For any accident victim that intends to submit a personal injury claim, the legal clock starts ticking at the moment of the accident’s occurrence. Victims that plan on pursuing such a claim must plan on meeting the following deadlines.
Receiving medical attention
Someone that has been involved in a car accident should undergo a medical examination in a doctor’s office, a hospital emergency room or a clinic. That examination ought to take place within 24 hours of the accident. Following that examination, the comments in the victim’s medical record would act as proof of an effort to mitigate development of any further injuries.
Contacting own insurance company
Even if the policyholder did not cause the accident, he or she must honor the contract with the insurance company. According to that contract, the company’s agent or the claims department must be told about any policyholder’s involvement in an accident. The victim/policyholder should not allow a passage of more than 2 weeks, before making that required contact.
Arranging for Repairs to Damaged Vehicle
The Personal Injury Lawyer in Vaughan knows that the insured driver might want to submit a first party claim with his or her own insurance agency, in order to be compensated for the cost of repairs. That could be the case if the driver had hit some object on the family’s property, or if the purchased policy had included an uninsured or underinsured motorist option. It does not make sense to wait longer then the amount of time needed for completing all of the necessary paperwork, and collecting all of the required documents.
Filing a 3rd party claim with the insurance company of the responsible driver
That same company would be held responsible for covering the damages. A victim would be foolish to delay for close to 2 years the performance of that filing action. Lawyers always want their clients to allow time for pursuing a possible lawsuit.
Filing a complaint
An accident victim would not need to take that action, if he or she had managed to obtain fair compensation or a court-ordered judgment. Yet those victims that have not been able to return to their original financial status could plan on suing the opposing party. The court would not accept a complaint that had been submitted after the deadline, as stated in the statute of limitations. In most states, that deadline comes 2 years after the accident.
A policyholder might also consider a lawsuit if the insurance company had challenged a 1st party claim. For instance, the adjuster might have alleged that the policyholder was partly to blame for the some of the resulting injuries. A lawyer could help such a driver/policyholder to obtain more details on the allegations that had come from the adjuster.