Recent Posts in Auto Accidents Category
| July 09, 2010 |
| Is It Ok To Provide A Recorded Statement To The Insurance Company? |
| Posted By Ted Spaulding |
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Is It Ok To Provide A Recorded Statement To The Insurance Company?
It is a standard question you will hear immediately upon contact from the at-fault parties auto insurance company or corporate home office--"We would like you to give a recorded statement" after a car accident or personal injury such as a premises liability claim. The car accident adjuster will make contact with you in very short order after the crash and explain that it is standard procedure for them to need two very simply things: 1) a recorded statement regarding what happened and 2) a medical release so they can collect your medical records and bills. Seems like very reasonable requests and the insurance company is being helpful to you, right? Wrong.
To be clear, understand that there is no requirement much less a legal duty under Georgia law to provide a recorded statement to the at-fault party's insurance company. The insurance company is only asking in the hopes of helping themselves defend against your personal injury claim later. That is why often times immediately after the car wreck, you will receive and initial letter from the adjuster introducing himself or herself and stating that they will close their file if you do not make contact and provide a statement and fill out the medical release form sent along with the letter. You can ignore this letter all together because all that matters is that you do not wait to pursue your case past Georgia's Statute of Limitations (2 yrs.) and the file can be reopened at any time within that period by the adjuster. You may and should totally ignore these tactics by Georgia car insurance companies, because they are just that, tactics to protect the insurance company, not you!
Why shouldn't I give a statement? After all, I have nothing to hide? While it is true you have nothing to hide, the answer is that the adjusters are trained in how to get admissions out of you without you even knowing that you are helping them defend against an otherwise defenseless case with trick or open-ended questions. They may try to get you to admit that you did not do anything to avoid the collision, even if there was nothing you could have done or trick you into admitting something that was not true such as how fast you were going at the time, how far away their driver was from you before the collision, or what you did or did not see at the time. Adjusters are trained to conduct these interviews and to secure testimony that makes it less likely that their driver is to blame or simply corners you in to that testimony later in the case when it becomes important.
You may now be thinking, well that makes sense but is not the medical release request at least a fair request? Wrong, again. Remember, insurance companies do not do anything to protect your interests. Insurance companies in Georgia will use an executed medical release to collect every medical record for all past treatment to help begin to build a defense to your injury claim that you suffered from pre-existing conditions that explain why you are injured not the crash itself. To top it all off, the insurance company will not even provide you with copies of what they have collected on you. Never provide a medical release to the insurance company. It can only hurt you. The insurance company has no legal right to require it. You are the only who should be providing the insurance company with your medical records and billing statements for the treatment received since the injury in question, only. For this reason and many others, if you have a serious injury, hire an Atlanta Personal Injury Attorney with experience dealing with insurance companies and corporate home offices before you take do something that hurts your claim.
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| July 09, 2010 |
| Is It Ok To Provide A Recorded Statement To The Insurance Company? |
| Posted By Ted Spaulding |
|
Is It Ok To Provide A Recorded Statement To The Insurance Company?
It is a standard question you will hear immediately upon contact from the at-fault parties auto insurance company or corporate home office--"We would like you to give a recorded statement" after a car accident or personal injury such as a premises liability claim. The car accident adjuster will make contact with you in very short order after the crash and explain that it is standard procedure for them to need two very simply things: 1) a recorded statement regarding what happened and 2) a medical release so they can collect your medical records and bills. Seems like very reasonable requests and the insurance company is being helpful to you, right? Wrong.
To be clear, understand that there is no requirement much less a legal duty under Georgia law to provide a recorded statement to the at-fault party's insurance company. The insurance company is only asking in the hopes of helping themselves defend against your personal injury claim later. That is why often times immediately after the car wreck, you will receive and initial letter from the adjuster introducing himself or herself and stating that they will close their file if you do not make contact and provide a statement and fill out the medical release form sent along with the letter. You can ignore this letter all together because all that matters is that you do not wait to pursue your case past Georgia's Statute of Limitations (2 yrs.) and the file can be reopened at any time within that period by the adjuster. You may and should totally ignore these tactics by Georgia car insurance companies, because they are just that, tactics to protect the insurance company, not you!
Why shouldn't I give a statement? After all, I have nothing to hide? While it is true you have nothing to hide, the answer is that the adjusters are trained in how to get admissions out of you without you even knowing that you are helping them defend against an otherwise defenseless case with trick or open-ended questions. They may try to get you to admit that you did not do anything to avoid the collision, even if there was nothing you could have done or trick you into admitting something that was not true such as how fast you were going at the time, how far away their driver was from you before the collision, or what you did or did not see at the time. Adjusters are trained to conduct these interviews and to secure testimony that makes it less likely that their driver is to blame or simply corners you in to that testimony later in the case when it becomes important.
You may now be thinking, well that makes sense but is not the medical release request at least a fair request? Wrong, again. Remember, insurance companies do not do anything to protect your interests. Insurance companies in Georgia will use an executed medical release to collect every medical record for all past treatment to help begin to build a defense to your injury claim that you suffered from pre-existing conditions that explain why you are injured not the crash itself. To top it all off, the insurance company will not even provide you with copies of what they have collected on you. Never provide a medical release to the insurance company. It can only hurt you. The insurance company has no legal right to require it. You are the only who should be providing the insurance company with your medical records and billing statements for the treatment received since the injury in question, only. For this reason and many others, if you have a serious injury, hire an Atlanta Personal Injury Attorney with experience dealing with insurance companies and corporate home offices before you take do something that hurts your claim.
