Indianapolis Car Accident Attorneys
Car accidents happen in just seconds, but they will change your life forever. If you or a loved one has suffered from a car accident than it has likely impacted you either physically, mentally, or financially. If you have been hospitalized or cannot work due to your accident, then you may be entitled to more compensation than you realize. With so many things on your mind as you recover, you need a knowledgeable advocate on your side. You need a great attorney who specializes in car accident claims. You need to find the best Indianapolis car accidents attorneys.
The 5 Reasons Why You Need to Hire A Car Accident Attorney At Lohmeier Law LLC
Insurance companies are not your friend after an auto accident. They’ll throw a lot at you when you’re at your most vulnerable. They want to get each accident they work with to result in as small a payout as possible, ideally (for them) paying nothing. Fighting for money that is rightfully yours is the job of a good attorney who will go to bat for you. A good Indianapolis car accident attorney will know how to combat the strategies of the insurance companies and get you the money you deserve for everything you’ve been through.
After a crash, you’ll no doubt be dazed, panicked, confused, and likely injured to some degree. Emergency personnel converge on the scene and depending on your physical state, the rest can be a blur. Police and doctors will question you about what happened to prepare their reports as you spend the following days and weeks recovering. During that time, however, insurance companies will call you for information about your injuries, your medical treatment, your version of the accident, and more. Their job largely consists of working to process your claim as quickly as possible to minimize any possible settlement.
You can count on the at-fault driver’s insurance company consulting their team of lawyers when you file a claim. Make sure you get help from a motivated accident attorney specializing in this field.
Insurance companies will hurry to get in touch with victims of car crashes. Their immediate goal is to try to get those victims to settle, quickly and cheaply. They may also file away anything you say to them to use against you in case you decide not to settle. The insurance company will get to work right away. You may be visited in the hospital by a claim adjuster. They may take statements from you while you’re medicated and even have you sign forms. All the more reason for you to ‘lawyer up’ and get a skilled car accident attorney on your side.
Your life apart from the accident might be brought into question. If the insurance company will do anything to try and undermine your credibility, including examining your social media to prove there is a precedent for recklessness, intoxication, etc. All of these ploys would be anticipated by your attorney who is in a good position to offer counter-defenses and evasions. If you’ve been in a car accident of any scale, you’ve been through a traumatic experience. Why make your experience after that any harder than it has to be? You don’t need to manage it alone. Get the help you deserve, and contact one of our expert attorneys.
With a vast number of law firms advertising about auto accidents, finding a good one that actually cares about you can prove difficult. You have no doubt seen countless commercials flashing a 1-800 number and boasting inflated numbers in settlements. The truth is those giant firms churn through cases at an astonishing rate. Because they will take any and every claim, many of their clients end up falling through the cracks as the files back up. When you need a motivated accident attorney to fight for you and your loved ones, the team at Lohmeier Law LLC can help.
A lawyer specializing in working with victims of car accidents will act as a guide and defender for every step of your post-accident process. And there are many steps. The first step is making sure you get whatever medical treatment you need and that it will be paid for. That can involve some complicated back and forth with an insurance company or a hospital’s billing department. Often your insurance will work with your car accident attorney to make sure any injuries are from the accident in question and that payment will come from any settlement or financial decision in your favor. An experienced car accident attorney will also help organize any medical records and bills related to the accident to help with this process. They can also negotiate with insurance companies to settle on a value for the claim. Ideally, they’ll have a strong working relationship with local health care providers.
Your car accident attorney will then handle all filing and legal paperwork involved with a complaint. This involves specifying all the relevant details from the accident, as well as what claims you’re making and what compensation you hope to receive. Your attorney will also handle drafting and filing any summons for parties involved with the complaint (for example: the other driver in an accident) and filing an appearance. This last document spells out who you have for representation and what their planned actions are. Given that this serves as a sort of ‘calling card’ to the other party in the accident, all the more reason to work with one of Indianapolis’ best car accident attorneys.
If your case reaches the point of litigation, there are many complex steps involved that a good car accident attorney can manage for you. Your lawyer will do what’s called sending and answering written discovery. In short, this is asking and answering any questions from either party about each other’s claims and making sure everyone has access to the correct documents. Contrary to what you’ve seen in movies with things like surprise witnesses, both parties should have access to all relevant materials from the start. This continues in a verbal form with what are called depositions. A deposition is the time for each party to sit together and ask questions of the other under the guidance of a knowledgeable attorney. At this point, you might require experts to bring their expertise to the record. These could be experts in your medical condition after the crash, a vocational expert talking about your post-crash employment situation, or some sort of crash specialist going over the exact details of your accident. Can you imagine trying to find and research the best experts to use for this when you’re recovering from a car crash? Rather than chase these individuals down yourself, your attorney will have go-to consultants for situations like this.
At this point, you and your attorney are prepared for trial but will go to mediation first. This the last moment to compare cases to see if going to trial is potentially worth it. Most cases will ideally resolve at this point when all of the materials and facts are visible in harsh light. Should this not be resolved at this point, you and your attorney will prepare for trial. A great car accident attorney is 100 percent necessary at this point.
