Georgia is one of the worst states in the US in terms of car accident frequency and danger. In fact, car accidents were the leading cause of both injury deaths and hospitalizations in the year 2020.
In that same year, car accidents in Georgia were the leading cause of death in children and the second leading cause among adults over 25.
Those who manage to survive these accidents are often hit by medical bills, property damage, and the physiological effects of their injuries themselves. So, what should you do when you find yourself hurt and injured in the unfortunate aftermath of a car accident?
You turn to a car accident lawyer.
What Can a Professional Fulton County Car Accident Attorney Do?
A car accident attorney is a specialized legal professional with expertise in the intricacies of road and automobile laws and regulations. As with other personal injury lawyers, they are also familiar with the insurance system.
This combination of skills allows car accident lawyers to understand complex cases and build solid foundations for their clients. These foundations are the reason claimants can stand a chance against massive multibillion-dollar insurance companies’ resources and maximize their accident damage claims.
Legal Consultation
Car accident attorneys provide legal consultation to their clients and give them options on how to proceed with their cases. Consultations are an opportunity for clients to learn more about their legal rights, discuss case specifics, and evaluate the odds of making a successful insurance claim.
Your consultation is usually where you will get an estimate on your claim. Your attorney will give a rough estimate of all damages, financial and non-financial, accounting for things like lost wages.
You will also be informed of avenues through which you can get compensation should your claim fail.
A common practice for car accident attorneys – as with most personal injury lawyers – is to offer consultations for free. This affords clients access to legal services without having to think of fees, especially when they already have an injury to attend to.
Investigation and Case-building
Car accident lawyer can help you with your insurance claim as early as during the investigation. A good attorney can gather evidence as soon as it presents itself and account for it when building your case.
A good example of this is when securing a copy of the accident report from the police. Once an official report is available, a lawyer can use the information from the document to track down witnesses and gather details that can support your damages claim.
Information that your lawyer gathers can also be used to give you an evaluation of how much you need to recover fully from the accident, as well as how much the claim itself is worth. On average, an experienced lawyer can get you up to three or four times the amount you could get alone, even after deducting fees.
Determining Liability and Fault
Georgia is an at-fault state, which means a party can only pursue a claim if another party is responsible for the accident. Specifically, Georgia follows modified comparative negligence rules, meaning how much you are entitled to is reduced by your own contribution of fault.
A professional car accident attorney is aware of this and will work to build a case assigning as little liability to you as possible. This is in contrast to your insurance provider, who benefits from having you held liable for an accident by paying out a smaller amount in damages.
Communicating With Insurance Companies
Your lawyer also serves as your representation and can maintain contact with the insurance company in your stead. This allows you to afford more time for yourself, your family, your work, or whatever responsibilities you have while your case moves forward.
They may be able to gauge the ballpark of how much the insurance adjuster is planning to shell out long before they mention any figure and can preemptively contact them about, including damages both you and the adjuster might not have been initially aware of, such as pain and suffering.
This open line of communication is important, especially when you have serious injuries that take time to heal. You might not be able to meet insurance representatives in person, but you can trust a lawyer to act in your stead even without your physical presence.
Documentation and Paperwork
In the same vein as maintaining contact with the insurer, your car accident attorney can ease things for you by handling all documentation and paperwork. After all, they have handled insurance claims before and are familiar with the requirements you need to complete for a claim to succeed.
By trusting your lawyer with the paperwork, you know that everything you submit will be supported by evidence you have on hand, reducing the odds the insurance company will deny you.
Negotiation, Settlement, and Court
When the time comes to sit down with the insurance company, the at-fault driver, or whoever owes you compensation, your lawyer will have an argument built around your case, ready to present to justify the amount you need.
The other party will likely have their own representation with a vested interest in devaluing your claim. If you do not have legal representation, they will likely bank on your lack of legal expertise to get you to walk away with a lower amount or even to walk away with nothing.
Your attorney, however, will be able to stand up for your side and justify every cent you need from your claim. Should the other party fail to give you the compensation you filed for, your attorney can escalate to a lawsuit.
Most lawsuits will not end in court because people usually want to avoid the high costs and risks. Threatening a lawsuit is often effective enough to make the other party more pliable in a negotiation.
Of course, if going to court is the only option, your lawyer is not afraid to stand up for you either way.
Do You Need to Work With a Lawyer For Your Accident Claim?
