Sometimes fighting fault is a losing battle, and other times it’s not worth the effort. So what should you do when you’re assigned a small percentage of fault? You may need to understand fault a bit more and how it can impact your compensation options before making the decision to challenge a fault contribution or not.
Ultimately it may be best to consult a local Ohio car accident attorney before you decide to let your fault contribution go or to take your case to court. There are risks with either decision, and it’s important to understand all the elements that go into that risk first.
What is Fault Contribution?
Fault It’s something that’s given to drivers who have contributed toward the accident. Most drivers will receive between 1 and 99% fault contribution. The contribution helps the insurance companies and determine if they need to reduce compensation based on how a driver contributed to the crash.
Not everyone agrees with how insurance companies calculate fault contribution and what options they provide to their customers for battling those decisions. It is possible for a driver to receive a partial fault contribution merely based on a witness statement, or the statement of the other driver. Many people disagree with the practice of assigning fault to any degree without hard evidence to back up that decision.
Why am I Partially At-Fault?
Car insurance companies like Progressive, GEICO, and Allstate all use a similar format to determine fault in every case. They rely on their employees to determine who is at fault based on the Ohio laws and the evidence submitted from the accident. Because Ohio is a contributory fault state, it means that sometimes even when it feels like you didn’t do anything wrong, you could receive a small percentage of fault.
Essentially, the fault should only be assigned if there was a traffic violation involved with the crash. For example, if you slowly rolled through an intersection with a stop sign and the person who hit you blatantly ran through it, you would still be partially at fault. Now that partial fault comes into play because there was a traffic violation, you failed to properly stop at that stop sign.
However, fault is something that you can argue come out, but the argument isn’t always worth it. You may end up spending more in court fees or wasting more time trying to get the fault excused then what you would get if you just negotiated for a better settlement.
Is It Worth the Fight?
One of the big questions that come up when determining if it’s worth it to fight a fault contribution is, “will my car insurance rates go up because of this crash?” There are many times when fighting fault is worth it, but the fight a rate going up it’s usually not. When reads increased they usually increase by a small percentage, it may be more advantageous to wait for the opportunity to bring down your rates again at a later time.
However, if there is an unfair amount of fault contributed to you, then you should fight the fault. During the crash investigation and the claims resolution process, it can be difficult for car insurance companies to know who side to take. Not every car accident is transparent, and often, the evidence available could support both versions of events. If you’re the victim, then you need to communicate that to everyone involved in your crash resolution.
Getting Full Compensation and Other Questions
If there is any fault assigned to you in the claim, then it may be impossible to obtain full compensation. The most common question faced is if it’s possible to recover all of your damages even with partial fault assignment. Typically it is not possible, but there are always options that may recover your economic damages fully an not your non-economic damages.
Finding the Supportive Ohio Car Accident Attorney You Need
A supportive Ohio car accident lawyer isn’t far away. At Ohio1, You can find attorneys that are experienced and passionate about helping car accident victims get the compensation they need to get back on their feet. That’s not something that you can count on your car insurance provider for. Instead, take matters into your own hands, involve an attorney, and take action.
At Ohio1, you’ll find reliable attorneys, that have experience in handling cases similar to yours. We know that you’re the victim and that it’s important to you that others involved realize that too.
