Car Accidents: Your Life Changes in an Instant

Miami, FLIt is the rare person who has not been involved in a car accident or does not know someone who has. Think about it, you probably know multiple people who were involved in car accidents, from minor fender benders to multiple-car pileups. As anyone who has been involved in a car accident can tell you, your entire life changes in an instant.

Tragically, many people whose lives are changed by car accidents had absolutely no control over the accident. They are passengers in vehicles involved in accidents and they have no way of preventing an accident from occurring. All they can do is sit in their seat as it happens and pray for the best. However, even as innocent victims, they suffer permanently disabling and even life-threatening injuries.

Of course, along with the car accident comes the lost wages and the medical bills, not to mention the battle with insurance companies to cover costs. As if a person in a car accident was not victimized enough, the aftermath of the car accident—the paperwork and bureaucracy and insurance companies—can take their toll on the accident victim. Ask just about anyone involved in a car accident and they will tell you that dealing with insurance companies and getting treatment paid for is an ordeal all in itself.

Why is that? Well, it is in the insurance company's best interest to keep payouts to car accident victims as low as possible. After all, every dollar that is given to an accident victim is a dollar less in profit. So, insurance companies will try a variety of tactics to keep payouts low, including not authorizing medical treatment, blaming the accident on the victim, sending the victim to the insurance company's own doctors and blaming a lack of recovery on the victim. Insurance companies will also often try to prove that the victim is exaggerating or otherwise faking injuries.

Many insurance companies have their own teams of lawyers, doctors and private investigators whose job it is to prove that you are not as injured as you claim to be. If you claim your back is injured, they will do everything they can to prove it is not. That is a horrible way to treat someone who was simply a passenger in a vehicle and was in no way responsible for the car accident. Yet that is exactly what happens.

So, what can a passenger in a vehicle involved in a car accident do? He or she can contact a lawyer, who is experienced in dealing with automobile insurance companies and can file all the necessary paperwork for a potential lawsuit. The lawyer can also investigate the car accident and determine responsibility—whether the accident was caused by another driver's negligence or by vehicle defects. Finally, the lawyer can deal with the insurance company directly, taking that burden off of the car accident victim and making the whole situation less stressful.

If you are involved in a car accident, your only priority should be on recovering, not on having to fight with an insurance company for compensation you are entitled to. That is where phoning a lawyer would be a good first step.