Henry County Personal Injury Lawyer

Escalating medical bills, chronic pain, income loss, the possibility of permanent disability, and property damage—a serious injury can change your life overnight. When you know or even suspect someone else is at fault, you might wonder about your options for recovering your damages.

Understanding the available options for seeking compensation can be complicated, but you shouldn’t be forced to deal with the consequences of someone else’s actions on your own. Where can you get the solid legal advice you need in these difficult situations?

A Henry County Personal Injury Attorney Is Available to Assist You

Navigating the complexities of a personal injury lawsuit or insurance claim is easier and less stressful with the expertise of a skilled personal injury attorney. At the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm, we offer complimentary consultations to answer your questions and illuminate the legal avenues available in your case.

Because we work on a contingency basis, you won’t owe us anything unless and until we successfully resolve your case, so please don’t hesitate to contact us for more information.

What Can You Expect From the Insurance Claims Process?

Most personal injury cases involve recovering from an insurance policy. Even though we may file a lawsuit against the at-fault party, they usually have some type of liability insurance that should pay your damages.

The first thing you should understand about insurance companies is that their bottom line is paramount. Their commercials might feature a celebrity or a computer-generated animal promising the insurance company really cares about you, but don’t be fooled.

If the insurance adjuster finds any excuse to deny your claim or pay less than it’s worth, they’ll use it.

The adjuster may also call to ask you a few questions. On the surface, this seems harmless—they just need to gather more information to complete your claim, right?

But these conversations, typically recorded by the insurance company, can be fraught with potential challenges. The adjuster may review the recording and misinterpret something you said to indicate you were at fault, or your claim could be denied for some other reason.

This is why we recommend speaking with an attorney before giving a statement to the insurance company.

What Are Some Reasons an Insurance Company Might Deny Your Claim?

Here are some of the common issues we see in personal injury cases:

“It’s Your Fault”

One of the most prevalent justifications for denying a claim is fault. Liability insurance covers damages caused by the policyholder, so if the injured party is actually at fault, the insurance company has no obligation to pay.

In many cases, the policyholder also claims they were not at fault, but the insurance adjuster can argue that you were to blame even if the policyholder admits culpability. Georgia allows for shared fault in personal injury situations, so the insurance company doesn’t necessarily have to prove you’re completely at fault to save money.

If they argue you’re at least 50 percent responsible, they have an excuse to deny your claim. If they say you’re less than 50 percent responsible, they can still subtract your percentage of fault from your final settlement. Either way, they save money, and you lose.

Injured people are often understandably frustrated when the insurance company blames them, and for many, the impulse to call the insurance company and set them straight is strong. However, this action is more likely to cause additional problems than solve the current issue.

If your insurance claim has been rejected unfairly, contact a personal injury lawyer to help you build a strong case and negotiate with the other party.

“Needs More Documentation”

Sometimes, requests for additional documents or evidence are reasonable, but in other cases, they can waste your time. If an insurance adjuster is extremely picky about documents or constantly requests additional info, talk to your lawyer. The adjuster may be hoping you’ll get frustrated and give up.

That being said, we encourage you to take photos of the accident or injury scene, including your injuries, any involved vehicles or stationary objects, and the nearby scenery. Having multiple high-quality photos from a variety of angles may help your claim go more smoothly in some situations.

“That Isn’t Covered”

All insurance policies have “exclusions” or events that aren’t covered. These are included in the policy language, but that doesn’t mean the policyholder is aware of every exclusion.

Insurance policies are lengthy, and many people never read them fully before buying them. Insurance policy exclusions can be equally confusing for an injured person trying to get their damages paid.

Here are a few examples of standard exclusions:

• Intentional acts. If you tell an insurance adjuster that you tripped and fell because the property owner left an item on the stairs, you should have grounds for a homeowner’s insurance claim. On the other hand, if you tell the adjuster you think the property owner intentionally booby-trapped the stairs to make you fall, they may have an excuse to deny your claim.
• Excluded parties. This sometimes comes up in car accident One family member may be excluded from an insurance policy due to their poor driving record. Although the insurance company might be willing to cover the careless driver, they would likely charge a higher premium. As a result, the policyholder may agree to exclude this person from their coverage. If this “excluded” relative drives the car and causes an accident, the insurance company has no obligation to pay for damages.
• Commercial versus personal policies. Auto insurance policies are usually very specific about whether the car is used for personal or business purposes, especially with the prevalence of rideshare driving. Sometimes, there may be an issue if the insurance adjuster believes the at-fault driver was using their car for commercial purposes at the time of the accident. Unfortunately, this can be a problem even if you say nothing to the insurance company because the other driver may accidentally let it slip.

