With the number of cars, trucks, motorcycles and other vehicles on the roads today chances are at some point you will be involved in a car accident. Hopefully, it will be minor and amount to more of an inconvenience while waiting to get your car repaired and back on the road. In most situations like this, you do not need to hire an attorney as you can work out the details with the relative insurance companies involved.
However, if you are involved in a car accident and have suffered injuries and have medical bills, you will need a personal injury attorney. And you should get an attorney involved sooner rather than later so that we can advocate on your behalf and ensure that you are not taken advantage of by the insurance companies. I say companies, plural, as there are usually a few insurance companies that end up being involved. This includes the insurance company of the person who hit you, your auto insurance and your health insurance. They all have an interest in the matter and have legal rights and obligations. Their interests are competing and often they are only looking out for their interests, not yours. At Willis, Willis & Rizzi our approach is to handle the legal side of these injury cases while simultaneously helping our clients get the best care and treatment so that they can recover as best as possible from the accident.
In car accident cases where injuries have occurred and medical treatment is necessary, at some point you are likely to get a letter from your health insurance provider asking for information and ultimately telling you they want reimbursement for the medical bills they have paid on your behalf. What happens in these situations is that you incur medical expenses such as an emergency room visit, treating physician, radiology, and maybe an ambulance bill. The auto insurance company reaches out to you and offers a settlement which you accept, but the settlement is too low because you didn’t have an attorney helping you. Your healthcare company has paid your medical bills which are way more than the settlement you received from the auto insurance company, and now since you have settled with the auto insurance company, you are responsible for reimbursing the healthcare company. This is how car accident injury cases get so complex. And, if Medicare/Medicaid is involved now you have the government coming after you to get their money back. While you are trying to recover from your injuries you are also trying to deal with all of these legal complexities which can be very stressful. It is typically too much to handle on your own. Contact Willis, Willis & Rizzi early and let us deal with these mega corporation and government entities while you focus on your recovery.
As an example, in a recent case, we have a client who suffered serious injuries in a car accident which involved a lengthy hospital stay, many tests and physical therapy, and they have been unable to work for months. The person that was at fault in the accident had $50,000 in coverage, and our client had $100,000 in coverage. This sounds like a lot of money but in reality it isn’t. The insurance company for the at fault driver offered to pay their $50,000 and the insurance company for our client offered to pay their $50,000 (because in the State of Ohio, the insurance company gets a credit for the amount paid by the other insurance company). So, with everything all in we have $100,000 available to pay for everything. Adding to the complexity, our client is over 65 and on Medicare, through Aetna, and now they want their money back that they have paid for the medical bills. And if the bills are over $100,000 – now we have a serious issue for the client because the maximum amount available is $100,000. Often in these types of cases the question isn’t “How much money can I get you in a settlement” it becomes “How much money can I save you.” Trying to navigate all of this on your own while you are hurting and trying to recover is nearly impossible. Call Willis, Willis & Rizzi, let us help you.
We advise all of our clients, friends and families that when they are shopping for auto insurance, get the maximum amount of uninsured/underinsured coverage available. Often the cost difference on your monthly bill is not much more. But this is the only coverage in the policy that truly covers and benefits you. You have to insure yourself for what you feel your value is worth because you cannot rely on the other driver to do that for you.
Furthermore, when you are injured in a car accident, and you have medical bills do you really want a mass volume assembly line personal injury firm who is dealing with hundreds of personal injury cases handling your case? They will be under a lot of pressure to settle your case so that they can move on to the next case on their list and often times that means you are not getting the best representation when the case gets complicated as in the example above.
At Willis, Willis & Rizzi we only work on personal injury cases and if we take on your case you will work directly with one of our personal injury attorneys and we will devote the necessary resources to protect you and save you as much money as possible when cases turn complex.
It costs the same, why go to the legal equivalent of a fast food restaurant?
In personal injury cases, all attorneys work on a contingency fee where the attorney or law firm only gets paid if the case is won or settled and there is a recovery. This fee is very similar from attorney to attorney, or law firm to law firm. So, consider this – if you had your choice to eat out for dinner, and you could go to the best restaurant in town, or the fast food restaurant down the street, and the cost for the meal at the end of the evening would be the same, where would you decide to go?
So why go to the legal equivalent of a fast food restaurant? Contact Willis, Willis & Rizzi today at 330-535-2000 or fill out the form on this page and speak to a personal injury attorney today.
