Any motor vehicle accident has the potential to cause serious injury or death to the people involved, but a truck accident can be especially dangerous. In particular, occupants of smaller passenger vehicles are at a disadvantage in these collisions due to the relative size and weight of the truck.
Many people suffer severe injuries, including broken bones, head injuries or traumatic brain injury (TBI), internal injuries, back and spine injuries, and more. As you might imagine, these injuries result in significant medical bills, lost income, pain and suffering, and additional damages. Consulting with a personal injury attorney in Duluth can help you understand your rights to compensation.
How Can a Duluth Truck Accident Attorney Help You Recover Your Damages After a Truck Accident?
Truck drivers are required to carry at least $750,000 in liability insurance, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to actually obtain the compensation you deserve. The insurance company will fight to deny your claim entirely or pay as little as possible.
The truck driver and/or the insurance carrier might blame you for the accident. At the same time, there may also be other liable parties, such as a component manufacturer or a company responsible for loading freight.
All of these issues add up to a complicated situation that will be extremely challenging to deal with on your own. A truck accident attorney will help you in multiple ways:
Establishing Fault
Our investigative team will study the details of your case and thoroughly investigate what happened.
We’ll visit the crash site, speak with local residents or workers, pursue event data recorder or EDR data, search for more witnesses, and look for any photo or video evidence that may be helpful. By doing so, we can build a solid case to show the insurance company that you were not at fault in the accident.
The sooner we work on your case, the easier it will be to recover evidence, such as videos or photos, because some evidence may be lost or destroyed over time. In addition, seeking legal advice right away is a good idea because the truck driver’s insurance company will begin building their own case immediately, looking for ways to blame you while you’re still in the hospital recovering from your injuries.
Determining Your Damages
This is a central step in any truck accident case. Once the insurance adjuster accepts that blaming you for the accident isn’t a valid option, they may move on to another tactic: Undervaluing your claim.
The truth is that most people don’t know what their claim is worth, and the insurance adjuster will seek to take advantage of that fact by offering you an amount far less than your settlement should be. Unfortunately, this strategy is sometimes effective—an injured person may accept an offer, only to find out later that it wasn’t enough to cover all their costs.
It comes as a later shock that when they accepted the offer, they released the insurance company from any further responsibility.
We don’t want that to happen to our clients, so we will sit down and discuss all your injuries and losses to be sure everything is included. We’ll also consider future costs, which are easy to overlook in the process.
Here are some damages we will consider in valuing your claim:
- Medical costs. These are often extremely high in truck accident cases due to the severity of the injuries involved. Another concern is that these serious injuries may become chronic or require continued care, so we will be careful to estimate your future costs. We’ll also ask about related expenses like mobility aids, equipment for physical therapy exercises, travel expenses if you need to see a professional in another area, etc.
- Lost income. After a truck accident, you could be out of work for an extended period of time. Even with paid time off, you are still losing income (because you could have used that PTO at other times), and many people quickly exhaust their available PTO. At that point, you might be taking a lengthy unpaid leave of absence from your job. You have a right to seek compensation for all lost income related to your accident.
- Lost earning potential. As discussed earlier, some truck accident injuries may be so severe that the injured person never fully recovers. If you suffer a permanent injury that prevents you from returning to work or forces you to work fewer hours or in a less demanding job, you can also seek compensation for your lost earning potential.
- Disability or disfigurement. Aside from the effects on your income, any permanent disability or disfigurement can affect your quality of life, and you have a right to seek compensation for these permanent changes.
- Pain and suffering. Truck accidents often result in strong physical pain, but your emotional or mental pain and suffering are also valid damages. We’ll ask you about the physical effects of your injuries, as well as mental health effects like insomnia, anxiety, depression, or symptoms of PTSD.
- Property damage. In many cases, a passenger vehicle that collides with a tractor-trailer is totaled. If not, the damage is usually extensive. We will seek the total value of repairs or replacement for your vehicle, including diminished value, when applicable.
- Wrongful death. In 2019 alone, there were 180 fatal truck crashes in Georgia, and the majority of fatalities were people in passenger vehicles. If you’ve lost a loved one in a truck accident, you may be struggling to process your grief while trying to pay for final medical bills, funeral or burial costs, and other expenses. We can seek compensation for these economic losses, as well as your own loss of companionship and consortium, pain and suffering, and other damages.
Negotiating With the Insurance Company
Most truck accident cases are settled out of court through negotiation with the insurance carrier.
If necessary, we are always prepared to argue your case in court, but usually, we can come to a resolution without a time-consuming trial. Instead, we will negotiate with the insurance company to get you a fair settlement that covers all your damages.
In the last section, we talked about initial offers from the insurance company and undervalued claims. Frequently, the first offer from an insurance company is not an adequate one, even if it seems like a lot of money on paper.
We’ll go over each offer with you and discuss what is and isn’t covered, as well as future costs you might have. If the offer doesn’t meet your needs, we’ll discuss options for a counteroffer and present it to the insurance company on your behalf.
How Quickly Will Your Truck Accident Case Be Resolved?
The answer varies depending on your specific situation, but because truck accidents often involve serious injuries and high-value damages, they frequently take 1-2 years to settle, sometimes more. We’ll keep you updated on our progress, but some aspects of the case are out of our control. Here are some steps in the process:
- First, we investigate the case and gather as much evidence as possible so we can make the strongest argument. This process can take a few weeks to a few months, depending on what we find and how quickly we can obtain certain kinds of evidence. If we need to file a subpoena or other paperwork with the court, we may have to wait to receive a response. In some cases, we have to wait for a court date to argue a motion before a judge.
- If you are still in treatment for your injuries, we may want to wait for more information so we can accurately calculate your damages. For instance, your doctor may reevaluate your prognosis after an upcoming surgery or when physical therapy is finished.
- At any point in the process, the insurance company can make an offer. As we discussed, the first offer might not be sufficient, and we often make a counteroffer. Then, we may wait a few weeks or months to hear back from the insurance company. We will follow up as needed, but sometimes, they will take time to get back to us.
- In many cases, the negotiation process lasts for months. We might receive multiple offers and make multiple counteroffers before finally arriving at a deal that meets the client’s needs.
What Am I Supposed to Do With These Medical Bills in the Meantime?
We hear this question often, and we understand your concern.
Truck accidents do incredible damage, and the out-of-pocket medical bills can be very high, even with a robust health insurance policy. Sometimes, clients tell us that the hospital is threatening to put them in collections or they’ve already started receiving calls from bill collectors.
If you have medical bills from your accident that you can’t pay, please make copies for your attorney. With your permission, we can speak to the billing department or collections agency on your behalf and make the collection calls stop.
Usually, once a lawyer gets involved, the healthcare facility will accept that they can’t bully you into paying the bill immediately. We’ll let them know that your bill will be paid out of an upcoming settlement, or we can work out a payment plan you can afford.
Additionally, if the bill collector has violated federal debt collection laws, we’ll remind them of their legal obligations.
Where Can You Get Help From a Duluth Truck Accident Law Firm?
Please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation about your case. We’ll review the accident report, answer your questions, and explain the options for pursuing compensation.
There is no obligation, but if we take your case, you won’t owe us anything until we win or settle it.
The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm was founded by attorney Ali Awad, who built it into one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country over a few short years. He and his team have more than twenty years of combined experience and have recovered millions of dollars for injured people and their families.
When he’s not working on a case, you can find Mr. Awad on social media, delivering no-nonsense legal advice to more than a million followers. To maximize your truck accident compensation, call his team at (470) 323-8779.
