Whether or not you need a lawyer after a car crash isn’t always obvious from the severity of the accident alone. Disputes over fault, the nature of your injuries, how the insurance company responds, and other factors can affect the complexity of your case and whether or not you’ll need a lawyer. If you do have a case, most of the time an experienced car accident attorney can help you negotiate a significantly higher settlement than you’d likely see on your own.
Does your situation match any of the following? If so, you may need an attorney.
- You were injured, even if symptoms felt minor at first
- The other driver is disputing fault or placing blame on you
- You’ve already been contacted by an insurance adjuster
- Your injuries are keeping you from work or require ongoing treatment
- The crash involved a commercial truck, rideshare vehicle, or multiple drivers
If you’re unsure whether your situation warrants an attorney, a free case evaluation costs nothing and gives you a clear answer. Contact Lesser, Landy, Smith & Siegel, PLLC today at (561) 655-2028 to speak with one of our car accident lawyers about your situation. If we take your case, you’ll pay nothing unless we recover compensation.
Getting a Lawyer After a Crash: A Closer Look
You Were Injured in the Crash
Injuries from a car crash don’t always reveal their full extent immediately. Adrenaline can mask pain for hours, and whiplash, soft tissue damage, concussions, and spinal injuries can worsen significantly over the following days as inflammation sets in and normal movement resumes.
Insurance adjusters may reach out soon after a crash with a settlement offer, before there is a complete picture of your injuries. If you accept that offer, your case will be over, regardless of what doctors find in the following days and weeks.
Our car accident attorneys make sure your injuries are fully documented as they develop, and you don’t settle until your doctors have a complete picture of your condition and what your recovery will cost now as well as in the future.
Injuries That Are Keeping You From Work or Require Ongoing Treatment
When injuries affect your ability to work or require continued medical care, the financial stakes of your case extend well beyond your initial medical bills. Lost income, follow-up treatment, physical therapy, specialist visits, and potential long-term care all factor into what you are eligible to recover, and insurance routinely makes offers that don’t account for any of those ongoing costs.
Our team will make sure those figures are fully documented and included before any settlement discussions begin. They’ll use your medical records, employer documentation, and where needed, expert testimony to establish the full scope of your losses.
Accidents Where Fault Is Disputed or Shared
What a driver admits at the scene is not necessarily what their insurance company will argue later. Even if the other driver apologized, was cited by police, or seemed clearly at fault, their insurer can still dispute liability once adjusters get involved, and will look for any reason to assign a portion of blame onto you.
Insurance companies may ask you for a recorded statement at the beginning of the process. If anything you say contradicts your account of the crash, it can be used against you later. Our attorneys handle all communication with the insurer on your behalf, so nothing you say can be taken out of context or used to weaken your case.
How Shared Fault Affects Your Recovery in Florida
Under Florida’s modified comparative fault law, your recovery is reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you. For example, if you are found to be 20 percent at fault, it means you recover 20 percent less. If you are found over 50 percent at fault, however, you are barred from recovering anything.
Insurance companies know this and will look for any basis to assign partial blame: a momentary distraction, a lane position, a following distance, and any factor that could change the fault percentage in their favor.
Our attorneys push back on fault assignments with documented evidence, accident reconstruction where needed, and a working knowledge of how insurance companies build fault arguments.
Uninsured or Underinsured Drivers
When the at-fault driver has no insurance or not enough coverage to pay for your injuries, your own insurance policy becomes the primary source of recovery through your uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage. At that point, you are essentially filing a claim against your own insurer, and your own insurer, just like any other insurance company, will look for ways to pay you as little as possible.
Our attorneys know how to document your injuries, negotiate with your insurance company, and push back when they undervalue your claim, which is likely what they may try to do.
Accidents With Commercial Vehicles, Multiple Drivers, or a Government Entity
Crashes with commercial trucks, rideshare vehicles, multiple at-fault drivers, or government-owned vehicles introduce layers of liability that a standard two-car accident doesn’t have.
Commercial Truck Accidents
A trucking company’s insurer typically has attorneys on retainer and begins investigating immediately after a crash. Investigation is designed to protect the trucking company, not you, and the evidence they collect in those first hours can be used to limit what you recover.
