17 April 2023
 Categories: Law, Blog

Even if you have a rock-solid personal injury claim, a few key mistakes can upend the whole thing. You need to know what these four mistakes are and how to steer clear of them.

Insufficient Evidence

Whenever personal injury attorneys tackle cases, their goal is to collect sufficient evidence to make the defendant or their insurer avoid a potentially expensive legal proceeding. To that end, you want to bring as much evidence to bear as possible. Collect every bit of paperwork that comes your way from police officers, first responders, doctors, ambulance companies, and insurers. If you have the opportunity, try to get people's names and contact information so your injury attorney can catch up with them and collect testimony.

Also, try to make copies or produce digital backups of everything. Store the originals safely in case you need to produce them to verify signatures, stamps, or other authenticators. Provide the copies to a personal injury attorney so they can assess and present the evidence.

Settling Quickly

There are times when an insurer offers a good settlement early. However, the biggest problem is your doctor could take a while to figure out the extent of your long-term injuries. For example, swollen tissue around damaged bones or nerves can mask significant long-term problems. You don't want to settle a case only to find out a few months from now that there was an undiscovered problem.

Once you settle, the insurance company is done paying you. That is one of the benefits of settling cases for them. Consequently, a personal injury attorney won't encourage you to settle until you know the full picture.

Filing Late

Statutory time limits apply to most injury claims. You have X amount of time to notify the defendant or their insurer that you intend to seek damages. If you fail to send them a formal demand letter in that timeframe, they don't have to settle at all. You don't want to wait too long to start building a case because your lawyer will need time to develop it. Start the process of finding a personal injury attorney early so you don't have to risk a late filing.

Undershooting Damages

Finally, people sometimes make the mistake of undershooting their damages. As previously noted, once an insurer settles they don't pay anything more. If you end up paying an additional expense like in-home nursing, the money from the settlement could run out. You need the damages to cover all of your long-term needs. 

For more info, contact a local personal injury lawyer.