If you are bringing a personal injury lawsuit, one of the key considerations is getting everything that you need to properly compensate you for your losses. It can be difficult to do this, and insurance companies are incentivized to negotiate hard against you to minimize their payouts. An attorney in Salt Lake City can help you to maximize your compensation, whatever the circumstances.
How Can an Attorney in Salt Lake City Help Maximize My Compensation?
By Helping You Calculate Correctly In the First Place
One of the most important aspects of getting the most out of your compensation is properly calculating everything you are owed. This can be more difficult than it may sound at first. You need to include not only the medical bills for all treatment related to the incident, but also any ongoing treatments that you may require if your injuries were particularly severe. These can complicated to calculate, and your lawyer will need to call on their network of medical and other experts who can help to determine what’s fair to demand under the circumstances.
There will also be related expenses that you might not even think to add to your total calculations. For example, if you normally take care of your own yard work but had to hire yard maintenance because your injury prevented you from mowing your lawn and cleaning up after a storm, this should be included. If you had to hire childcare that you normally would not, this should be included. Your lawyer will help you to think of everything so nothing gets missed.
The same applies if you’re talking about lost wages. You might immediately think about your regular salary or hourly wage, but what about overtime, bonuses, lost opportunities for promotion, or lost vacation or sick days that you have to use? All these things have value that needs to be calculated into your compensation demands. It can be difficult to prove some of these, so you will want a lawyer who can tell you exactly what evidence is required and put it together to make a strong case for what you’re owed.
“Pain and suffering,” or non-economic damages, are often a contentious area of a personal injury lawsuit. These are the non-tangible damages that you are owed for your mental anguish and physical suffering. They don’t just cover the pain that you experienced but also loss of enjoyment in life if you are no longer able to take part in your favorite activities, loss of consortium if it can be shown that the accident was the direct cause of your loss of intimate relations with a spouse, and more.
By Protecting You From Accidentally Minimizing Your Claim
In a claim of this sort, it’s common for the insurance company from the other side to call or otherwise contact you asking questions about the incident that caused your injuries. These calls may seem very friendly, but there’s usually an ulterior motive. The insurance adjuster is highly trained at asking questions in just the right way so as to get answers out of you that can be used against you to minimize your injuries, cast doubt on what happened, or put more blame on you for the incident than you actually hold.
One of the important ways that your claim is maximized by your attorney is by protecting you from these tactics. Once you have an attorney, you can simply refer all communication from the insurer over to them.
By Making Sure You Don’t Miss Deadlines
The statute of limitations in Utah is generally four years for most personal injury claims, but there are plenty of exceptions. With wrongful death, product liability, or medical malpractice, you only have two years, for example. If the entity responsible for your injury is a government agent, things can get even more complicated and the deadlines are shorter. There are other exceptions and complications, but your lawyer will make sure that you don’t lose out on compensation because you missed an important deadline.
By Minimizing Your Fault
Utah is a modified comparative fault state. What this means is that anyone who is less than 50% responsible for an accident can collect damages for their losses in that accident. However, the amount of damages they collect will be reduced by the same percentage as their fault. If your total damages are $50,000, for example, but you are found to be 30% at fault for the accident, you would only be able to collect $35,000 in the end.
As you can see, that’s a significant loss, and you can be sure that the insurance company covering the liable party is interested in pushing every percentage point of fault onto you that they possibly can. If your fault in the accident is even close to 50%, they will pull out all the stops to try to get you over that line, since that would allow them to avoid having to pay out anything at all. Your lawyer is a valuable defender in this situation. A lawyer knows the kind of tactics that the insurance companies use in these situations and knows how to use evidence to put forth a compelling case to protect you from accusations of fault and attempts to minimize your claim.
By Negotiating for You Effectively
These claims almost always involve negotiations, and you are at a serious disadvantage negotiating against a powerful insurance company with lots of legal resources at their disposal. The insurance company has extensive experience in negotiations and knows how to make it feel hopeless, as if there’s nothing you can do, and you just need to take an offer that’s less than what you are owed because you won’t be able to get anything else.
What you need is someone who is just as experienced in negotiation to go up against them, and that’s what you get with a personal injury attorney. In fact, you will often find that simply getting an attorney causes the insurance company to start negotiating in better faith. The fact that you have a lawyer signals to them that you are serious about being properly compensated and are even willing to go to court if necessary.
By Protecting You From Signing a Bad Settlement
Once you sign a settlement with the insurance company, in almost all cases, that’s it: you cannot get a dime more. The insurance company knows this and are often quick to offer victims a settlement as soon as possible after the accident. These settlements are often very low, but the insurance company is hoping that either you don’t know what you are actually owed or are so desperate for money to cover bills and expenses that you will simply grab at any straw.
A lawyer will protect you from signing anything that is not in your best interest, and if you are struggling with mounting bills, your lawyer can provide letters to creditors and medical providers explaining the situation and getting you the time you need to wait for a proper settlement offer.
There’s even more that a skilled lawyer can do to protect your interest in a personal injury lawsuit.
Contact Our Experienced Personal Injury Lawyers Today
Whatever your situation, reach out to the experienced attorneys at RamRock Injury Law today for a free case evaluation. We proudly serve clients across Utah. Visit us at our Salt Lake City office:
RamRock Injury Law – Salt Lake City Office
5353 South 960 East Suite 200
Salt Lake City, Utah 84117
Phone: (866) 427-5167
