QuestionI was involved in a roll overauto accident were my boyfriend was driving, he was cited for DUI. He has gone deffered. His insurance has paid for all my medical expensis but I would like to settle for cash. How do I do this?
AnswerPassenger comparative negligence
Passenger assumption of the risk
Passenger rights: personal injury auto accident
Friend negligent auto accident
Family negligent car accident
Boyfriend negligent DUI auto accident
No cooperation between claimant and insured
Avoid collusion in passenger insurance claim
Factors increase insurance rates
DUI mandatory insurance filing
DUI SR22 insurance filing
5 Easy Steps to Do-it-Yourself Insurance Claim Settlement
Eliminate Personal Injury Attorneys' Fees
Doctor narrative reports settle insurance injury claims
Relationship Insurance Injury Claims Adjuster
Write to insurance settlement adjuster
How to deal with insurance claims adjusters
No phone calls insurance claims adjusters
Dear Heidi,
You have presented only two sentences, but one would think I am getting paid by the word because I am going to take many hundreds of words to answer you. The reasons for this are that yours is a potentially dangerous situation, involving competing relationships among your boyfriend, your love relationship, his insurance company, and yourself—your own right to be treated fairly.
I am going to start with the issue that you deserve to be treated fairly. You will not do yourself or your boyfriend or your relationship any favors should you candy coat your claim for a small fraction of its value. The only party that you will be helping then is his insurance company.
That money for the medical bills is being paid from the PIP or MedPay part of your boyfriend's policy. In addition to that, you are entitled to 100% compensation for all of your pain and suffering and interference with normal life's activities from your boyfriend's liability coverage. If his liability coverage is insufficient to cover all of your damages, then you will make a claim versus your own insurance policy underinsured motorist coverage (UIM). If that turns out to be the case, be sure to write to me again and I will tell you all about UIM cases.
But for now, you will be making a claim versus your boyfriend for his negligence that caused your injuries. Don't shy away from this claim: he injured you. Yes, you may spend a lifetime together, but perhaps it is more likely that five years from now you two will not even be in touch with each other. If you have some serious injuries—even soft tissue injuries—you may still be suffering pain, but you will have given up any chance to be compensated for your pain if you settle light just to please your boyfriend. If he is any kind of a caring man, he will understand that you should be FULLY COMPENSATED for the injuries he caused.
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There are six issues I want to address with you, Heidi.
1. Know Your Rights as a Passenger in an Auto Accident
2. Fight Charges of Your Comparative Negligence
3. Avoid Collusion Between You and Your Boyfriend Regarding Your Insurance Claim Against Him.
4. Making an Insurance Claim Against Your Boyfriend WILL NOT Raise His Insurance Rates—He Did That ALL BY HIMSELF!
5. Learn about how to submit and settle your own personal injury insurance claims—DO IT YOURSELF SETTLEMENTS.
6. Effective communications with the INSURANCE CLAIMS ADJUSTER.
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1. Know Your Rights as a Passenger in an Auto Accident
You have every right as a passenger to expect that your driver will exercise all due care and caution in the operation of his vehicle.
You did not say whether this was a one car accident or if the roll-over was caused by another car. For just a minute, let's pretend that another driver helped cause the accident. What would you do if THAT negligent driver's insurance adjuster wanted to reduce your settlement because he could prove that your driver was also partially at fault?
He might say that your driver was 25% at fault, and his insured was 75% at fault, so he is going to reduce your claim by 25% and make you go after your driver for the other 25%.
DO NOT EVER LET THE ADJUSTER REDUCE YOUR PASSENGER'S PERSONAL INJURY AWARD BASED UPON THE NEGLIGENCE OF YOUR DRIVER.
Your claim CANNOT BE REDUCED because of the negligence of your driver. If there was another car involved, your right, as a passenger, is to receive full, 100% compensation from the other driver, with no reduction whatsoever for any alleged negligence of your driver.
Now, let's end that pretend scenario since I get the impression your accident was just a one car accident, with nobody else at fault but your boyfriend.
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2. Fight Charges of Your Comparative Negligence
What if the insurance adjuster for your boyfriend tells you that your award will be reduced because you were comparatively negligent? He will tell you that you knew or should have known that your boyfriend was intoxicated and not in any shape to drive, and thus you assumed the risk of an accident.
Tell him he is wrong, and you will not reduce your insurance award by one dime. Tell him that although you were aware your boyfriend was drinking, you did not see any sign of intoxication. Give him specific examples of how well your boyfriend did certain things before you got in the car, etc.
ON THE OTHER HAND, if in fact you got into the car and THEN discovered that he was not competent to drive and you kept asking him to pull over so you could drive or so you could get a ride home, you should be sure to mention that to the adjuster.
The point is: fight any conclusion that you assumed the risk; do not accept any reduction at all from the insurance settlement that you are entitled to.
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3. Avoid Collusion Between You and Your Boyfriend Regarding Your Insurance Claim Against Him.
