitations run after one year.
And the tenth tip to potentially doubling your claim is to work on your liens and your policy information with the insurance companies. There may be multiple policies, insurance policies that you can pursue. Or the individual individually. And you also have to worry about how the liens from the health care providers that you have. That's something that usually if you have a lot of those, you wanna consult with a a lawyer at least. Because those can add up and you can save up a lot of money to get reductions in your bills from the liens. A lot of the medical care providers will come back and say because you got a injury settlement where we want to be reimbursed.
