A personal injury claim does not start with a lawsuit. In fact, a whole insurance claim process precedes a lawsuit, which you hopefully won’t need to do. Even if litigation is not needed, you may still benefit significantly from the representation of a personal injury lawyer in Las Vegas.

 

Basic Steps of a Personal Injury Claim

 

1. Initiate a claim with an insurance company.

 

2. Submit evidence detailing fault for the accident and the financial damages related to your injury.

 

3. An insurance claims adjuster will evaluate the evidence and deny the claim or propose a settlement.

 

4. You may accept the settlement, negotiate for a higher amount, or appeal a denial.

 

5. If negotiations fail, then a lawsuit becomes the next step.

 

6. A lawsuit could result in a negotiated pretrial settlement or continue to trial.

 

7. A trial determines the outcome of the personal injury lawsuit.

 

The vast majority of personal injury cases resolve by Step 4 and never involve the courts. However, an injury lawyer Las Vegas can support you in many ways during your interactions with an insurer. Lawyers can research insurance coverage, alert you to damages that you might have overlooked, and defend you from an insurance adjuster’s attempts to devalue your claim.

 

Let’s take a deeper look at what goes into filing a personal injury claim.

 

Definition of Personal Injury

 

The first part of filing a personal injury claim requires meeting the legal definition of personal injury.

 

The basic elements of personal injury are:

 

• A person or organization owed you a duty of care.
• That party breached the duty through an action or failure to take action.
• The breach of duty caused you harm.
• You experienced damages from the breach.

 

In most cases, you can think of breach of duty as negligence. For example, someone who does not stop at a red light and hits your vehicle acted negligently by breaching the duty to follow traffic rules. A medical professional who gave you the wrong medication failed to confirm what you needed.

 

Sometimes injured people are uncertain whether or not their accidents involved negligence. Injury lawyers Las Vegas frequently field questions of this nature so that people can determine if a personal injury claim is possible.

 

Obtain Medical Documentation of Injuries

 

Medical records about your injuries are critical for submitting evidence to complete Step 2. You need to establish a medical record as close to the time of your accident as possible. In serious accidents, this would happen automatically when you’re hospitalized. However, people may not immediately recognize the extent of their injuries. They think they are all right, but, after the shock of an accident wears off, pain and other symptoms emerge hours or days later. For this reason, you should get a medical evaluation as soon as possible after an accident. A timely medical exam protects you against an insurer that might argue that something else caused your injury.

 

The medical records form the foundation of almost all financial damages that you might claim. Lost income is often a big part of a claim on top of medical bills. For example, two broken wrists might produce relatively modest medical costs but would prevent most people from working for weeks.

 

Identify Applicable Insurance Coverage

 

Insurance information might not be readily apparent in other types of accidents. If you slip and fall at a store with a wet floor, the employees might know nothing about the insurance although a manager should. Injury lawyers Las Vegas can track down this information for accident victims.

 

Even if you identify the insurer on your own, you should get legal advice before making contact. The insurer may try to trap you into admitting fault. Asking a lawyer to speak for you could shield you from tricky conversations.

 

Gather Evidence of Negligence

 

You need to prove that negligence occurred. In some cases, negligence is clearly evident, but in other cases the facts may be unclear or disputed.

 

Because your medical condition could make investigating your accident unrealistic, you may want the support of an injury lawyer Las Vegas. An attorney would have the resources to launch a thorough investigation.

 

Evidence of negligence may rely on:

 

• Interviewing witnesses
• Taking pictures of the accident scene
• Consulting experts

 

At the time of your accident, you should take pictures and collect contact information from witnesses if possible. However, other elements of an investigation may be difficult for you. You may not know how to find a car accident reconstruction specialist who can supply expert testimony about issues like vehicle speed and angles of impact.

 

Understand Modified Comparative Fault

 

In Nevada, modified comparative fault could apply to a personal injury claim. This legal concept recognizes that an injured party could be partially responsible. If evidence shows that a victim was 51% responsible for the accident, then that person cannot collect any compensation.

 

For people whose cases show partial fault of 50% or less, their settlements will be reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to them. Consider the case of a driver who was exceeding the speed limit but crashed because another driver failed to yield the right of way. If the speeding represented 40% of fault, then the injured person’s settlement from the driver who violated right-of-way rules would be reduced by 40%.

 

Although comparative fault laws are arguably fair, insurers may try to leverage comparative fault to eliminate all liability. In situations like that, injury lawyers Las Vegas work to defend their clients from exaggerated accusations of fault.

 

Calculate Your Damages

 

The damages that you claim for personal injury can include economic and noneconomic damages. Economic damages have clear documentation, such as medical bills and missed time at work. Noneconomic damages have a subjective nature, like pain and suffering. During the stages of a claim when an insurance adjuster values it and you negotiate the final figure, a lawyer could emphasize the anguish that you suffered during a prolonged recovery or after becoming disabled.

 

Should settlement negotiations fail, then a lawsuit represents your next step. If you’ve been involved in a very serious accident, you may need to litigate your personal injury claim to recover a realistic settlement.

 

Moss Berg Injury Lawyers Focus Only on Accidents

 

When you want a personal injury lawyer in Las Vegas, talk to the Moss Berg team. We work hard to negotiate fair settlements and will strongly defend those clients whose personal injury cases must go to court. Contact us for a free consultation today.