St Petersburg Car Accident Attorney

To get a clear understanding of how much money you are entitled to for an accident settlement, your attorney will need to take a deep look into the financial impact, including medical bills, the accident has had, as well as the impact the accident has had on your life, health, and well-being. Two people involved in the same accident will have significantly different damage amounts simply because of the varying costs of medical care, the impacts on their earnings, and more. There is no set settlement amount for an accident, and getting the money you deserve often involves aggressive negotiations with the insurance company.

You are under no legal obligation to hire an attorney at any point, but the reality is that you should be able to focus on your recovery without the added stress of a legal case. In addition, the reality is that your attorney likely has much more experience handling these cases than you do, which is a major benefit regardless of whether or not you are dealing with life-changing injuries. Working with a lawyer who operates on contingency fees means that you will not pay unless they win and that they will collect a percentage of the final settlement. Knowing that you will not pay out of pocket for an attorney can help ease your worrying when you realize that comprehensive legal support is within your reach.

The sooner you have an attorney representing your case, the better. The moment you initiate a claim with an insurance company, an adjuster will be assigned to your case who will guide you through the rest of the process, requesting documents, taking statements, and gathering evidence before determining an amount to offer you for a settlement. The problem is that the adjuster is working on behalf of the insurance company and is looking for ways to limit what you ultimately take home. When your attorney is acting as your intermediary, they can push back on these tactics and perform their own investigation to determine what you are actually owed.

It is not advisable to accept the first offer that an insurance company makes, at least not without consulting with a personal injury lawyer. Even the most straightforward case has wide-ranging damages that can be extremely specific and may not be very obvious, and the insurance company is relying on the claimant not realizing this fact before accepting the settlement and waiving their rights for additional compensation. Your attorney will review the case, take a look at the offer, and give you an idea of how far off this may be from the damages you have truly suffered.

The issue of fault is entirely separate from the issue of damages, meaning that even if you are entirely absolved of comparative negligence, calculating your actual damages is an entirely separate process. Obvious damages like lost wages and medical bills can be easy to calculate, but there are countless other, less obvious damages that many victims simply overlook until it is too late. Experienced personal injury attorneys in St. Petersburg know how to look for all damages a car accident may cause and can calculate these damages to ensure all of the impacts are included in the negotiations to follow.