Personal Injury Tips

This article offers personal injury tips to those who have been victimized by personal injury.  When you suffer a personal injury, there are numerous people who may try to contact you.  Insurance companies will try to get a recorded statement from you, where they will try to get you to minimize your damages or admit to some fault in the accident.  Personal injury attorneys will send you packets of materials in their attempt to get you to use their services.  “Injury helplines” will call you every day trying to get you onto a referral list that attorneys pay to receive.  These are not helplines.  They are telemarketers.  Medical providers will call you asking for payment.  If the matter lasts long enough, collection agencies will start sending notices and call you.

With all of this noise, the best solution may seem to be settling as quickly as possible with the insurance company and getting this whole ordeal over with.  Not so fast.  Once you settle your claim, your medical insurance, automobile insurance and/or homeowner’s insurance may want reimbursement for the money they paid on your behalf, a process called subrogation.  That offer from the insurance company may not seem so good anymore, does it?  What if your injury flares up again in the future?  Too late.  You settled with them forever.  You do not get a second bite at the apple.  What if the insurance company says all they have is $25,000.00?  Take it and run?  Not if you realize there are other options.

The first two paragraphs show how difficult it is to handle your own personal injury case.  Decisions may be made out of frustration and the need to get the money to get the bill collectors off your back.  Would you make any other important decision in your life that way?  Alright, you say, but the extra money the personal injury attorney is going to get will just go to the personal injury attorney.  Not necessarily.  Let’s use an example.  If the offer is $25,000.00 and you have $20,000.00 in medical bills, you are left with $5,000.00.  If the attorney knows how to get $50,000.00 for that same claim, can settle the medical bills for $15,000.00, and the attorney gets one-third of the recovery, what do you get?

$50,000.00  Total settlement

$16,667.00  Attorney fee

$15,000.00  Subrogation

$ 1,000.00   Incidental costs (medical records, filing fee, etc.)

$17,333.00  Your portion

While this is only an example and the value of a case may vary depending on the facts, the example cited above is not all that unusual.  Further, that first insurance company may very well have been telling you the truth when they said that they only had a policy limit of $25,000.00.  As you can see, this hypothetical client did better with an attorney than on his or her own.

How do you help your own case and help your attorney?  Here are some important personal injury tips.  Do not talk to insurance companies about your accident.  Keep track of lost wages.  Keep your medical bills.  Take pictures.  Gather witness information.  Follow up with your doctor if you continue to feel pain.  Do not allow the solicitors to badger you into have them choose your attorney.  Let your attorney get to work for you on getting you compensated for your loss.

To learn more, read my other articles related to personal injury tips, where I wrote about negligent entrustment, medical bills in Ohio personal injury cases, slip and fall personal injury cases in Ohio, bifurcating personal injury trials in Ohio, and Ohio traffic accident tips.   Don’t forget to look at my personal injury page. Attorney Gigiano’s successful representation of his clients is reflected in the following links to his reviews: Daniel Gigiano reviews; Daniel Gigiano ratings; and Daniel Gigiano work results.

Attorney Gigiano is a Wadsworth personal injury attorney in Medina County.  Attorney Gigiano relies on clients contacting him first through personal referrals and other non-intrusive sources.  Attorney Gigiano does not solicit personal injury cases by direct mail, nor does he use an intrusive referral service.  Attorney Gigiano believes that you have the right to be left alone until you are ready to make the decision to hire an attorney.  Hiring an attorney is a personal process that you should not be coerced or badgered into doing.  If you have questions about person injury tips or other questions you need answered by an experienced Medina County personal injury lawyer in Wadsworth, please call Attorney Daniel F. Gigiano at 330-336-3330.