Hi, my name is Matt Eason, and in this video, I’m going to address a question that I get a lot, and that is, “what happens if someone hits you with a car?”
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To answer that question, it really requires context. Are you referring to physical injuries? What happens to your body? Or, are you referring to the claims process? What happens with a claim? In this video, we are going to discuss both of those.
With respect to physical injuries to the body, there are some that are obviously apparent, such as broken bones and bleeding and stitches and things like that. Some injuries aren’t so apparent and are often referred to as soft tissue type injuries. Most of those soft tissue injuries will reach a maximum pain threshold. Usually, about 24 hours after the accident and with the proper kind of care from a physical therapist, chiropractor, something like that usually resolves themselves completely in eight to ten weeks. Unfortunately, some cases take longer than eight to ten weeks and may require an MRI or other diagnostic testing to find out exactly what is wrong. But the good news is that for the large group of people, the bell curve so to speak, 80-90% of people will reach maximum recovery in about eight to ten weeks after an accident.
The other part of the questions is, “what happens in the claims process after an accident?” Well, once the insurance companies are aware of the claim, they are going to call and try to get recorded statements. You really want to understand what they are trying to accomplish with those recorded statements. They are a business trying to reduce their expenses, and you are an expense. So when they call you, they are trying to get information from you that will be negative to you but beneficial to them so they can reduce their expenses.
Our recommendation to you is that when they want to ask about the injuries, you simply say that you were physically injured, but you don’t want to discuss the extent of your injuries until they are fully known and treated. Now understand, though, that there are statutory time periods to bring in action. If you don’t bring it within those time periods, it is waived. Generally speaking, you have two years for a car accident to bring a claim in California. There are some exceptions when the claim is against a government entity or someone who was driving within the course and scope of their employment with a government entity. It might be as short as six months. But it is certainly a much longer period than a week later when the insurance company is trying to get a statement from you.
With respect to the process of what happens after a car accident, the issue really boils down to trying to resolve the case before going to court or resolving it in the court system. When you are done with all your treatment, typically, a demand package is given to the insurance company responsible for the accident. In that demand package, we usually provide information that provides evidence of your medical treatment, your medical bills, as well as any evidence of any wage loss and things of that nature. From that demand package, we attempt to settle the case, and if we don’t get a responsible offer, unfortunately, we usually don’t, then we will file a lawsuit with the court. When we file a lawsuit with the court oftentimes, we get a more senior adjuster and or an attorney to look at the file, giving us another opportunity to settle the case sooner than later. The changes of settling at that stage go up, but unfortunately, not all cases settle at that point, and in which case, you begin the litigation process. The first step of the litigation process is usually what is called the discovery phase. The discovery phase is where we provide responses to written questions about your injuries and provide them with documents, and they are providing similar information to us. Then there might be a deposition, which is not as bad as it sounds. Usually, it lasts about an hour in most personal injury cases, and then we will try one more time to resolve the case. If it’s not resolved, unfortunately, we do go to a trial and ask for a judge and or jury to decide your claim’s value. Statistically speaking, only about 2% of cases do wind up going to a judge or jury, but you have to treat every single case like it’s going to go because if you don’t, that’s the one that does.
Hopefully, this video answered some of your questions about what happens after a car accident. My name is Matt Eason. If you’ve been involved in a car accident and you would like a free consultation with an attorney about personal injury claims, I hope you will consider giving me a call or my firm of Eason & Tambornini. We are located at 1234 H Street, Sacramento, California, 95814.
