Should you hire an auto accident lawyer after a crash? As per the Ohio State Highway Patrol, the car crashes until June count to 114,654. The common reasons for these crashes are alcohol-related, commercial-related, failure to yield-related, not wearing seat belts, and so on.
Being a part of a car crash, however minor, can scar you for life. The repercussions that follow behind can be a nightmare. Along with the car crash comes the dread of informing your insurance company, talking to the investigator, dealing with the defendant, getting a vehicle repaired, and dealing with the pain and suffering if you are injured.
In such circumstances, hiring an auto accident lawyer can instantly help you feel better. An auto accident lawyer takes most of the pressure off the shoulders of the victim.
Best auto accident lawyers in Cincinnati would talk to necessary parties on their behalf, collect the evidence, and provide them compensation so that a victim can focus on recovering better.
Hiring an Auto Accident Lawyer in Cincinnati, OH
Here is how an auto accident lawyer will benefit in Cincinnati, OH, for a better overview.
Talk to the insurance company
Talking to the insurance company is one of the dreariest tasks in a car crash. When in a car crash, the victim should immediately inform of the accident to their insurance company so that their car insurance policy can come into place.
The next task involves the insurance company of the other driver. The other insurance company is responsible for providing you compensation if the other driver is an at-fault driver. It is natural for insurance companies to deny the claim or minimize it. They approach the victim and convince them they were partly at fault for the accident.
Thus, a car accident attorney recommends not talking to the insurance company directly. Attorneys know how to talk and deal with the insurance company. They help reach the right negotiation and the amount of settlement the victim deserves.
Makes you aware of the laws
Each state has its laws when it comes to personal injury cases. In Cincinnati, Ohio, the auto accident lawyer knows the ins and outs of the laws governing your case.
The most important is knowing the stature of limitation. This is the period within which the victim has the right to file a case to recover the damages. Many other laws are considered, like if Ohio is an at-fault or a non-at-fault state, if it uses modified comparative rule, and so on.
Collects the evidence for you
Collecting evidence is very important, even if you are currently not looking forward to filing a case. Having fresh evidence keeps a victim in a better position to negotiate with the insurance company or the defendant’s lawyer.
An auto accident lawyer benefits a lot in gathering such evidence. The best time to collect is immediately after the crash by taking pictures of the scene of the accident, videos, and everything else.
If not, an auto accident helps collect them with their sources and tactics. They can extract the police report, the interview of the victims, the interview of the witnesses, contact the witnesses, extract the CCTV footage, if any, and much more. The right evidence is valuable in getting full compensation for the damages. An auto accident lawyer ensures that and does their job well.
Negotiate with the responsible parties
When hiring an auto accident lawyer, you are also relieved from the pressure of negotiating for the right compensation with the responsible parties, i.e., the at-fault driver and insurance company.
A lawyer does most of the work for you. Also, they are experienced enough and know how to handle such a situation. A victim accompanied by a lawyer always has the upper hand over the other parties compared to when the victim handles the situation alone.
File a lawsuit
Finally, the auto accident lawyer will help you file the lawsuit if the negotiations with the insurance company do not go well.
The lawyer will suggest moving to court to recover the damages. For this, the lawyer will prepare all the documents for filing the lawsuit, file the required application and present the cause before the judge as and when required.
During this process, the lawyer also has to gather all the medical documents that would suggest the severity of the injuries and the overall expenses of the treatment like doctor’s fees, medicines, physical therapy, use of crutches etc.
The lawyer will further also emphasize lost wages due to the injuries. A lawsuit can also help one recover the car damages if the vehicle is uninsured for full coverage.
He may also put it before the judge that the insurance company isn’t providing enough compensation to cover the damages. If the lawyer sees potential, he can also ask for compensation for non-monetary and punitive damages.
In such a case, the defendant must compensate for pain and suffering. Punitive damages act as a deterrent for the at-fault driver to not repeat the mistake.
Conclusion
Thus, there are ample benefits to hiring an auto accident lawyer. You should know that consulting an auto accident lawyer is free of cost. After that, if they choose to take up your case, they only charge when they can recover their estimated compensation. If they aren’t able to recover anything, they do not charge. This is termed a pay-as-you-go system. The lawyer will only charge a fixed percentage of the total compensated amount. The rest is yours to keep.
For this reason, Cincinnati injury lawyers are motivated to provide you with maximum compensation through their experience and hard work.