Medford, Oregon is a middle-sized city in Oregon. Cities like Medford do not have to deal with the traffic problems of major cities like Portland, but they still have their share of accidents. When a car accident happens in a city like Medford, Oregon, a Medford personal injury attorney can help.
A Medford personal injury lawyer can help someone who has been involved in an accident to get back on their feet. Most people do not know how various insurance coverages work. Most people do not know that there can be liens on personal injury recovery. In fact, many do not even know what a lien is. Further, most people do not know how to deal with these liens.
A Personal Injury Lawyer in Medford Can Help With Insurance Negotiations
A personal injury attorney in Medford can help to navigate these insurance policy issues. A personal injury attorney will negotiate with all the different insurance companies involved in an accident or car crash. The personal injury lawyer will then advocate strongly for their client and try and get the best settlement offer possible. A personal injury client can always decline to settle, in which case their personal injury attorney will help them file the case in court to take it to trial.
Most personal injury lawyers in Medford offer a free consultation. This can be a valuable resource for anyone wondering what to do or how to deal with the after-accident negotiations and paperwork. These consultations can point a prospective client in the right direction and even if the potential client does not choose to hire a car accident attorney in Medford, the client will be much better off with the knowledge gained from the free consultation.
If the client chooses to hire an injury attorney in Medford, the client will then sign some form of engagement letter. This letter helps both the attorney and the client to know what their roles are as the representation moves forward. Normally, the client is responsible for gathering documentation and providing insurance information to the personal injury lawyer. The lawyer on the other hand is responsible to know the insurance statutory laws as well as the contractual laws surrounding the insurance coverage. The auto accident lawyer must comply with all these laws as the car crash lawyer advocates for a strong settlement.
Many people who get into a car accident wonder how much their injury is worth. All personal injury claims and personal injury cases are different and highly fact specific. As a general rule, a claim is worth more when the injury is more severe or when the injury caused more lost wages. A soft tissue injury usually is worth less than a broken bone injury. If you have a question about how much your case might be worth, it can be helpful to schedule a consultation with a personal injury lawyer in Medford.
Generally, the law provides compensation for three main categories in an injury: medical bills, lost wages, and loss of enjoyment of life. A lawyer who specialized in personal injury will use each of these categories as they advocate your case to insurance companies and opposing parties.
Severe injuries with severe damages do not always mean a client will recover a substantial settlement for their injuries. Sometimes there is no money to recover. If a personal injury client was hit by someone who has no money and no insurance, the client may be limited to their own insurance coverage in recovering for their claim. This is why it is usually a good idea to carry Under-Insured Motorist coverage (UIM).
UIM protects you in the event that you suffer an injury from someone with no ability to pay or the ability to pay only a portion of your claim. Many people think increasing their UIM limits increases their exposure in the event that they are at fault. This is simply untrue. UIM applies to your recovery when the at fault party cannot pay the full damages. If you are at fault, it is your casualty (also known as bodily injury) coverage that pays for the injuries of the person you hurt.
Navigating the insurances in a car accident injury can be a daunting task. It is made even more difficult because you are simultaneously navigating treatment for your injuries. A personal injury lawyer in Medford can help ease the post-accident stress. A car accident lawyer can make a big difference in making your life easier after an auto accident.
If you are concerned that lawyers cost too much money, don’t be. Almost always lawyers in injury claims work on a contingency fee basis. That means that unless you get paid, they do not get paid. Almost all personal injury attorneys in Medford take a percentage of your settled claim or a percentage of whatever judgement is rendered at trial.
In addition, a personal injury attorney makes sure that all your liens are paid out of your settlement so that you don’t end up with a bunch of debts to pay. A good personal injury lawyer will try to negotiate a reduction on all their client’s liens and to leave them with the most money in their pocket.
An Example: How A Personal Injury Attorney Can Help In An Auto Accident Claim
The following example is fictional but will illustrate how some of the numbers work in a personal injury auto accident claim. The facts and circumstances of real-life cases greatly affect the actual dollar amounts of settlement agreements. The example is for educational purposes only and should not be construed as legal advice. If you seek legal counsel, you should contact a personal injury attorney.
