In Massachusetts insurance companies are required to provide their own customer, or insured, with certain basic benefits. These are called PIP benefits. PIP stands for “personal injury protection.” They are designed to cover you for a certain amount of medical bills and lost wages related to your accident if you get injured in a motor vehicle crash – even if the crash is your own fault. This is why it is sometimes called “no-fault” coverage.
A person who carelessly operates a vehicle may be required to pay any damages caused by that carelessness, either to the victims or to their property. Generally, people who operate automobiles must exercise “reasonable care under the circumstances.” Failure to use reasonable care is the basis in most lawsuits for damages caused by an automobile accident.
However, in Massachusetts, you do not have to be completely blameless in order to recover. As long as you are less than 50% responsible for your injuries, the other party at fault can be held liable for his share of the blame.
If your injury is significant and there is only a small amount of insurance money available, the settlement could happen quickly. In many situations, the insurance company, once they learn of the severity of the injury, is actually calling to see if they can pay their policy limits and settle the case. In situations where your injury is not as severe, or where the policy limits are high, then the claim will generally take longer to resolve. In these cases, we may wait to see what the full scope of your medical treatment is, including waiting until we have all of your medical bills. If your treatment looks like it will extend into the future, we may ask your doctor to give us an opinion letter outlining the expected costs of those procedures.
Now sometimes your treatment might end fairly quickly, such as within a few months. However, in some cases it can take over a year. Sometimes over two years. It really depends on the nature of your injury and the medical treatment you get. Generally speaking, cases involving a “soft tissue” injury resolve quicker than cases involving an “objective”
So once we have a handle on your case, we will package up all the documentation regarding it and send it to the insurance adjuster with a demand for a fair settlement. This may be considered the start of the negotiation period. In the demand, we ask the adjuster to contact us and will usually will get a response in 2-3 weeks or 30 days. The negotiation can sometimes go very quickly or can drag on for a while. It can go quick if the insurance company comes to the table with what we feel is an above-average offer for that kind of case – which is the goal that we have for our clients: to get them fair value for the injury they experienced.
Negotiation often continues at this point by our making a counter-offer. The insurance company then responds with their counter-offer and so forth. Depending on how easy it is to contact the adjuster, this process might take a few days, or if the adjuster is hard to contact, weeks.
In situations where the insurance company is paying less than what we feel is fair value, then the whole process will take longer. And then when we, or you, feel we never receive a counter-offer which we feel is fair, we will either arbitrate the case, mediate the case or request a jury trial.
Jury trials may take a significant portion of time, in some cases can take years to get because the courts are very busy. In other instances, filing suit is just what it takes to push the opposing party into offering more money for your injuries.
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For More Details : http://massachusettspersonalinjurycenter.com
BGoodwin.TownCountryLaw@
236 Commercial Street
Boston, MA 02109, USA
Phone : (617) 720-1101
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