If you have been injured or lost a loved one in a car accident, you know that the money spent on medical bills is just the tip of the iceberg.
It is at these times that contacting a Rhode Island car accident lawyer to help you with your accident injuries is helpful. From whiplash injuries or neck injuries to brain injuries or wrongful death, let us help you.
Losing the ability to work or the income from family members killed in a crash can leave you coping with serious financial stress in addition to your physical and emotional injuries.
An experienced car accident lawyer from our firm can help you to protect this right by taking steps that include:
- Investigating your claim and helping you to prove your case.
- Negotiating with insurance companies.
- Taking action against insurers who act in bad faith.
- Representing you in court.
To learn more, call Gemma Law Associates, Inc. today at (401) 400-3337. Your initial consultation is free of charge.
Types of Compensation Available After a Car Wreck
When you meet with a car crash attorney to review your case, we will explain to you the different types of compensation that are available to Rhode Island auto accident victims. In your case, you may be able to recover money for:
Medical costs
This includes payment of past and future medical bills and payment for things like transportation costs to go to your doctor’s office.
Lost income
Whether you take sick time, miss work for a few months or cannot work again for the rest of your life, you may be compensated for any wages that the accident prevents you from earning.
If your loved one is killed, you could be compensated for income that person would have earned and provided for your family over the course of his or her life.
Pain and suffering
It is hard to put a price on what your pain is worth, but the law says that the person or entity who causes a car collision must compensate you for the pain you endure.
Emotional distress
Like pain and suffering, nothing can take away the emotional anguish you feel due to the accident or injuries. Still, you deserve to be “made whole” from the crash, and that includes receiving payment for any emotional suffering you experience.
Wrongful death damages
These damages are paid to surviving family members such as spouses, parents of minor children, and kids whose parents die in crashes.
The compensation you may receive after an accident will depend on many factors, including the severity of your accident and the injuries.
Unfortunately, the insurance companies won’t simply write you a check to make up for what has happened. Even if your car is totaled, they may not pay what they owe you.
Your Legal Options After a Car Crash
If you have been hurt or a loved one has been killed in a car collision through no fault of your own, you have to take legal action and make sure you protect your right to get the compensation you deserve. You can do this in many ways, including:
Making a claim with the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
The driver responsible for causing your accident should pay for your bodily injuries and vehicle damage. The driver should have liability insurance coverage.
In Rhode Island, by law, the minimum coverage limits currently are 25/50/25. The first two numbers mean that the at-fault driver would pay up to $25,000 per person injured in your accident, or up to $50,000 if two or more persons are injured.
The last number means that the driver would pay up to $25,000 for property damage that the driver caused. Our car accident attorneys can negotiate an out-of-court settlement with the driver’s insurance company to get compensation for your injuries in exchange for giving up the right to sue.
Making a claim with your own insurance company.
If the driver who caused your crash had no insurance or didn’t have enough insurance to cover your losses, you may need to turn to your own insurance company and make an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim (UM/UIM).
At Gemma Law Associates, Inc., we can review your insurance policy to determine your UM/UIM coverage and deal with your insurance company in making a claim through this policy.
Taking your case to court.
If the insurance companies refuse to agree to a full and fair settlement, you can file a lawsuit against the driver who was responsible for your accident. You will need to prove that the driver was unreasonably careless or broke safety rules, and you will need to show that you were damaged or harmed as a result.
The judge or jury will decide if the other driver was to blame and how much money you should be awarded. Gemma Law Associates, Inc. has a long history of successfully taking these cases to trial.
If we take on your case, Gemma Law will work closely with you to pursue the options that are right for you and your family, and we will keep you fully updated and informed through every stage of your case.
How a RI Car Accident Lawyer Can Help You
Pursuing a car accident claim can be complicated. There are strict timelines (called statutes of limitations) and specific procedural rules that you need to follow. Also, when you are dealing with insurance companies, you are dealing with a team of experts who want to protect their profits and pay you as little as possible or nothing at all.
Our experienced car accident lawyers can help you. We will:
Investigate your claim and help you to prove your case
From interviewing witnesses to collecting records to finding an accident reconstruction expert, we will help you build a strong claim to get the insurance company or a jury to understand why you deserve full compensation.
Negotiate with insurance companies
Generally speaking, insurance companies do not want to pay what they owe, whether you are dealing with your own insurer or the other driver’s insurer. Insurance companies may use all sorts of tactics and delays to try to get you to settle for less.
You need a negotiator with a detailed understanding of car accident cases to make the insurer play fair and pay you what you deserve. At Gemma Law, insurance companies know we are aggressive, tough negotiators who will stand up for our clients.
Take action against bad-faith insurers
If your insurance company doesn’t pay out a claim when your policy covers it, they can be taken to court for bad faith. In many cases, you can recover compensation in excess of your policy limits when an insurer is unreasonable.
Represent you in court
If your claim goes in front of a judge or jury, we know how to present evidence in a compelling way that will convince the court to award you the maximum in damages.
When you are represented by Gemma Law Associates, Inc., you have a caring, dedicated, and experienced car accident lawyer with knowledge of Rhode Island car accident laws on your side.
With more than 40 years of experience representing accident victims, we know how important it is for you to be awarded fair compensation after your car accident so that you will have money to meet your needs. We take our responsibility to our clients seriously. We will treat your case with the importance that it deserves.
We never charge legal fees unless we win compensation for you. This means you have nothing to lose and everything to gain by having our firm on your case.
Give us a call today or contact us online to schedule a no-obligation case evaluation so you can learn more about how we can help with your claim.
Serving the Greater Providence metro area, including Warwick, Cranston, Pawtucket, North Providence, South Kingston, Coventry, Cumberland, Woonsocket, and East Providence.
