QuestionI recently was in an auto accident which resulted in Cervical & Thoracic Strain, Headaches, Mofacial Pain. I have also suffered from ptsd due to the auto accident. My car was totalled and to make matters worse, the driver had no insurance. I also live in a No Fault state. (Hawaii) At the time of the accident I was not employed, but was in search for employment. I was waiting for the traffic light at a complete stop, when I got rear ended and slammed into the car in front of me in which sandwiched my car.
The person who rear ended me, has no insurance 19 yrs old and lives with her parents. Claims that she was sold the car from a dealership without need of insurance to drive off of thier premisis.
My medical bills to date are around $ 7000.00. I am seeing a Chiro and Massage therapist, and still have anxiety about driving or even being in car. My coverages are 25,000/50,000 for Bodily injury Liability each person/ each occurance. My Property Damage liability is 25,000. My PIP is 500 DED My uninsured Motorists/Stacked each person/each occurance 25,000/50,000 and Underinsured Motorists/Stacked each person/ each occurance. These are the limits. What does this all mean? Does these limits mean that this is the amount of settlement the insurance company will give to you if you seek a legal claim? Should I seek a lawyer?
or can I do my own work and research for settlement? I don't know what to do.. I have been reading alot of peoples stories, and also read some advice from this website regarding these types of matters. All I know is, I did not cause this accident at all. I was 100% not at fault! And it seems like this person is just getting away with it because we live in a no fault state and because she has no money or collateral. What can be done about that? Can I sue her parents if she still lives with them? She is 19 years old. I don't know... I am just really frustrated by all of this and want justice! I want my life back, and the strength to not be afraid of being in a car....
AnswerHi Greta,
It seems you are very confused. I will try to provide some clarity.
First of all the term "no-fault" does not mean that no one is at fault. It is actually a bad term to use. It simply means that regardless of who is at fault in an accident, any injured people must go to their own insurance to pay for any initial medical treatrment uo to the limit of the PIP coverage. That is what Personal Injury Protection (PIP) is for.
Since the at-fault driver did not have any insurance, the only place for you to receive compensation is from your uninsured motorist coverage. If your uninsured motorist coverage limits are shown in your policy as 25/50, this means that the maximum your policy will pay out is $25000 to any one person or $50000 total for all injured people in your car. You indicated that your policy says "Stacked". This means that if there is more than one car on your policy, you can stack the coverage. On other words if you have two cars the coverage is doubled to 50/100 or if you have 3 cars it is tripled to 75/150, etc. For the balance of this conversation I will assume that you only have one car on the policy. In that case and assumiing that you were the only injured person in your car, then the most compensation available to you is $25,000. That is the maximum. Even though you will be dealing with your own insurance company you should expect this to be an adversarial relationship. Your insurance company will actually be acting as the insurance company for the at-fault person and do what ever they can to minimize your claim.
If you want to handle your claim yourself you should visit a website called www.collisionwizard.com . It will help you keep track of all of your treatment info and develope a demand package. It will also help you determine the value of your claim based on the information you put in.
If at any time you feel you can not handle this or if the insurance compamy is not treating you fairly, you should seek the advice of an attorney.
I hope this helps
Richard Hixenbaugh