Can your boyfriend be a witness to the difficulty you have had in dealing with your injuries? Yes, he can so testify. Can your boyfriend try to lie to say that you never knew he was drinking so much, or lie that you kept telling him to pull over but he refused? NO!
There is a line between giving testimony to facts and collusion between a claimant and the insured. Your boyfriend has a duty to his own insurer to cooperate fully with them and to avoid collusion with anyone claming against his policy.
Collusion is fraud, and it can result in the injured person losing any right to be paid for her injuries.
A safe rule would be for the two of you to agree that you will not discuss your claim with him, and that includes ALL ASPECTS of your claim, from demand letter to negotiations. But don't take this rule to preclude using his testimony to prove the extent of your injuries. Those are simply his observations of your activities, and there is nothing wrong with him giving testimony of what he saw.
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4. Making an Insurance Claim Against Your Boyfriend WILL NOT Raise His Insurance Rates—He Did That ALL BY HIMSELF!
Hopefully your boyfriend will not even bring up this topic. But maybe you can bring it up just so he will not worry that your making a claim will raise his insurance rates. All you have to tell him is that the DUI charge is going to raise his rates a lot more than any accident ever would.
Here is what is going to happen to him. He is going to have to make a mandatory insurance coverage filing with your state department of licensing. This is what we call a SR 22 filing. Look it up and you will see that the SR 22 also carries a lot higher price tag than normal insurance since it is also known as "high risk" insurance.
So, no matter how much you get paid on your insurance claim, his rates will not go up one dime because of your claim. He will be paying increased rates for two to three years because of his DUI accident.
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5. Learn about how to submit and settle your own personal injury insurance claims—DO IT YOURSELF SETTLEMENTS.
Here is a series of pages that you can review. Take what makes sense to you and don't worry about the rest. Just get a flavor of how the system works without spending a ton of time right now.
Overview Tort Law Personal Injury Legal Claims http://www.settlementcentral.com/page3000.htm
Managing Medical Care After Auto Accident: http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0203.htm
Medical Care Documentation-the Key to Successful Personal Injury Insurance Claim Settlements http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0217.htm
Keys to a MAXIMUM INSURANCE INJURY CLAIM SETTLEMENT http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0089.htm
By the way, did you know that getting an early settlement is a favorite trick of the insurance adjusters? Please see my website wherein we show Insurance Claim Adjuster Secret Tactics http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0092.htm
Responding to Settlement Offer From Insurance Claims Adjuster http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0244.htm
Do It Yourself Advantages, or do these claims need an attorney? As for an ATTORNEY, this does not seem to be a case that involves any legal issues in dispute nor any large or complex damages. Why should you pay someone one-third to do what you can do yourself? Do-It-Yourself Personal Injury Claims; Eliminate Personal Injury Attorneys' Fees; Save Thousands of Dollars Settling Your Own Insurance Claim http://www.settlementcentral.com/page3011.htm
Without having to join my website, I have given a lot of free information on handling insurance claims without having to join as a member. Read the module at "5 Easy Steps to Do-it-Yourself Insurance Claim Settlement" http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0102.htm
This stuff is not rocket science, but it will take some effort on your part to read and cut and paste letter examples and to communicate. But hundreds of people are doing it each day, and they are getting good results.
What if you get only two-thirds the way to your settlement goal? Well, you can get as big a settlement as you can and then turn it over to an attorney and save a lot of fees. Thus, you could go it alone just to get an insurance settlement offer, and then take that insurance settlement offer to a personal injury attorney, thus exempting the amount of the offer from her fees. Do It Yourself Personal Injury Settlement Offer Reduces Personal Injury Attorney Fees http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0109.htm
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6. Effective communications with the INSURANCE CLAIMS ADJUSTER
Establish Firm, Professional, and Positive Relationships With the Insurance Injury Claims Adjuster http://www.settlementcentral.com/page0059.htm
Always communicate with the adjuster in writing, showing your own analysis of value. It is OK I guess to have one call or so, but no more. Always have your information and ammunition in writing to give to the adjuster.
Let him know that you are FIRM IN YOUR RESOLVE to get what you are demanding (NOT "asking", since that invites a counter-offer, but instead "demanding" as fair and reasonable compensation) by asking him what the options are to resolve the matter fairly should he not agree to a reasonable claim value. In other words, let him know that you will go through with a court filing if need be.
Remember these tips, do your homework, print out your evidence, show resolve to get your fair settlement, and you will DO JUST FINE.
OK, Heidi, it is true that I used almost two thousand words to answer what you thought was just a simple two sentence question! But I hope you can see why it was necessary since there was a lot that you did not know about making the claim.
I trust that my extra time here has produced some information that has been of value to you, and thus I would respectfully request that you take the time to locate the feedback form on this site and leave some feedback for me.
Best Wis
Hello! An answer to your question:
I was involved in a roll overauto accident were my boyfriend was driving, he was cited for DUI. He has gone deffered. His insurance has paid for all my medical expensis but I would like to settle for cash. How do I do this?
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