If you were a car accident passenger, you may be curious as to what your rights are during this scary process. Injuries that occur as a result of a car accident can be potentially very devastating, for both your physical and financial health. When you suffered accident injuries as a passenger, getting help from a car accident lawyer can help make the process a lot less overwhelming. They can help you through the process of filing a personal injury claim, ensuring that you get the compensation that you deserve.
Understanding Fault for the Personal Injury Claim
Before you get into filing personal injury claims, it’s important to understand fault and how to determine who is at-fault for your injuries.
Your Driver
Every time that you get into someone else’s car, they become responsible for your safety. If the driver makes a mistake that leads to an accident, your driver could be held liable for your injuries. After an investigation takes place and if your driver is determined to be responsible for the accident, their PIP (Personal Injury Protection) insurance may be required to pay for a portion of your injuries.
There may be a situation where the driver doesn’t have enough insurance that can cover the cost of your injuries. If your driver doesn’t, you can file a personal injury claim against them.
Other Vehicle’s Driver
If an investigation declares that the other driver is at-fault for the accident, you can submit a claim with their insurance company. The other driver’s policy may cover personal injuries caused by the accident, which could cover your medical bills. If they don’t have enough to cover your costs, you can also pursue a personal injury lawsuit against the other driver.
Equal Liability
There may be situations where the investigators determine that both parties share responsibility in the car accident. If that’s the case for your situation, you can file claims with both insurance companies to cover at least a portion of your medical expenses.
Am I Responsible?
As a passenger, you may be wondering if you share any responsibility or liability for a car accident. Generally, investigators won’t find that the passenger had any liability in a car accident. You can file claims with insurance companies to get the compensation that you are entitled to. However, it’s important to know that the insurance company can potentially dismiss a passenger’s claim in certain instances. One particular instance is if you knowingly got into a car with an intoxicated driver.
Some Other Things to Consider
There are some things that you will need to consider if you were a passenger in a car accident. For one thing, you can sue the responsible driver for compensation for your injuries if their insurance coverage isn’t enough to cover your damages. A personal injury attorney can help you file this claim and determine a fair price for compensation.
Another thing to consider is the relationship that you have with the driver. Riding with someone who is a relative, such as your spouse or some other immediate family member, you won’t be able to pursue other compensation aside from what the insurance company pays out. You have given up your right to pursue further compensation when riding with a relative.
When you ride with anyone else, such as a friend or co-worker, you will have the right to sue for fair compensation for your injuries. A car accident attorney can help you better understand your rights during this process.
What Should You Do After a Car Accident as a Passenger?
Car accidents can be very overwhelming and disorienting experiences for passengers and drivers. What you do immediately after a car accident can have a major impact on whether or not you can collect compensation for your injuries. This is why it’s important to know what to do immediately after a car accident happens. Even if you are a passenger, you should be sure that you do the following as soon as possible:
- Call emergency services.
- Contact the police.
- Get a copy of the accident police report.
- Get the contact information and other information from any witnesses on site.
- Take as many pictures as you can of the scene of the accident as well as your injuries.
- Accept medical attention, even if you don’t think that you are injured.
There are a few things to take notice of here. One of the biggest things is that you should accept medical attention, even if you don’t think that you have sustained any injuries. There are a few reasons for this. First of all, you may be injured even more severely than you think that you are. Seeking out medical attention will help you catch any problems before they become more serious. This is also important because if you deny medical attention, this can be used against you to say that you were not as injured as you say you were.
As a passenger, you actually have a lot to offer in these types of cases because you have a different perspective than the driver may have. For instance, maybe you noticed that the other driver ran a stop sign and that caused the accident. Or maybe you saw them change lanes without any warnings. These are things that your driver may not have noticed because they were focused on the road. It’s important that you take your unique perspective as the passenger of the car and let the police know exactly what happened that led up to the crash.
Every detail of information and insight that you can offer to the police during these cases can be crucial to the success of your case.
Proving the Personal Injury Claim
The good news is that car insurance companies know that passengers can be injured in a car accident and will pay for any damages and other injuries that were caused by the accident. However, you should remember that insurance companies stay in business by keeping as much of their money as possible. This means that they use delay tactics and may potentially deny valid claims as a way to reduce their liabilities, the amount that they have to payout.
When you are a passenger in a car, you will typically have zero negligence when it comes to the car accident whereas your driver may have some negligence. In order to prevail in your third-party injury claim, you need to prove both damages and liability. Since in most circumstances you won’t have any liability for the accident, you just need to prove your damages. However, proving damages may not be as easy as you think it would be. This is why it’s crucial that you seek out medical attention as soon as possible after your car accident.
By getting medical attention as soon as possible, you can file a claim early on in your recovery process and have detail medical documentation that helps improve your chances of getting the compensation that you deserve. This documentation can be used by your lawyer to decide what a fair amount of compensation will be for your claim and they get the evidence that they need to prove your case.
