A single car accident can have an enormous effect on your life. You may be suffering from a serious and painful injury, looking into repairing or replacing your car, dealing with insurance claims, and trying to stay calm despite the stress of it all. Plus, if the accident wasn’t your fault, you may be considering filing a lawsuit. It’s an overwhelming situation, to say the least.
While car wrecks can affect your life in myriad ways—physically, mentally, emotionally—one of the major post-crash hurdles is paying for all the mounting expenses involved. The more serious the crash, the more expensive—an unfair burden accident victims are subjected to. Our New Haven car accident attorneys explain five major ways car accidents affect your financial wellbeing.
Medical Expenses
Hospital bills and other medical expenses are often the biggest loss car accident victims suffer following a crash. Treatment costs can vary wildly depending on the severity of your injuries, but you may suddenly have to pay for things like prescription medication, surgery, physical therapy, counseling, and more.
Victims who have suffered catastrophic injuries, like severe spinal cord damage or a traumatic brain injury, can incur lifelong costs if they require assistive devices and ongoing care and attention. These costs can add up to be in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars—per year.
Lost Wages
If your auto accident injuries are serious enough to require hospitalization and/or time off work, then you will lose out on the income you normally would be able to take home. Depending on how long your injuries keep you away from work, your losses can be significant. In worse cases, car accident victims who suffer severe, debilitating injuries might have to quit their jobs for good.
Increased Auto Insurance Premiums
Were you at fault for the crash? When you file a car accident claim with your auto insurance carrier, your insurance company may increase your premium—even if you were only partially to blame. Even a small increase in your monthly bill can add up significantly, especially on top of all your other expenses.
Vehicle Repair Costs
In the likely event that your car was damaged in the wreck, you’ll have to pay for whatever repairs your insurance company won’t cover. If your vehicle was totaled, then you may have to pay for a brand new (or used) car. Even with financing, adding a monthly car payment to your budget may not be realistic on top of everything else.
Legal Fees
Lawyer fees are only an issue if you have to hire someone to help with your injury claim; yet, hiring a lawyer is often the best (and in some cases only) way to ensure you receive fair and just compensation after an accident that wasn’t your fault. Otherwise, insurance companies and other entities might take advantage of your lack of legal knowledge to talk you into accepting a low settlement or even to deny your claim entirely. So, while working with a lawyer does cost money, it is often a worthy investment. The same goes if you were at fault for your crash as well.
The good news is, if you hire an experienced car accident attorney such as those at Action Law Group, your legal fees will come out of your winning settlement rather than out of your pocket. That’s right—most lawyers work on a contingency basis, so if you win your case, you’re not actually responsible for paying your lawyer. And if you lose, you shouldn’t owe your attorney a thing.
Contact a Local Legal Advocate to Recover Your Losses
A New Haven car accident attorney can help you recover compensation for all the above if you were at little or no fault for causing the accident which led to your injuries. Our lawyers have years of experience fighting for car accident victims’ right to fair and just compensation that will cover all their accident-related expenses. We don’t think people who have been hurt at no fault of their own should be responsible for costs they did not incur.
If you or a loved one has been hurt in a serious auto wreck at little or no fault of your own, contact us now at (203) 439-3143 or write to us online.