Insurance enters the picture at the very scene of a car accident. The 2 drivers exchange the information on their insurance. What happens after that? What part does the insurance company play?
An injured victim must learn whether or not the responsible party had purchased some form of insurance coverage.
In the absence of such coverage, the responsible party would not have access to the funds that could be used as compensation for the victim. Thus, the plaintiff/victim would need to search for an alternative source of funds.
Personal injury lawyers ask specific questions:
What is the nature of a given client’s injury? Insurance companies tend to introduce low offers, if a claimant has suffered only a minor medical problem. Insurers know that a court would not grant much money to any plaintiff that had such a problem.
If a client did have a serious injury, then the Personal Injury Lawyer in Cambridge would want to know more about the extent of the defendant’s insurance coverage. If that coverage were near the minimum, then the case would probably settle quickly. When defendants have lots of liability coverage, it takes longer for a case to settle. The greater the amount of coverage, the larger the pool of money that the insurance adjuster gets to work with, when going after a settlement. For that reason, a lawsuit should be filed as soon as possible, whenever a defendant enjoys extensive coverage.
When 1st party coverage becomes of concern
If a driver were hit by an uninsured driver, then he or she would probably need to seek compensation from his or her own insurance company. In other words, the same driver would need to make a 1st party claim.
While the driver’s health insurance could cover the costs of medical care, it would not offer compensation for a loss of wages, or for any pain and suffering. Funds to cover those losses would need to emerge from a 1st party claim. Perhaps the driver that was hit happened to be carrying some type of comprehensive coverage. If that were the case, then that same driver’s insurance company would have to produce the money that could be used to compensate the policyholder/driver.
Alternately, the driver seeking monetary compensation might have purchased uninsured motorist coverage. That, too, would provide the victim/hit driver with the funds that could be used as compensation for losses.
Maybe the responsible driver had limited coverage, and was able to pay only a portion of the full bill for the victim’s medical care. In that case, the hit driver would benefit from having purchased an option known as underinsured motorist coverage. That would provide the policyholder/driver with added money, enough to cover any reported losses.