Hopefully, this will all end up benefiting you, whether through a settlement or a decision made in your favor. After the settlement or verdict, it’s possible you’ll owe money to your health insurer or some other provider covering your costs. Your attorney will help manage and organize this. There may also be a release to sign upon case completion. This could be some sort of confidentiality clause or limit any future claims related to the settlement. Like any legal document, you’ll obviously want your attorney to review it thoroughly before you sign it or anything else.
Car crashes are so common to modern life that, unless we’re involved in one, we’re inclined to pay them little attention. Because of this, it’s easy to think you’ll be fine if that unfortunate happenstance happens to you. You may think you’ll know what to do and that you’ll be prepared. Hopefully, after reading through this, you’ll realize that the things you need to take care of after a crash (and often immediately after a crash) are complicated and potentially fraught with legal and financial peril. Why try to tackle all that yourself, especially when you’re scared, injured, and potentially paying large amounts of money for medical needs and car repair? Get yourself an excellent lawyer, preferably an Indianapolis-based car accident attorney who knows how to navigate through the dangers and challenges you’d be facing. Whether you need your medical paperwork filed, or a review of the crash site, or a guide through the legal bureaucracy, or a tenacious legal shark fighting for you in a courtroom, a great car accident attorney is your one go-to for helping you thrive after your car accident.
Indianapolis Car Accident Statistics
The numbers don’t lie. Car collisions have increased steadily in Indiana over the past few years. Marion county is recorded for the highest number of collisions in 2017. The Indiana Criminal Justice Institute has yet to publish information for 2018 (as of October 2019). According to Indiana University, in 2016 there were 37,447 collisions in the county, making Marion the highest number for the past four years. These resulted in one hundred fatalities and 1.245 incapacitating injuries in that year and county alone. While the largest number of injured parties were the drivers, also injured were passengers, bicyclists, and pedestrians. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Marion County had the most fatalities in Indiana each year between 2009 and 2013. Although those numbers have lessened some, they’re still high enough to warrant concern. Marion also had the largest number of individuals involved at 65,317 in 2017. When you consider that each person involved in a crash can be a potential litigious party, you can see the importance of an attorney knowledgeable about car accident litigation. Also of note is that Marion had 30,558 instances of collisions that caused substantial property damage, showing that potential litigation can occur even when no one is injured.
Statistics on car accidents are plentiful. Were you curious, the top five Indiana counties for auto collisions are (in order from first to fifth): Marion, Lake, Allen, St Joseph, and Hamilton. But what can you do with that information? Is there anywhere in Indiana where one is safe from car crashes? As you can imagine, most auto accidents occur in urban areas due to their population density. Note that rural areas of Indiana are more likely to have crashes with fatalities. This is most likely because cars are apt to be traveling faster in rural than urban areas and because a more remote accident area would have a longer response time for emergency care. But statistics will only tell you so much. After all, if everyone moved to the safest counties with the lowest number of car accidents, the populations of those counties would go up, thus causing more accidents, etc.
So where can you drive in Indiana and be absolutely safe? Well, unfortunately, there’s no one clear answer for that. As always when driving, you should be alert and aware, not speed, be careful around trucks and in inclement weather, and never, ever drink and drive. And if the statistics do, unfortunately, catch up to you, know that a good Indianapolis car accident lawyer can help you out.
What’s more relevant than how many accidents are in a particular county is what is causing those accidents. Certainly denser populations (such as in Indianapolis) mean more people with more cars in a smaller space, thereby raising the mathematical likelihood of getting into a car accident. Unsafe driving from following too close or failing to yield the right of way. One local Indianapolis news report stated that following too closely is the most common cause of car accidents in Indiana by far. Distracted driving (usually due to electronic devices like cell phones) is a nationwide problem on the roads. In 2017 1,272 Indiana collisions were caused by distraction due to cell phones. Alcohol or other chemical impairment was responsible for 4,450 collisions in Indiana in 2017. But by far the several cause of accidents was simple speeding, making up 18,319 2017 accidents in the state. Another big source of collisions is with large trucks on Indiana’s highways. According to the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute’s 2014 report on commercial motor vehicles and their safety, eight percent of all car collisions involved a large truck, usually on a highway. More often than not, the people in the car in these collisions suffer more serious injuries. And like anywhere in the country, weather can play a big factor, causing 22,816 collisions in 2017 in the state.
Let Lohmeier Law take on the insurance company for you!
We work solely on a contingency fee, which means we do not take a fee unless we settle your accident claim.
Car Accident FAQ
Don’t Settle Until You’ve Consulted with An Indianapolis Car Accident Lawyer
Insurance companies would love for you to settle. They’re in the business of avoiding legal escalations and giving you the smallest amount of money they can, sometimes none at all. And when you’re at your most vulnerable, settling and avoiding further conflict might sound like the perfect thing. It’s easy to not think ahead at those moments. You’re not considering the time you may lose at work, unexpected medical expenses due to your accident, or the toll on your mental well-being. It’s easy and understandable to want to settle, but in doing so, you sell yourself short. Get yourself an excellent Indianapolis-based car accident lawyer who will do the heavy lifting involved with not settling.