Should I Hire a Car Accident Lawyer?

Car insurance is great, and helps immensely in most situations, but an insurance company will only pay up to the driver’s policy limits. If you are involved in a car accident and the cost of the damages and injuries are more than the at-fault person’s insurance policy maximum, you could be finding yourself in a tough place.

To get more money to cover your costs in an instance like this, you will have to seek money from the individual driver on top of their insurance coverage. This situation can be extremely tough to navigate. An experienced personal injury attorney can help establish your claim, calculate your damages, determine who is at fault, and try to settle your claim for fair and just compensation.

The legal team at Frankl Kominsky are ready to help in these situations. We are dedicated to pursuing compensation for your damages and injuries. Your lawyer may even be able to settle the dispute out of court. If not, your lawyer can then help you to file the appropriate lawsuit so that you may be rightfully compensated.

If you are involved in a car accident that involves three different drivers, figuring out who is at fault can be difficult and confusing. Typically, the driver who causes the accident initially is the most at fault. However, all three drivers in a three-way crash have a chance of partial liability depending on how the accident occurred.

When this is the case, determining who is at fault is challenging, as is receiving the compensation you deserve for damages and injuries caused by the accident. It takes an experienced lawyer, like the legal team at Frankl Kominsky, to try to navigate the situation successfully.

While three-way accidents are not one of the most common types of accidents, they still happen more frequently than you would think. Most frequently, three-way car crashes happen when one car rear-ends another with great force.

When the force is great enough, it causes the car in front of it to move enough to hit another, causing a chain-reaction. With an accident that happens like this, it is typically relatively easy to lay blame with the rear vehicle.

In a different scenario, one car strikes the rear of another vehicle, but then a third car hits the first two cars. When a three-way car accident occurs like this, fault is assigned differently. While the person who strikes the initial car will have fault, so will the individual driving the third car as well.

Not all three-way accidents are chain-reaction crashes like the previous two scenarios suggest. One car can turn into oncoming traffic and cause a multi-car crash. Many times, accidents like these are caused by extreme negligence or even drunk or DUI drivers.

How an insurance company assigns liability in a three-way car accident is different on a case-to-case basis. In the end, it all depends on who caused the collision or contributed to it in any way.

In the first example described above, where a chain reaction occurs after a rear-ending accident, the driver of the vehicle in the rear is very likely to be 100% at fault. This driver would be liable to pay for the cost of injuries and damages to the two other drivers.

In the other examples described, assigning liability is a little bit more complicated. The person who caused the initial accident would most likely be assigned the most blame, however others may be found liable for injury and damage costs as well. No matter the type of three-way or multi-vehicle crash you find yourself in, the lawyers at Frankl Kominsky will fight to get you the compensation you deserve.

In the state of Florida, you have ten days to report a car accident. Ten days is a very lenient amount of time. Most drivers that are involved in a crash report the accident immediately from the scene of the accident. In this instance, the police officers that arrive on the scene will file the report.

If you find yourself in a circumstance where the police are not called directly from the scene of the accident, then one of the drivers involved in the accident must file a report. This entails going to the local police department and asking to file a report. Even if you are involved in a minor accident, you should file a police report. A police report is unbiased, and shows the facts of the accident so that it may be helpful to determine fault.

The Florida Statute 316.066 details all the rules created by Florida lawmakers for filing a report after a car crash. This specific statute outlines requirements for anyone involved in a crash that meets certain criteria. These criteria are:

• $500 or more in property damage to either or both vehicles
• Injuries, pain or discomfort, or death
• A vehicle that requires towing from the scene of the accident

If you are involved in a car accident that meets any of the criteria above, you are required by law to contact the police and file a police report. Additionally, if any of the drivers involved in the accident are drunk or driving under the influence, you are required by law to file a report as well.

It is important to file a report after a car accident because, in most cases, it is required by law. If the accident you are involved in is serious enough, it is the law that the police must be called and a report filed. If you choose to ignore the law and do not file a report, you could receive an expensive ticket for a traffic violation. Depending on the severity of the accident, this ticket could also require that you appear in court or perform community service hours.

What happens if you are involved in a minor accident? Is it necessary to file a police report then? If the car crash that you are involved in seems to be a minor one, it may not necessarily be required by law to file a report. However, you should seriously consider doing so anyway. If you leave the scene of the accident without filing a report, and you notice that you have an injury in the next day or two, the insurance company will ask for a report. It may be helpful to connect your injuries or damages to the accident, and the insurance company may choose to deny your claim without it.

When it comes to car accidents, determining who was at fault is not always an easy feat. There are multiple people-drivers, insurance agents, and attorneys - working to prove exactly where the fault lies. Insurance companies and lawyers may assign their investigators to the case.

After an accident takes place, there are many different people who may want to see your car. As mentioned above, other drivers involved in the accident, insurance adjusters, lawyers, and investigators may all want to see the damage done to your vehicle first hand. This way, they can assess the damage themselves as opposed to through images or descriptions provided by the police report.

In some cases, lawyers or investigators may also bring additional professionals to assess the damage of your car. For example, if there was a problem with the deployment of your airbag during a car accident, then the lawyer or investigator may want someone from the airbag manufacturing company on site to inspect the airbag and its compartment. This person is an expert in their field, and may be able to recognize or notice details that others can not.

Each person looking at your car will be searching for evidence to prove their side of the case. If you were rear-ended in a car accident, investigators will be inspecting and photographing the rear of the car to show the exact amount of damage, and to find proof that the accident occurred in that way.

The damage that is left behind in an accident can show an investigator many things, like what direction the vehicle was coming from and how fast the vehicles were moving. If the other person involved in the accident denies that they caused any damage to your vehicle, these photos and this information may serve as proof to solidify your case.

When an insurance adjuster shows up to examine your vehicle, they are looking at things in a slightly different way. An insurance adjuster’s job is to determine which parts of the vehicle were damaged and the total cost to repair the damage. If the insurance adjuster finds that the damages to the car will cost more to fix than the car is worth, then he or she will declare the car as totaled.

If the insurance adjuster examines your car and determines that it is totaled, that means he or she thinks that it is not worth it to fix your vehicle. In this case, they will most likely offer you a check for the depreciated value of your car. Unfortunately, this outcome is not the most positive one for the owner of the car. The check that you will receive as the owner of the totaled car will not be enough to buy you a new car. If you are working with an attorney from Frankl Kominsky, we can carefully review your auto insurance policy to determine if you have coverage that will provide you with the full value of your car.

Another potential outcome for declaring your car “totaled” is that an investigator may not necessarily have a chance to inspect the car. Once the insurance company pays you the depreciated amount for your car, they then own your car.

Once they own your car, they have no interest in either fixing your car or selling it, so they receive money for it as scrap metal. If this process moves quickly, there is a chance that your car can get sold for scrap metal before our investigator can get a chance to take photos. If this is the case, we will be missing an important piece of evidence for your case.

In any case where there is a dispute over who or what caused the accident to happen, there may be an accident reconstruction specialist involved. An accident reconstruction specialist is an expert in examining the damage on the cars involved, as well as the scene of the accident, to determine where fault lies. When an accident reconstruction expert is contacted, he or she will examine the cars and the scene of the accident.

They can use the information they find to calculate the path and speed of each vehicle and plot out each step that led up to the crash. If there is any question at all about where the fault of the accident lies, your lawyer at Frankl Kominsky may consider using a reputable accident reconstruction expert.

While some accidents are caused by distracted driving or dangerous weather conditions, other accidents can be caused by vehicle defects. If it is determined that some type of manufacturing defect was the cause of the accident, then your car will have to be kept as evidence of the defect.