Times When It Makes the Most Sense to Hire a Lawyer After a Car Accident

You will not need to hire a lawyer after many car accidents. For instance, maybe another driver hits your vehicle, and you’re in an at-fault state. The other driver and their insurance company admit they caused the accident. In that scenario, you should do fine without hiring a lawyer.

If you are hurt in a car accident, though, that makes it more likely you will need to retain an attorney. You can probably think of some other situations where it makes sense to do so as well.

We will talk about some of those in the following article.

The Cost of Your Injuries Exceeds What the Insurance Policy Covers

If you’re in either an at-fault or no-fault state, then it’s possible that you can get a car insurance policy to cover your medical bills. These bills might include the cost of your surgery if you needed one after the accident. Maybe you also needed to buy medication or you had to go through physical therapy sessions.

If you have PIP insurance, and you’re in a no-fault state, then your policy should cover such costs. You might also get the other driver’s policy to cover the cost of your medical bills if the other driver caused the crash, and they and their insurance company both admit that.

However, if you are in an at-fault state, the other driver caused the accident, and the full amount of their insurance policy doesn’t completely cover the cost of your medical bills, that’s when you will presumably want to hire a car accident lawyer. You will likely need to sue the other driver to attempt to recoup the remaining cost of those medical bills. Otherwise, you will have to pay for those out of pocket, and presumably, you never want to do that.

A Commercial Vehicle Hit You

You will probably want to retain a lawyer after a car accident if a commercial vehicle hit you. When we’re talking about commercial vehicles, we mean something like a garbage truck or a semi-trailer filled with goods that runs into you when you’re out on the highway.

If a commercial vehicle hits you, and the other driver caused the accident, then you might have to navigate a more complex system with their insurance company than you would if a driver in a personal, non-commercial vehicle struck you. You will probably want to have a lawyer by your side who knows about these kinds of accidents and who can give you advice.

The Other Driver Won’t Admit Their Guilt in an At-Fault State

Maybe you’re in an at-fault state, and you feel certain that the other driver caused your car accident. However, they see things differently. They won’t admit that they caused the crash.

Their insurance company might not admit it, either. Perhaps they look at the crash site, hear from the other driver, and they decide that they don’t want to pay for your economic losses.

If either of those things happen, then you will definitely want to hire a lawyer. You will probably need to sue either the other driver or their insurance company.

The lawyer and their investigator or investigative team can help you to uncover as much physical evidence as possible that you can use at trial if the situation progresses that far. With this evidence, you can hopefully convince a jury that the other driver did, in fact, cause the accident. Then, you can collect money through either a settlement or a jury’s verdict in your favor.

You’re in a Car Wreck with Several Other Vehicles

You might want to hire a lawyer after a car accident if you’re in a wreck where it’s not at all clear who caused the accident. If you’re in a crash involving several other vehicles, you will probably want legal representation.

For instance, maybe you’re going through an intersection, and another driver plows into you, causing a T-bone collision. Their car hitting yours makes the capital letter T, hence the name of that kind of crash.

However, the other driver only hit you that way because another motorist ran into them and pushed them into the intersection. The police sometimes call such collisions chain reaction accidents.

Maybe there’s four or five cars total that sustained damage in the accident. It’s difficult to figure out at the scene who’s at fault.

If you’re also looking at bad weather or other mitigating factors, then these situations become even more convoluted. If you’re in an at-fault state, and you’re trying to get another driver’s insurance to pay for the damages to your vehicle and other economic losses, having a skilled car accident lawyer on your side who can sort through the evidence and determine who should cover the damages becomes vital.

You Have Non-Economic Losses for Which You Need Restitution

You will also probably want to hire an attorney after a car wreck if you feel that you have sustained non-economic losses as well as economic ones. With non-economic losses, collecting the money that you feel you’re due becomes more difficult. It almost always requires a lawsuit.

Usually, in these instances, you’re suing the other driver. If you feel sure that they caused the accident, and their insurance only covered your economic losses, then suing them for your non-economic ones likely represents your best path forward.

Maybe the other driver drove drunk and hit your car or exceeded the speed by 20 miles per hour when they hit you. In the aftermath, maybe you find that you have PTSD. You shake every time you try to get back behind the wheel in the days after the crash.

That’s the kind of thing for which you will want to collect non-economic damages. You’ll likely feel that to balance the scales of justice, you need to get money from the other driver. Their reckless behavior caused your condition. Hopefully, a jury will see things that way too.