Part of what makes cases with a company vehicle more complex than a standard car accident is that the driver may not be the only party responsible. Depending on what caused the crash, liability can extend to:
- The trucking company
- A cargo loader
- A maintenance contractor
- A vehicle manufacturer
Each of those parties carries their own insurance coverage, and properly identifying all of them can be the difference between partial or full recovery. Our attorney will know where to look and act quickly before evidence disappears or gets destroyed in cases with commercial vehicles.
Rideshare Accidents
Uber and Lyft drivers use their personal vehicles, which means two separate insurance policies are potentially in play: their personal auto insurance and the rideshare company’s commercial policy.
- A driver who was actively transporting a passenger falls under Uber or Lyft’s commercial policy.
- A driver who was waiting for a ride request may only have partial coverage from the rideshare company.
- A driver who was off the app entirely falls back on their personal insurance, which may not cover accidents that occurred while the vehicle was being used commercially.
Each scenario points to a different insurer, a different coverage limit, and a different set of arguments about who is responsible. An attorney works through that and makes sure the right policy is paying the full amount owed.
Government Vehicle Accidents
Accidents with a government vehicle, whether a city bus, county car, or state agency vehicle, follow a different set of rules than a standard car accident case. In Florida, before you can sue a government entity, you are required to file a formal notice of claim within three years of the accident. Certain local government entities have even shorter windows. Miss that deadline and your case is gone, regardless of how clear it is that the government vehicle caused the crash.
Government entities in Florida also have caps on how much they can be held liable for, currently $200,000 per person and $300,000 per incident for most claims, and certain types of claims are restricted or prohibited entirely if the government was performing a discretionary function, meaning a decision-making role rather than a routine operational one. A city bus driver running a red light is generally actionable, but a government agency’s decision about where to place a traffic signal may not be. Our attorneys are familiar with government liability cases and know how those distinctions apply to your situation and how to build a case that clears those hurdles.
Fatal Crashes and Permanent Disability Cases
A fatal car accident or one that results in permanent disability carries financial consequences that compound an already devastating situation. Lost income that will never be recovered, long-term care that has to be planned for, and the losses suffered by surviving family members all have to be calculated and documented, and none of those figures are typically very easy to establish.
In Florida, wrongful death cases can be brought by a surviving spouse, children, or parents of the deceased, and in some cases by other dependents. Our attorneys identify who has standing to bring the case, handle every aspect of the process so the family doesn’t have to, and make sure the full scope of those losses is on record before any settlement discussions begin.
Hiring an Attorney Can Increase Case Value
One of the benefits of hiring an attorney is making sure every category of loss is accounted for before any settlement discussions begin. A car accident case can include two types of damages:
Economic Damages
Economic damages are the documentable, out-of-pocket losses: medical bills, lost wages, future treatment costs, and property damage. Records and employer documentation can establish most of these figures, but insurance companies still routinely undervalue them by disputing the necessity of certain treatment or excluding projected future costs.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages cover pain and suffering, emotional distress, and loss of enjoyment of life. There is no invoice or medical code for any of it, and that absence of documentation is what insurance companies count on when making an offer on those losses.
How Our Attorneys Document Your Losses
Our attorneys build a record that accounts for both categories. For non-economic losses, that record draws on medical records, physician statements, personal testimony, family and colleague accounts, and expert witnesses who can speak to the long-term impact of your injuries. Without that documentation, the insurance company assigns whatever number they find convenient, and you have little basis to push back.
Find Out if You Need a Lawyer for Your Car Accident
If you are still weighing whether to hire an attorney, consider that the insurance company handling your case is already building its position. Evidence has a short shelf life, and settlement offers made in the first days after a crash rarely account for the full extent of your injuries or what your recovery will cost over time.
A free case evaluation with Lesser, Landy, Smith & Siegel gives you a clear answer about where your case stands and what it may be worth. If we take your case, you pay nothing unless we recover compensation for you.
Contact Lesser, Landy, Smith & Siegel today at (561) 655-2028.
