If you get in a car accident, and you have never gone through this type of experience before, you may instantly think that you need a lawyer. It is true that in some situations, you may need to hire an attorney after a car wreck. However, you will also sometimes run into situations where that’s not really necessary.
Car accidents happen all the time, both in major cities and in rural areas. Dallas saw 35,355 car wrecks in 2021, but it’s just as likely a vehicle might hit your car if you live somewhere remote.
If you need to get money after your car wreck to cover things like vehicle repairs or medical bills, though, you might wonder whether you can realistically collect cash with no lawyer. We will discuss a few related scenarios in detail right now.
Collecting Money in a No-Fault State
Let’s start with a situation where you got in a car accident, and you’re in a no-fault state. Maybe you caused the crash, or perhaps the other driver did. If you’re in a no-fault state, though, you should be able to get the money for things like medical bills and lost wages without hiring a lawyer.
That’s because, in no-fault states, it doesn’t matter who caused the accident. If you have the proper amount of PIP (personal injury protection) insurance, then that should cover those monetary losses.
Your insurance will pay for your monetary damages, and the other driver’s insurance will pay for theirs. There is one time when you might need to hire a lawyer in this scenario, though. That’s when the damage from the accident exceeds the worth of your PIP insurance policy.
To recoup any additional money you spent, it’s possible that you might have to hire an attorney.
Collecting Money in an At-Fault State
If you’re in an at-fault state, it means that the insurance of the driver who caused the accident should pay for the damages. Those once again include things like damage to the vehicles or the cost of medical bills.
If you’re in an accident in an at-fault state, and the other driver admits that they caused the crash, then you probably won’t need to hire an attorney. Instead, you can just file a claim with the other driver’s insurance company. In short order, you should get the money you need to pay for the financial damages you accrued.
Collecting Money After a Work-Related Car Wreck
You may also have a situation where you got in a car accident while driving a company vehicle. Maybe you’re on the clock when a car plows into you suddenly. You might sustain some injuries and have to miss work for a while.
If so, then you can usually collect money from your job’s worker’s compensation insurance. In almost all instances, your boss must legally get this kind of coverage for the workers in the company’s employ. If they don’t have that kind of insurance in this situation, then you sue them.
Assuming they have that kind of insurance, though, and they can file a claim with the policy’s issuer on your behalf, then you can probably get that money without needing to hire a lawyer. You might run into an exception if the insurance company won’t pay you for some reason, though.
That doesn’t happen often, but it’s always possible. Since insurance companies have for-profit status, they might try to point to some technicality as a reason why they should not have to pay you following a car crash involving a work vehicle.
Trying to Collect Money When a Driver Won’t Admit Their Guilt
Up till now, we’ve talked about some situations where you can probably collect money after a car wreck without a lawyer’s help. Any time you don’t have to involve an attorney after a car wreck, you will probably appreciate that. After all, if you hire a lawyer after a car wreck, then you will presumably have to pay them some of your winnings if they win a lawsuit on your behalf.
Some situations will come up when you can’t realistically collect any money after a car wreck without a lawyer’s help, though. In these scenarios, you will probably have little choice but to hire one.
For instance, maybe you’re in an at-fault state, and another driver hits your car. You’re certain that they caused the accident, yet they won’t admit their guilt.
Can you try to collect money by suing them without hiring a personal injury lawyer? Yes, technically, you can. You never have to hire a lawyer to sue someone.
However, if you try to sue another driver after a car wreck without hiring a lawyer, but you have no legal expertise, then it’s not very likely that you will get the results you want. That is because you don’t know any of the ins and outs of this area of the law.
Without that highly specialized knowledge that a car wreck lawyer brings to the table, you can easily make a mistake that dooms your lawsuit. Even if you had a sure path to collecting some money with a lawyer’s help, without it, an error on your part might allow the other driver to get away with it.
Collecting Cash When Insurance Companies Won’t Admit a Driver’s Guilt
You face a similar situation after a car wreck in an at-fault state when you’re sure the other driver caused the wreck, but their insurance company won’t admit the other driver’s guilt. Once again, you’ll need to file a lawsuit, but this time, it’s against that insurance company.
If you don’t hire a lawyer, then you stand even less of a chance of collecting any money this way. The insurance company will doubtless have a skilled attorney representing them, if not a whole team of them. It’s simply not realistic that you can beat those odds and get the money that you feel you’re due.