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| Continue reading "Is It Ok To Provide A Recorded Statement To The Insurance Company?" » |
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| June 22, 2010 |
| Atlanta Auto Accident Attorney Discusses Uninsured/Underinsured Auto Insurance |
| Posted By Ted Spaulding |
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As an Atlanta, Georgia auto accident attorney, I too often have clients involved in car accidents with an at-fault driver who only has minimum liability coverage ($25,000.00 in the State of Georgia) and want to know if there is any other coverage available to cover their claim. The short answer is most likely yes. It is called UM coverage.
UM coverage differs from liability coverage, which only protects your assets and provides payments for a person who sustained damages in an accident that was your fault. Uninsured motorist coverage protects you by providing coverage to you in the event that a person who causes an accident in which you sustain damage is either uninsured or underinsured. Your UM coverage limits are shown separately on your insurance card.
The hard part is determining whether your UM coverage will apply to cover you for your injuries and if so, to what extend. It use to be an easier question to answer because there was only one type of UM coverage available to Georgia auto insureds---Reduced Coverage UM. Reduced coverage UM limits will provide you coverage for the difference between the coverage the at-fault party has and the amount of coverage you purchase. For example, if the at-fault party has $25,000.00 in coverage and you have $50,000.00 of UM coverage, the at-fault party's insurance with pay you its limits of $25,000.00 and then your insurance company will pay you $25,000.00, for a total of $50,000.00 all together for your claim. Likewise, if there is $25,000.00 coverage under both the at-fault insurance and your UM coverage, your UM coverage will not apply since there is no difference between what the at-fault party has and your UM limit.
The recently added UM coverage product required to be offered to insurance customers is what is called "Add-on coverage." Under this new coverage, the UM limit provides additional coverage to you up to the limits of coverage you purchase. Using the same number from above: if the at fault driver had minimum coverage of only $25,000.00 and you had $50,000.00 of add-on uninsured motorist coverage, you could receive the $25,000.00 from the at-fault insurance company and $50,000.00 from your own insurance company for a total of $75,000.00. If both of you have $25,000.00 of coverage, no longer will your UM coverage not apply. You could receive $50,000.00 total in this scenario with add-on UM.
It is important to note that in order to get Add-on coverage, you must specifically purchase it from your insurance agent for a higher premium. The passage of the new law in 2008 allowing for such coverage in Georgia does not mean it is automatic.
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| February 20, 2010 |
| Extension of Time to File Lawsuit in Georgia Auto Accident Cases |
| Posted By Ted Spaulding |
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| While it is never advisable to procrastinate in filing suit in an auto accident case, for those who may have thought they lost the right to file suit for injuries caused by another in an car accident now have the potential to still file suit.
O.C.G.A. 9-3-99 says that the statute of limitations for any tort action a victim of a crime brings against the perpetrator is tolled from the date of the alleged crime until the prosecution of the crime becomes final or is dismissed, as long as the ultimate time of delay does not exceed six years from the date of the alleged crime.
The question that was unresolved by the courts until recently was whether this statute applied to violations of the Uniform Rule of the Road and thus would extend the time a plaintiff in a civil auto accident lawsuit could file suit after the usual two year statute of limitation period if the defendant had not resolved his traffic violation(s).
The Georgia Supreme Court yes. It held:
"The plain language of O.C.G.A 9-3-99 would encompass a violation of
a Uniform Rule of the Road. To impose a more stringent definition of 'crime'
within the context of the statute would render superfluous its language that the statute of limitations is tolled from the date of the alleged crime or the act giving rise to such action in tort until the prosecution or other termination of such crime or act."
Thus, now it is clear that the two year statute of limitation on car accident lawsuits will not begin to run until the traffic charge(s) arising out of the auto accident is disposed of either through payment of the ticket, trial or dismissal of the charges. Often times, traffic charges can languish in traffic court for years before they are finally dealt with. However, the majority of time, defendants merely pay the ticket within 30 days of the accident so be careful with this new ruling.
Again, I never advise my personal injury clients involved in a car accident to wait to file suit because doing so has potential ramifications. Evidence becomes harder to collect. Witnesses become harder to find years removed from the accident and their memories of the details of the accident fade.
When it is clear that the injury is catastrophic, I am inclined to file suit more promptly and move aggressively to complete necessary investigations and discovery. However, when people have neglected to pursue their injury claims past the typical two year deadline to do so from the date of the accident, this ruling can allow us to still pursue their legal rights that otherwise would have been lost.
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| January 24, 2010 |
| Causes Of Auto Accidents Reveal Telling Information On Driver Error Not Speed As Leading Cause |
| Posted By Ted Spaulding |
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| As an Atlanta personal injury lawyer, a large number of the serious injury cases I handle are the result of an auto accident. The overwhelming majority of my auto accident cases involve the negligence of the other driver due to causes other than speed.
Despite my professional observations, speeding seems to get the most attention from lawmakers concerned with the number of fatal car accidents in Georgia. Recently, Governor Purdue's "Super Speeder" law went into effect across the State, leading me to question whether speed really is the biggest factor in auto accidents. The answer from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration confirmed what I have seen time and time again in my auto accident injury cases.
According to the NHTSA, the number one cause of auto accidents is driver recognition errors, which is a category that includes inadequate surveillance, internal and external distractions, and inattention. The leading single cause of auto accidents turns out to be inadequate surveillance, which includes a driver's failure to look before making a maneuver or looked but did not see the other driver before making the maneuver.
The next leading cause of auto accidents turns out to be internal driver distraction. The leading internal distraction being talking to a passenger, followed by cell phone use.
The results from this extensive study were not at all surprising.
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