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When a simple drive turns into a life-changing disaster, a car accident lawyer can help you pick up the pieces. The injuries, damages, and losses of a car accident do not have to be yours to bear alone. The driver or party at fault for causing your motor vehicle accident may owe you compensation to make up for these losses. A Mesa car accident lawyer from Shapiro Law Team can assist you in filing a claim for damages in Mesa, Arizona, against one or more parties. Start by scheduling a free consultation. Call (480) 300-5405 anytime, 24/7.
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A car insurance claim should be a straightforward way to recover monetary benefits for your property damages and medical bills. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Insurance companies receive thousands of claims each year. To minimize their expenditures and maximize profits, insurance companies use tactics to convince clients to settle for as little as possible. It may take representation from a lawyer to force an insurance company to offer a reasonable settlement. A lawyer will know what negotiation tactics to use against a powerful insurance corporation. If your case needs to go to trial for a positive outcome, your lawyer can handle litigation for you as well.
Car accidents are the main cause of unintentional injuries and related fatalities in Arizona. Every year, thousands of victims end up in hospitals throughout Arizona with crash-related injuries. The Arizona Department of Transportation reported 129,750 car accidents (36,926 injuries and 911 fatalities) in 2019 alone. Collisions occur more often in Arizona’s cities than in its rural areas. Identifying the cause of your wreck is one of the first steps toward obtaining compensation.
The cause of your Mesa car accident will point to the identity of the defendant or at-fault party. In Arizona, the driver or party who caused the car accident will owe other victims compensation for their damages. All drivers in Arizona have to maintain minimum amounts of car insurance to pay these costs. Some cases involve defendants who are not the other driver or multiple defendants. A lawyer from Shapiro Law Team can analyze your car accident case to determine fault and who to name as the defendant(s).
There are various steps that car accident victims in Mesa should take in the immediate aftermath of the incident, as well as in the days and weeks that follow, to help ensure that they receive maximum compensation for their losses.
Any vehicle accident must be reported to law enforcement officials immediately. The police need to come to the scene and conduct a preliminary investigation into the incident in order to determine what happened. Insurance carriers typically require police reports before they proceed forward with paying out any compensation.
All crash victims should be evaluated by a trusted medical professional as soon as possible. This could include taking an ambulance to the hospital or having a friend or family member drive them to the ER or the doctor’s office for an evaluation. Failing to seek immediate medical care could result in the insurance carrier pushing back against any claim. By seeking immediate medical care, a victim will establish a direct link between the crash and their injuries.
If it is safe to do so at the scene of the crash, those involved can begin gathering evidence. This can include using a phone or another type of camera to take pictures of vehicle damage, traffic and weather conditions, injuries, license plates, and more. Additionally, it is important to get the names and contact information of any eyewitnesses as well as the passengers and drivers involved.
A skilled Mesa car accident lawyer can get involved early in these cases and use their resources to conduct a complete investigation into the incident. An attorney will often be able to gather additional types of evidence that the crash victim is simply not able to get, including video surveillance of the incident, vehicle “black box” data, mobile device data, and more.
In the days and weeks that follow a car accident, crash victims must continue all follow-up medical care recommended by their doctor. Failing to do so could result in the insurance carrier delaying or denying the claim.
After a car accident, injured victims will face hurdles during the claims process. Injured drivers and passengers will have to deal with Arizona’s auto accident laws before obtaining fair compensation for their injuries. Car accident laws change from state to state. A car accident attorney can break down the laws in your state, as well as explain how they might impact your case. In the meantime, learn a few of the most essential car accident laws in Arizona.
These are three of the most important general laws that may apply to your car accident case in Mesa. Others could include product liability laws for a defective car part or tort claim laws for a case against a government entity. Your Mesa car accident lawyer, David Shapiro, and his team can explain all the relevant laws for your particular insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit. Then, he can navigate them for you in pursuit of maximum financial compensation.
In the aftermath of a vehicle accident in Mesa, Arizona, crash victims may be entitled to various types of compensation if the incident was caused by the actions of another driver. At Shapiro Law Team, our dedicated team has extensive experience helping clients recover compensation for their economic and non-economic damages.
