Alberta, Canada has a province-wide auto insurance system. That same system provides insured drivers with a special process for delivery of accident benefits.
Each delivery process reflects the method that has been used for requesting a fair compensation.
• Some drivers submit an application for statutory benefits.
• Some drivers supplement the statutory benefits with personal coverage.
• Some drivers file a claim.
What are the statutory benefits?
Those are available to any resident of Alberta that has been involved in a motor vehicle accident, regardless of who has been held responsible for that same incident. Yet the person injured in an accident must apply for those benefits. That fact highlights one aspect of the lawyer’s role in Alberta’s system.
In the application, the requested damages need to be categorized correctly. Failure to complete that action successfully can lead to denial of benefits. On the other hand, a victim does have the right to seek additional accident benefits. An employee that has been injured has the right to seek income replacement. Victims that need special care during their recovery have the right to seek reimbursement for the cost of attendant care.
Nature of optional personal coverage
Each policyholder has the ability to add optional coverage to his or her auto insurance policy. The policyholder gets to use the added coverage when the other driver has been held responsible for the reported accident.
Any victim of an accident in Alberta does enjoy the right to file a claim
It could be a claim against the responsible driver.
It could be a claim for short- or long-term disability insurance.
Factors affecting the size of an accident victim’s compensation
• The type of claim that has been made
• Any details in the claim that offer proof of negligence on the part of a certain driver, namely the one that has been blamed for the accident.
• Any evidence that the plaintiff has carried out an act of comparative negligence
• The nature of the reported injury: A victim with a hard injury can expect a larger compensation than one with only a soft injury.
• The extent of any reported injuries: Did any of them cause the victim/claimant to become disabled? Did any of them cause the victim/claimant to become disfigured in some fashion?
Personal injury lawyer in Sherwood Park know that victims that assume the absence of injuries invite the risk of overlooking a serious medical problem. Some conditions do not produce clear symptoms, right after the accident’s occurrence. In such cases, a claimant might agree to settle before the state of maximum medical improvement has been reached. In other words, what seems, at first, to be a fair compensation could turn out, later, to fall far short of covering all the medical expenses.