Strictly speaking, you aren’t required to work with a personal injury lawyer to get a payout. In fact, in some situations, such as when you are eligible for an amount equal to your policy’s limits, most insurers will give you that amount cut-and-dry.
Good lawyers know this and will likely inform you of whether working together is the best course of action during the initial case evaluation. Personal injury lawyers worth their salt will offer alternative routes of compensation if working with them may result in a lower payout.
More often than not, however, accident victims find their claim does not reach their policy’s limits, but the amount they are offered does not cover their needs. In these cases, a car accident attorney is almost a practical requirement to get the insurer to budge on the offer.
Car accident lawyers also help clients who need to seek compensation from sources other than insurance providers. For example, if an accident victim opts to file a lawsuit against an at-fault party, they stand a better chance of getting a higher settlement with a lawyer than without.
Add to that if the lawsuit makes it to court, a lawyer will be able to fight to the best of their ability to ensure you walk away on top.
How Do I Make the Most of My Car Accident Claim?
There are plenty of factors that can affect the value of an insurance claim, and not all cases share the same ones. However, there are some general rules you can follow that can help you maximize the value you can ask for.
Gather Evidence
The most basic piece of advice is also the most important. Whether you work with a lawyer or not, your ability to convince an insurer of the amount of money they ought to give you rests on how much credible evidence you can present them with.
Strong evidence includes police reports and medical records. The former provides what is assumed to be an objective and official account of the accident details, and the latter is an official record of injuries and treatment.
There are also time-limited examples of evidence that can prove useful in building a case. For example, footage from CCTVs, doorbell cameras, and dashcams can provide unedited context for the accident but must be acquired quickly before the footage is overwritten or wiped.
Witness testimony is also considered time-limited to an extent. Human memory is limited, and details tend to get fuzzy over time, so even if you are able to track down witnesses months after the accident occurred, they might not always be able to help.
The general rule when it comes to evidence is to get it quickly and get it accurately.
Document Everything You Can
Following the trend of gathering evidence, there are some forms of proof that are your responsibility to keep track of. For this category of evidence, we look at receipts and expenses you incur related to the accident.
After you’ve been discharged from the hospital, you may still have to stay on medication or show up for therapy, depending on the extent of your injuries. You will have to keep copies of any receipts and bills you rack up on the road to recovery.
More than that, you will also likely have to provide proof of lost wages if you intend to be compensated for the time you missed at work. Typically, this means gathering recent pay stubs and disability slips, but it may also require you to submit your most recent tax return.
As long as you can get a copy of a relevant document in writing, you can probably make use of it to support your case. Your lawyer can also find use for the information contained in these documents even if you yourself might not have seen how they could have been useful.
Act Early
In Georgia, as in all states, there is a statute of limitations in place that prevents you from filing a claim or a lawsuit after a certain period of time for different cases.
Bodily injury claims in Georgia generally have a limit of two (2) years before victims can no longer file a claim. Injuries related to loss of consortium, as well as to personal property, however, have a limit of four years.
One other interesting exemption to the two-year statute is that action for injuries to reputation must be taken up within a year. This is relevant if, say, for example, in the aftermath of an accident, the other party decides to rally online support and paint you as at fault before any investigation is complete.
In any case, these limits make it imperative to act early and act quickly. The odds of something going wrong during the claims process, such as a denial of your claim, loss of evidence, or a delayed onset of some other injury symptom, increase as time goes by.
Experienced lawyers are always aware of these time limits and will work to get your case settled before the statute limits pass. It’s no small feat to put a winning case together, and it’s even harder to do so with only a few months remaining, but the right lawyer for you can do so.
Who Do You Turn To for Help When You Need a Fulton County Car Accident Law Firm?
When you need an expert law practitioner to help you out after a car accident in Fulton County, look to the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm. You deserve every bit of money you can get out of your claim, and lead attorney Ali Awad and his team stand ready to fight alongside you for it.
The CEO Lawyer is one of the fastest-growing law firms in the United States, especially in Georgia, and Attorney Awad’s modern approach and social media following back this claim. He and his team have recovered millions of dollars in damages for claimants in Georgia and Tennessee.
Contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm today at (470) 323-8779 to get started with your car accident insurance claim. We serve clients in English and Spanish, and we offer free consultations and case evaluations with no obligation to work with us.
When you choose to work with us, you will not owe us anything until we win your case for you.
