The victim of an accident does not have to file a personal injury claim. Some victims elect to work with the insurance company, agreeing to its offer. Others choose to initiate a lawsuit right away, in order to put pressure on the person that caused the accident.
Why it makes sense to file a personal injury claim
That is the easiest and cheapest way to seek fair compensation for damages. That method provides the injured victim with more control over the size of the settlement. Otherwise, the insurer’s offer may end up being the total amount of money that gets handed over to the target of the defendant’s careless and neglectful behavior.
Victims that elect to try that approach do not have to hire a lawyer. Still, many of them do. Personal injury lawyers get paid on a contingency basis. Good lawyers stay up-to-date on the provisions of the law. For instance, victims of a collision that live in no-fault state should be told that their own insurance company has a legal obligation to cover the victims’ injuries.
A hired lawyer could warn a client not to settle until all the injured victims had reached their maximum medical improvement (MM). A personal injury lawyer in Sherwood Park might call a client’s/victim’s attention to some aspect of the accident that had been overlooked.
Why a claimant might decide to move forward with a lawsuit?
The victim gets to work with a team. The employees of the insurance company that are assigned to a given claimant’s case find it easy to work as a team. The claimant deserves to have the level of support that gets accorded to a team member.
Insurance companies realize that a lawsuit deprives them of an important measure of control. Initiation of a lawsuit places the insurance company at a disadvantage.
Other options
If the negotiations that follow the filing of a personal injury claim do not pave the way for creation of an agreement, the claimant does not have to initiate a lawsuit. There are alternative methods for resolving the accident-related dispute. One of those is arbitration. During arbitration, a 3rd party suggests a course of action and tries to get the 2 opposing side to agree on the carrying-out of that same action.
A second option is mediation. A mediator simply listens to the arguments presented by both sides. A mediator does not propose a solution, but does study the strengths and weaknesses in each side’s argument. Mediators have learned how to focus-in on a strong point made by either of the 2 disputing parties. Mediators strive to convince the disputing parties to accept some adaptation of an agreement that takes into consideration any strong point that has been presented.