If you have sustained a spinal cord injury, amputation, head injury, broken bone, burn injury, or another serious injury in a truck accident, you may feel very alone. Having a serious injury can feel very isolating. Worse, when you try to interact with insurance providers, the court system, trucking companies or the medical system (as you inevitably must after a serious truck accident), you may find yourself facing systems and companies with much larger resources than you. In some cases, you may feel like a mere number instead of a patient. In other cases – such as when you apply for an insurance claim – you may feel bullied by a larger company. Hiring a Florida personal injury attorney can help you and can level the playing field in trucking accident cases in a number of ways:
1) Attorneys can equalize the difference in resources between you and trucking companies. Trucking companies and insurance companies are generally huge companies with virtually unlimited resources. They can delay your case or claim until you are pressured to accept a lower settlement than you are entitled to. A Florida personal injury attorney working on a contingency basis uses his or her resources to equalize the playing field. With an attorney, you can afford to wait for a fair settlement.
2) Attorneys can investigate the accident. Most trucking companies and unions have excellent attorneys on retainer and these attorneys have investigators who can arrive on the accident scene immediately. Even if you hire an accident attorney yourself, your attorney will likely not have access to the accident scene until after most of the debris and evidence has been taken away. However, your attorney will have respected private investigators and accident reconstruction experts who can recreate the accident scene and uncover evidence.
3) Attorneys can get access to information you cannot. Attorneys can seek and get access to medical records, driver records, police records, and trucking company records. This evidence can be crucial to your case and can help you reach a fairer settlement.
4) Attorneys have the experience and legal knowledge to represent you. Attorneys know what sorts of costs a patient in your situation will need to make over a longer recovery time and most attorneys can also determine the financial resources of the liable party in your accident. Combined with a good understanding of laws, this allows attorneys to seek out a truly fair settlement.
5) Insurance companies have powerful attorneys, and a personal injury attorney ensures that you do, too. Without your own attorney, you may find yourself facing reams of legal documents to sign. Attorneys from trucking companies and insurance companies may tell you that these documents are standard, but by signing them, you could be signing away important rights – unless you have your own attorney look these papers over. Without your own attorney, you are at the mercy of insurance and trucking company attorneys – and those attorneys have their own clients’ best interests at heart, not yours.
6) Attorneys can help you if the truck driver in your accident was underinsured. Many truck drivers are underinsured, making it harder to recover a fair settlement. Personal injury attorneys, however, can seek settlements from multiple liable parties, increasing the odds that you will get a fair settlement that pays for all your medical costs and lost income.