St. Louis Personal Injury Lawyer Publishes Tips and Advice to Help Injury Victims
Posted By
on Sep 7, 2010 5:12pm PDT
People injured in car accidents need advice. They commonly search for it on the Internet, or from friends and family. There actually is some useful information on the Internet, but much of it is repetitive and not necessarily accurate or up to-date, as chances in the law happen in Missouri each month. In fact, changes in insurance contract interpretation and application have changed dramatically in the past six months, as the Missouri Supreme Court has handed down various opinions in this area of law.
Seeking advice from friends and family can be a crap shoot. Personal injury law is actually a highly-specialized area of law involving Missouri statute and case law. It involves liens, subrogation interests, and other pitfalls that can ruin a victim's chances at getting full compensation for his or her injury case. The most common misconception, or bit of bad advice that we hear, is that car accident injuries are worth 3X what a person's total medical bills are. There is nothing accurate about this statement. Differences between medical treatment charges, and what was actually paid by a health insurance carrier can vary widely. Also, no two different injuries are valued the same. A soft tissue disc injury is much different that a fracture. Traumatic brain injury is different than emotional damages.
Take for example two people injured in a car accident. One has $10,000 in medical bills, most of which was treatment from the E.R. and a follow-up visit or two with a chiropractor. The second person had no emergency room treatment, but the crash caused a great degree of emotional distress, resulting in only $2,000 of medical treatment, but the inability to drive a car for six months due to stress, and a wage loss claim of $8,000. In both situations, the economic damages total $10,000. Are both claims worth $30,000 each? Absolutely not. Insurance companies such as State Farm, Allstate, and Liberty Mutual use complicated claims software that would put these two claims on two completely different value spectrums.
Don't take chances with bad advice. You only get one opportunity at getting maximum compensation for a car accident injury claim, truck accident injury claim, motorcycle accident claim, medical negligence claim, slip & fall claim, or drug recall claim. Do the right thing and make a ten minute call to a qualified St. Louis personal injury lawyer before you do anything, including initiating a conversation with an insurance claims adjuster.