Typically, if someone is injured in an accident, without a lawyer, the insurance company will offer a very lowball number. Let’s take an example of $10,000. If someone is offered $10,000.00 before talking to a lawyer, usually the case is worth more than that. Let’s say the case is actually worth about $45,000.00. The personal injury lawyer will get the insurance to offer the appropriate $45,000.00 that the claim is worth. The lawyer will take usually a third of that recovery, $15,000.00. That will leave $30,000.00 in the lawyer’s trust account. Before the lawyer releases the rest of those funds to the client, the lawyer will paid the liens that are outstanding on the claim.
There are typically at least two liens on the recovery of a claim. One is from the client’s Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance benefits and the other is the client’s health insurance. The auto accident lawyer should have already spoken with PIP pre-settlement about whether or not PIP was going to have the client’s lawyer recover their lien, or whether PIP was going to go after the lien from the at fault party themselves. Usually, at least in Medford, Oregon, PIP chooses to go after the money themselves. When they do, the agreed upon example settlement of $45,000.00 will not have included any PIP lien because PIP decided to go after their share themselves (subrogation). But, on rare occasion PIP has the client’s lawyer do this for them, and in that case the share of PIP would come out of the leftover $30,000.00.
For our example, let’s say that PIP decided to not go after the lien themselves and had the client’s lawyer do it for them. In that case, PIP’s lien (typically $15,000) would have to come out of the $30,000.00. That $15000.00 would be reduced by a third to account for attorney’s fees and would only be $10,000.00 by the time it was reduced. Thus, the leftover $30,000.00 would pay the PIP lien of $10,000.00 and only $20,000.00 would be left for the client.
The client’s health insurance is another insurance that may have a lien on a settlement. In this example, supposed that after PIP exhausted at $15,000.00, the client had treatment worth $10,000.00 beyond the PIP coverage. The client’s health insurance would have kicked in at this point. However, health insurance does not pay the billed amount, they pay a reduced amount according to contracts and statutes. Thus, even though there were $10,000.00 of billable treatments, the client’s health insurance likely had a contract with the providers where the health insurance paid only a fraction of that billed amount and the rest was forgiven. So, for our example, let’s say the health insurance actually paid $6,000.00 of the $10,000.00 billed and $4,000.00 was forgiven. The health insurance would have a lien of $6,000.00 against the client’s settlement recovery.
The personal injury lawyer at this point has only $20,000.00 left because he paid himself and he paid pip. The personal injury lawyer will negotiate with the health insurance to try and reduce that $6,000.00 lien. In most cases, the personal injury attorney will be able to get that health insurance lien reduced by at least a third, sometimes more. Therefore, in our example, the health lien comes to about $4,000.00 after that reduction.
The personal injury lawyer will then pay that negotiated $4,000.00 health lien out of the client’s $20,000.00 portion of the trust account which will leave $16,000.00 for the client. The lawyer will then pay the client the $16,000.00 and the case will be closed.
As you can see in this example, of the total $45,000.00 settlement, $15,000.00 went to the lawyer, $14,000.00 went to pay liens, and $16,000.00 went to the client. If the client had taken the original $10,000.00 offer without a lawyer, the client would have been in a much worse situation after paying the liens.
This typical example shows a few reasons why it is almost always a good idea to have a personal injury attorney on your side during representation. Firstly, a personal injury lawyer can negotiate a higher settlement value. Secondly, a personal injury attorney can make sure that all the liens are properly paid. Thirdly, because of the higher settlement value and the negotiated liens, usually more money is left in the client’s pocket than if they negotiated with the opposing party without a lawyer. The client has peace of mind during the whole process and when the settlement is finished, all the parties have closure and can move forward in their lives.
If you have been injured in Medford, Oregon, a personal injury attorney at Riverpoint Law can help you through this difficult, complex area of insurance law. Feel free to reach out to Riverpoint Law with any questions. They are always willing to help.
Disclaimer
The above article was written for educational purposes only. It is not to be construed as legal advice. If you have been injured in an accident, you should consult with a personal injury attorney about the specific facts and circumstances of your case.
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