Oftentimes, clients will come to us after they’ve been dealing with the insurance company on their own. It’s really, in my experience, a sad situation because invariably they have done things or said things that have compromised their case. The insurance companies know what questions to ask. They know what benefits you may or may not be entitled to.
Typically, a person, unless they are in the insurance field or in the legal field, no matter how smart they are, no matter how good they are at their job, they simply don’t know about the myriad of things that you need to know and you need to take care of in a timely fashion. Only a legal professional, experienced in personal injury cases, can help you at that point and it’s so easy to put a legal professional on your side. But a lot of people do hesitate. They think, “Well, I can handle this.” Only to, in the end, find out that there were benefits that were missed. In some cases, they lost benefits altogether because there were certain time periods in which they had to file a notice. Not just a notice but a particular type of notice.
For example, if you’re injured as a result of someone who is a drunk driver and they were served to the point of intoxication at a bar or a tavern or a restaurant, you have a limited number of months in which to file that claim and then you have to make that claim in a specific format or you’ve lost your rights altogether.
A lot of times we have people in serious motor vehicle collisions who’ve been injured as a result of a person who is intoxicated, and they come to us after that time period and no law firm, no judge, no one can help them. That’s sad. You need to know your legal rights and you need to find out about your legal rights at the earliest possible time.