Have you been injured because someone else was negligent? Perhaps you’re the victim of a car accident or a bad fall on someone’s premises.
These situations can be scary, and they can shake our confidence. Fortunately, this is where filing a claim for your injuries can help to provide you with financial security and hopefully a certain peace of mind while you recover.
Of course, if you’re going to file a claim, that means you’ll have to convince an insurance company to pay out.
This is why it’s a good idea to choose a good personal injury lawyer to help you. Here are 5 reasons a personal injury lawyer is a must.
Reason 1): Insurance Companies Like to Limit Their Liabilities
Like all of us, insurance companies don’t like to have to pay more for things than they have to.
Unfortunately, that means the stakes for you are rather high. If the insurance company you are dealing with can find a reason your claim should be thrown out, they’ll take advantage of it.
Even if the insurance company doesn’t try to get your claim dismissed, they may still insist on paying you a pittance of what you really should be getting (more about this below).
Of course, insurance companies tend to have excellent legal representation, and you can be sure they’ll take full advantage of it. Why not try to even the field?
Reason 2): Personal Injury Lawyers Get Paid Only If You Do
As personal injury firm Lampert & Walsh (LampertandWalsh.com) explains, personal injury lawyers work on contingency.
What does this mean? Simple: it means you won’t have to pay them anything up front, and they’ll only get paid if they deliver results.
Because the object of a personal injury lawsuit is to recover compensation for damages, personal injury firms can afford to work in this way. The best ones will even give you a free consultation to see what your options might be.
Reason 3): This is What They Do
Have you ever negotiated a settlement? Have you ever filed any kind of claim before?
If you’re like most people, this is a whole new world, and you are likely to find that there are many things that are out of your proverbial wheelhouse. That’s okay: there’s certainly no shame in not having experience in this highly specialized field.
However, this is a yet another good reason to hire a personal injury lawyer: this is their world, and they have experience with it.
To take only one example of the kind of trouble your lawyer can save you, insurance companies are masters of red tape. If you are not an expert in red tape, complete with technical medical and legal terms, that’s exactly the kind of thing you’ll be saving yourself with a personal injury lawyer.
Reason 4): They’ll Be More Objective
Let’s face facts, getting hurt in an accident or because of someone’s negligence on their premises is very difficult. Anyone who has experienced that is well within their rights to be angry and upset.
The problem, though, is that when we’re angry and upset, and possibly feeling a certain amount of fear as well, our judgment is also not at its best.
A personal injury lawyer, on the other hand, is intimately familiar with this area of the law and is capable of maintaining a more objective state of mind. This means they’ll help you stay grounded, providing some much-needed perspective.
Having someone to be your anchor in a situation like this can be immensely helpful and reassuring.
Reason 5): They’ll Help You Get What You’re Really Worth
The process of assessing how much a claim is worth is quite complex, and numerous things may affect it in one way or another.
Depending on what happened, you’ll need to look at physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, what happened, and how badly it hurt you. There may be a need for accident reconstruction specialists.
Given all of this complexity, there are numerous opportunities for an insurance company to try to downplay how much you’ve actually been hurt.
In fact, you can be virtually certain that the insurance company will try to give you a lowball offer up front.
These companies know that even if they can’t get everybody with a lowball offer, they can get some people. It’s in their interest to try it and see if it works.
A good personal injury attorney, however, will make sure nothing like this happens. They’ll help you make sure you get the amount your claim is really worth.
Conclusion
An accident can be a difficult and life-changing experience. Filling a claim to receive compensation for your injuries can help you gain peace of mind, but only if you get a reasonable amount from the insurance company.
As we’ve seen here, hiring a good personal injury lawyer is the best thing you can do to protect your interests in this situation.
