After a Crash, Use Your Insurance!
Some people pay for insurance, get into an accident and never use it. They hesitate to use their insurance because of the common misconception that their rates will go up or that the process is too complicated. In reality, the best thing you can do after an accident is to contact your insurance and tell them what happened to get the record straight from the start.
When you only go after the other driver’s insurance, you miss out on a serious portion of your compensation. By law, your insurance policy is supposed to provide you with personal injury protection, which is meant to cover costs from medical damages and lost wages that you experience as a direct result of the accident.
Although talking to an insurance company can feel intimidating, getting the compensation you deserve is in your best interest. A lawyer can be a powerful intermediary that can help you get fully compensated for all of your damages; we can connect you to one now.
Your Rates Don’t Go Up For Using Your Insurance
Your rates should never go up because you used your insurance. Instead, what may happen is after an accident, your riskiness as a driver goes up, specifically the risk that you will get into an accident.
If your insurance goes up after an accident, it will be regardless of whether you used it to cover your damages. That means your best action after an accident is to use your coverage to ensure you get fully compensated.
Some insurance companies have a feature in their policies known as accident forgiveness, which considers that accidents are infrequent. Taking this into account, your riskiness as a driver should not change, meaning your rates remain the same, even if you were at fault.
Your insurance rate can go up for simply being in an accident, not because you used your insurance to cover your damages. Call your insurance after an accident and file a claim because if your rates increase, they will increase regardless of whether you file a claim.
You Cannot Use Health Insurance for Accident-Related Injuries
When you seek medical attention due to injuries sustained by accident, you must use your car insurance to treat them. If you try using your health insurance to treat those injuries without car insurance, you will be denied coverage for the first $10,000.00 of your treatment.
Florida is a No-Fault state, which means that it does not matter who’s at fault in an accident; you must, by law, have a certain kind of coverage that entitles you to a set amount of medical care after an accident. Even if you were responsible for causing the accident because you were injured, you are still entitled to $10,000.00 in personal injury protection.
After an accident, you must treat your injuries using your auto insurance; only after you have exhausted those benefits can you seek further compensation. That is to say that using PIP affects not only your access to your health insurance coverage but also your access to help from the other drivers’ body injury coverage.
Your Claims Can Be Fully Denied
When you do not use the benefits from your insurance company that you rightfully deserve, you can create a path leading to your claims being entirely denied. Thanks to Florida’s no-fault status, you are entitled to $10,000.00 in personal injury protection for any medical damages you sustain due to an accident.
These benefits exist specifically to cover medical expenses incurred directly due to the accident; if you do not use them, the insurance company can question the magnitude of your injuries. Specifically, they would ask: “if your injuries were so great, why did you refuse your PIP benefits?”
By going through your auto insurance provider and exhausting your PIP benefits, you are giving the other driver’s insurance company a clear signal that your injuries are substantial and require the necessary treatment. Establishing a legitimate medical history is essential to getting the maximum compensation you deserve; that is why you must use your PIP benefits.
Your Insurance Might Cover the Whole Accident
Some auto insurance policies have coverage called uninsured or underinsured motorist, which is protection against drivers who either do not have bodily injury coverage or do not pay enough to cover their medical damages. The process for these kinds of claims is essentially the same as a body injury claim, except you seek compensation from your own insurance company.
When you have UM and get into an accident, you have no choice but to contact your auto insurance to receive these kinds of benefits to get yourself fully compensated for your damages. Using UM should not raise your rates either. If you are unsure if you have this kind of coverage, call us now, and our experts can review your policy.
You Can Be Held Responsible
The most significant consequence of not contacting your insurance company after an accident is missing the opportunity to set the record straight. If you were not liable for the accident, but the other driver contacts your insurance first, they will give their side of the story and most certainly deny liability.
The insurance company allows you to respond by asking you for your side of the story. However, the fact that you did not reach out first detracts from your credibility, making you seem like you are acting defensive instead of offensive. Make sure you contact your insurance company after an accident; better yet, contact them at the scene of the accident so you can recount your side as clearly as possible.
After You Call Your Insurance, Call a Lawyer
After you talk to your insurance company and establish the series of events from your perspective, you must begin the claims process against the other driver’s insurance company to maximize your compensation. Most insurance policies only cover up to $10,000.00 of your medical damages; the rest has to come from the other driver’s insurance.
Going after the other insurance company is less straightforward than seeking compensation from your policy because you do not have access to the phone applications that simplify the claims process or a direct line to file the claim. In addition, when you file these types of claims, you are going after benefits that are not guaranteed by law, so they foster a sense of hostility towards your claim.
A lawyer can help you get compensated without the insurance companies’ stress. We can connect you to attorneys with vast experience fighting insurance companies to help their clients cover all their damages. Call now for a free consultation; we will connect you with an experienced accident attorney.