You can file a claim for a variety of different types of damages, including:
- Current and future lost income
- Medical costs, both current and future.
- Any disfigurement caused by the accident.
- Any disability caused by a car accident.
- Pain and suffering.
Car accident attorneys can calculate a fair and reasonable amount for compensation so that you get the money that you are entitled to.
Understanding Third-Party Claims
Because you were a passenger in the car and not the driver, you need to file a third-party claim. This is the legal term used when you are making a claim against another person’s car insurance policy. The passenger will file this type of claim against whichever driver is at-fault for the accident, which includes sometimes the driver of the car they were traveling in.
How these types of claims will be filed will depend on the specific circumstances of the accident. For instance, if the car accident were a single-car accident where your driver hits a pole or a parkers car, the third-party claim would be filed against your driver’s car insurance. If this were an accident involving two cars, you could file this third-party claim with both of the drivers’ insurance companies.
So how do you file a third-party claim? This is a process that is important to do as soon as possible and should be done properly to ensure that you get the compensation that you deserve. This process involves the following:
- Be sure that there was an accident report filed and then get a copy of the report.
- Get the information from any driver that was involved in the car accident, such as their license and insurance information.
- Get medical attention and get all of the medical reports associated with your injuries.
- Save any financial information about the accident including medical bills, proof of lost wages, and proof of any other damages.
- Contact a lawyer and get them involved in the process as soon as possible.
The process of filing a third-party claim can become more complicated when there are multiple vehicles involved. It can be extremely difficult to determine which driver is to blame for the car accident, which means that your attorney will need to further investigate the matter. Every car accident has its own unique set of circumstances and the attorney is trained and experienced enough to unpack all of the evidence.
What’s important to remember is that, as the passenger, you will generally have zero negligence in these car accidents and will be entitled to full compensation for your damages.
Filing a Claim with the Other Drivers
There are different options that you have when it comes to filing a claim with insurance companies. This first option is to file a claim with the other driver’s car insurance. This will generally be your first option, especially if the other car were to blame for the accident. Drivers are required to have some insurance when driving.
If there were multiple injured parties in the car accident, the amount that the insurance companies will cover gets reduced so that it may not be enough to cover your damages. It may not even be enough to cover damages if you were the only injured party. The compensation may potentially be denied if the benefits have been exhausted.
It can be complicated to get insurance money from the other driver, especially when it’s hard to determine which party is actually at-fault for the accident. If this is the situation when it comes to the car accident you were injured in, you need to be sure that you have a lawyer on your side to help you navigate through this complicated process.
Filing a Claim with Your Driver’s Insurance
Another option is to file a claim with your driver’s insurance policy. This can be one of the simplest approaches, going with their PIP (Personal Injury Protection) and MedPay (Medical Payments). These policies will cover anyone who is in the car, which is considered to be “first-party benefits”. What this means for you is that your driver can file this claim no matter who was at fault for the accident and then they will receive the payout for any medical expenses. This can be your best option as a passenger injured in a car accident because you will get faster reimbursement for your damages and the rates won’t go up.
There are some disadvantages with this approach that you should consider. MedPay is not considered to be a mandatory policy for drivers, so often drivers will pass up this option. This means that you may not get the compensation that you need to cover your damages. Even if they do have both of these policy options, this still may not be enough to cover your expenses.
You also have the option for filing with their BI (Bodily Injury Liability) if they don’t have MedPay or PIP. It’s normal to feel hesitant about taking this specific approach especially when the driver is a close friend or loved one. You don’t want any conflicts in these relationships and filing claims like that can be detrimental to relationships. But you do need to think about ensuring that you get the compensation that you need to cover your medical expenses and other damages.
While you may be hesitant to take this approach, you have to remember that you are not going after them personally; you are going after their insurance company. Your friend doesn’t have anything really to do with the process since it goes from your lawyers to their insurance company. If you are still nervous about taking this process, you can try going through the other driver’s insurance for as much money as you possibly can before going through your friend or family’s insurance.
Filing a Claim with Your Own Car Insurance
A final option that you can consider is one that you may not have considered: your own insurance company. You may be thinking “but I wasn’t driving my car, how can I use my car insurance?” If your insurance policy has PIP or MedPay, you can use your insurance to pay for any medical bills related to this accident.
The downside of taking this approach is that when you are filing your own claim, you may notice an increase in your rates. There are also limits to these policies, so if your injuries are extensive then you may not get the full compensation you need to cover your damages. The good news is that it may be enough to cover some of your immediate bills for medical treatments.
You should also take advantage of your health insurance to help pay for your medical costs. Unfortunately, you will likely need to exhaust your other options from your insurance policy, your driver’s policy, or the policy of the other driver. You should check with your health insurance to see what their policies are in these specific situations. It’s also important to know that you will likely need to pay the deductible before you can access the full health insurance benefits.
Check with a car accident attorney near you for a consultation.