In some cases, if the insurance company’s exclusion argument is weak, we may take them to court to discuss their interpretation of the policy language. However, if the exclusion appears legitimate, we will discuss other options with the client instead.

Sometimes, you may be able to recover from other parties, including your own insurance.

How Else Can the Insurance Company Cost You Money?

A claim denial isn’t the only problem you might encounter with your insurance case. Even if the insurance company approves your claim, they might undercut you in other ways.

One issue your attorney will look out for is a settlement offer for less than your claim is worth. This usually happens for one of the following reasons:

Undervaluing Your Damages

The insurance adjuster could ignore some of your damages, fail to consider future costs, or decide some treatments aren’t necessary. We always discuss the client’s damages with them in detail to ensure this doesn’t happen when they receive the final settlement.

Not only will we add up all your current medical bills (it’s helpful to have them handy), but we’ll also ask if you’re still in treatment. If so, we usually wait to settle the claim until you’ve fully recovered, so all your medical costs will be included.

However, if your injuries are so severe that you will likely require lifelong treatment, we can estimate future expenses.

Additionally, we’ll review your income loss if you had to miss work due to your injuries. You have a right to recover both paid and unpaid time off because if you used all your PTO to recover, then it’s no longer available to you.

If you’re permanently unable to return to work or have to take a lower-paying job because of your physical condition, we may seek restitution for lost future earnings.

Property damage is a consideration in many car accidents and sometimes other types of personal injury cases. We’ll ensure your car repairs or replacement are covered, and you receive compensation for your vehicle’s diminished value if applicable.

So far, we’ve discussed economic damages, but you may also have non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering or reduced quality of life due to a permanent disability. These damages are more difficult to assign value to, but the insurance company will typically use a formula to estimate your losses.

The most common formula involves multiplying your economic losses by a number between 1.5 and 5. The insurance adjuster is supposed to select a number based on the severity of your injuries, but in some cases, they may assign a lower number, resulting in an undervaluation of your pain and suffering.

When we notice this, we’ll remind the insurance company of the severity of your injuries and fight for a recalculation.

Reducing Your Claim’s Value Based on Partial Fault

Earlier, we discussed the concept of partial fault and how it can affect your claim. If the insurance adjuster doesn’t believe they can make a convincing argument that you were over 50 percent responsible, they can still say you had a lower level of fault.

Then, they can’t reject your claim, but they can justify paying you a lower amount based on the percentage of fault they assign to you.

Is this fair? It depends on how much fault you actually had.

Sometimes, the insurance adjuster will aggrandize your contributions to an accident or injury. In other cases, we may find the client had no fault in the matter, but the adjuster incorrectly assigned some fault to them.

An overstimation of the injured person’s share of fault can be quite costly. For instance, 10 percent of a $10,000 claim is $1,000 you could probably use to deal with the aftermath of your accident.

Ten percent of a $100,000 claim is $10,000 you also probably need to put your life back together. For this reason, we always fight to get a fair evaluation of any fault the client has so they can recover as much as possible.

What If the Insurance Policy Doesn’t Cover All Your Damages?

This is possible, especially if you have a higher-value claim in a car accident. Georgia only requires $25,000 per person in bodily injury liability insurance (with a total of $50,000 per accident) and $25,000 in property damage liability. The good news is that these are minimum requirements, and the person who hits you may have much higher limits.

But what if they don’t? What if they only have the bare minimum required to legally drive their car, and you have significantly more than $25,000 in damages related to your injuries? What if your car repair or replacement costs exceed $25,000?

Your lawyer will explore every possibility of recovering the remainder of your damages. Some options include:

• We can sue the responsible party. Insurance is meant to protect the at-fault party from personal liability, so where the insurance coverage ends, their personal liability begins. The only problem is that some people may not have any money or assets we can seize, so a lawsuit might not be worth the effort if you can’t collect.
• If you have relevant insurance coverage, we can make a claim on your policy. Although uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage (UM/UI) is not required in Georgia, it’s the best way to ensure you can recover damages if the at-fault driver has no or insufficient insurance.
• In a few cases, we may be able to sue a third party. This won’t be an option in every case, but if a third party somehow contributed to the accident or injuries, they may be liable. For example, if a defective safety product made your injuries worse than they should have been, you might have a claim against the manufacturer.

Get Help From a Henry County Personal Injury Law Firm Today

If you or a loved one have been injured due to someone else’s negligence, please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation. Our legal team is ready to review your claim and discuss your options for recovering damages.

Attorney Ali Awad founded the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm, which is now one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country. He and his team have recovered millions of dollars in compensation for their clients with a 99.5 percent success rate.

When he’s not fighting for his clients in the courtroom or the boardroom, you can find Mr. Awad offering no-nonsense legal advice to over a million followers on social media. Work with his team today when you call (833) 254-2923.