This is also referred to as special damages and deals with types of compensation a person can receive for losses that are relatively calculable in the aftermath of a Mesa car accident. Some of the most common types of economic damages in these cases include the following:
This is also referred to as general damages and deals with the types of compensation that are less measurable in the aftermath of a Mesa vehicle accident. What we mean by this is that there are no bills or receipts that can be gathered up to measure the following types of losses an injury victim may sustain:
When working to properly calculate the total amount that a Mesa car accident victim should recover, a Mesa car accident lawyer will gather up all of the bills and receipts to calculate the economic damages. However, calculating the non-economic damages can be more challenging, and an attorney will typically use the “multiplier method” to do so. This means that they will take the total they added up for economic damages and then multiply that by a set number (usually a number between 1.5 and 5).
For example, if the total amount of economic damages was $10,000, an attorney may multiply that number by three to reach a total of $30,000 for non-economic damages. Overall, an attorney would send a demand letter asking for $40,000 in total compensation for their client.
Just as a car accident can cause thousands of dollars in damages, a successful personal injury claim handled by a Mesa car accident lawyer could reimburse you for the property repairs, hospital bills, lost wages, and other losses connected to your crash. The value of your claim is an important matter for your family. It could decide your financial future. We can provide an estimate of how much we believe your car accident case is worth during a free consultation. All car accident claims, however, provide the opportunity to recover economic and non-economic damages in general. These can include out-of-pocket costs as well as physical pain and emotional suffering.
There is no set timeline for how long it will take a vehicle accident case to settle when it comes to the insurance carrier. Insurance carriers often set their timeline in these situations. In general, the less the property damage and the less severe the injuries, the quicker a settlement offer will come forward. Sometimes, an adequate settlement offer can be made within a few weeks or a month after the crash. However, that is not always the case.
If there is any dispute about who caused the crash or how much money should be paid out, it could take months for a car accident to be resolved with the insurance carrier.
We do want to point out that crash victims should never settle their case until after they have reached with their doctor calls maximum medical improvement. This is the point where their condition is not expected to improve with any further medical treatment.
The vast majority of Mesa vehicle accident cases are resolved through settlements with insurance carriers. However, in the event the insurance carrier denies a claim or refuses to offer a fair settlement amount, it may be necessary for a crash victim to file a personal injury lawsuit against the alleged negligent driver.
Even after a civil lawsuit is filed, your Mesa car accident lawyer will likely continue negotiating, and it is still unlikely that the case will go all the way to trial. Most vehicle accident personal injury cases are resolved after negotiations between attorneys for both the injury victim and the insurance carrier. However, if a fair settlement offer does not come forward, it may be necessary to take the case to a jury.
Car accident victims in Mesa have a limited amount of time to file lawsuits in these cases. The Arizona personal injury statute of limitations is two years from the date an injury occurs. This means that Mesa car accident victims have a two-year window with which to file a lawsuit against the alleged negligent driver in their case. Failing to file a lawsuit within this time frame will result in the victim being unable to recover the compensation they need, which is why consulting a Mesa car accident lawyer early is crucial.
However, we do need to point out that this statutory timeframe has nothing to do with the deadlines put in place by insurance carriers in the state of Arizona. In general, auto insurance carriers require that accidents be reported to them within a day or two after the incident occurs. Failing to follow these tight deadlines from the insurance carrier could result in a person’s claim being delayed or even denied altogether.
You are struck by an uninsured driver in the state of Arizona, which can certainly complicate the recovery of compensation. First, we do want to point out that drivers are not required to carry uninsured motorist coverage in the state of Arizona. However, we strongly encourage all drivers to consider purchasing this additional and relatively inexpensive optional coverage to help them in the event they are injured in a crash caused by an uninsured driver. There is a significant number of uninsured drivers on the roadways throughout Arizona, which is why we strongly suggest considering uninsured motorist coverage as part of your usual insurance package.
If a person does not have uninsured motorist coverage and they are struck by an uninsured driver, there are few options for recovery. The recovery of compensation will often depend on whether or not the at-fault driver has any assets to their name. For example, a crash victim could file a lawsuit against the uninsured driver directly, and they may very well secure a judgment against them. However, if a person does not have insurance on their vehicle, it is unlikely that they will have the assets available to cover any injury or property damage expenses caused by the vehicle accident.
In the hours or days following a car accident in Mesa, contact a lawyer at Shapiro Law Team for a free case evaluation. Our Mesa car accident lawyers will listen to your story and give our best advice as to how to proceed with a claim. We can help you from the very beginning with the strongest possible claim for damages. We offer free consultations so you can learn your rights at no personal risk. Call us today at (480) 300-5405 to speak to a car accident attorney near you.