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Apart from being a deadly threat to victims, car accidents are expensive. The reason for this is victims need money to cover medical bills, car repairs, and any other expenses they may need to pay for after being part of a crash.
When victims of a car accident file a car accident claim against the liable party for the crash, the insurance company ends up paying for what happened. However, insurance companies do what they can to pay the victims the least amount of money they can.
Regardless of that, there's something people don't talk about often, and it's what they can do if the maximum money they can receive according to the insurance limits is not enough to pay for what they need.
Some injuries are too expensive to treat, so the defendant needs to have high policy limits if they want their insurance company to pay for the victim's compensation. Anyone willing to learn more about what happens when auto accident settlements exceed insurance limits should read this article.
The Powell Law Firm is a personal injury law firm in St. Louis, Missouri. Therefore, any car accident victims who want to file a car accident claim can call it to schedule a free consultation of their case with a lawyer from this law firm.
How Do Car Accident Claims Work?
Car accident victims need to understand how liability insurance policy limits work before trying to know what happens when auto accident settlements exceed those limits.
In a nutshell, all victims of a car crash can hire an auto accident attorney in St. Louis MO to sue the liable party for the accident, and that lawsuit is what people know as a car accident claim.
When victims of a car accident file a car accident claim, they often ask for money to pay for any medical costs, lost wages, economic, and non-economic damages caused by the crash.
How Do Personal Injury Lawyers Handle Car Accident Claims?
Most lawyers try to address these cases without taking them to court, so they negotiate with the liable party for the car accident and the insurance company to discuss how much compensation the victim should get for what happened.
Naturally, the insurance company won't be willing to pay for the whole amount of compensation the victim asked for in the car accident claim, but if they are trying to get to an agreement with a personal injury lawyer, they may get to a fair settlement for the victim.
If the parties involved in the accident are unable to get to an agreement, they need to take the take to court. Auto accident settlements are often expensive due to medical costs since injury compensation is one of the most expensive parts of a car accident.
However, if auto accident settlements determine the victim should get the maximum compensation clients can get for a car accident claim, the insurance company won't go past that. If insurance limits, for example, have $40,000 as the max compensation the insurance company can give the victim, it won't give them more than that even if they need it.
This is when car accident victims ask themselves what they can do if auto accident settlements exceed policy limits. Also, if interested you can learn about insurance claims dealing with single car accidents.
Understanding Policy Limits in Missouri
The average settlement the insurance company gives to car accident victims in Missouri is from $3,000 to $15,000. Regardless of that, the Missouri car accident laws require citizens to enroll in insurance policies that meet the following requirements:
Offering $25,000 for bodily injury per each victim of an accident
Offering $50,000 for bodily injury liability insurance to more than two people in an accident
Offering $10,000 for property damage per accident
Offering $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident when having uninsured motorist coverage
Many citizens only get insurance policies that help them comply with the insurance limits the law demands them to have in case of a car accident. Therefore, people who only do the bare minimum when enrolling for insurance companies are more prone to being part of a lawsuit where auto accident settlements exceed the liability insurance policy limits.
How to Know the Policy Limits of the Liable Party of a Car Accident
The best way to know the policy limits of a person is that the victim asks themselves or asks their lawyer. However, not everyone is willing to reveal that information since that helps personal injury lawyers understand what they can ask for and what they can use to negotiate with the insurance company.
However, even if the liable party for an accident doesn't want to tell the victim the policy limits of their insurance company plan, that information will be available for everyone at some point throughout the legal process, so there's no need to worry about it.
Why Do Auto Accident Settlements Exceed Policy Limits?
Since it's not common for auto accident settlements to exceed policy limits, not many people know why that happens. However, there are many reasons why this would occur, and here are the main ones:
The Severity of Personal Injuries
Injury compensation is not affordable regardless of how severe the injury the victim got is. Nonetheless, auto accident settlements can turn outrageously expensive when dealing with more severe injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries and permanent disabilities.
Things such as pain and suffering also make the whole settlement value higher at the end of the day, so it's safe to say that, if a car accident claim exceeds policy limits, it may be due to the severity of the injuries the victim got. The same happens with wrongful death cases that include more than one victim.
Low Insurance Company Policy Limits
As it was mentioned before, some victims often only get insurance policies with the minimum policy limits they need to comply with law requirements, but that means they are not prepared to handle car accident claims that ask for huge amounts of money.
Many people ask themselves why it's so uncommon to see auto accident settlements exceed insurance policy limits if so many people stay with the bare minimum when talking about liability insurance. The answer is that, even if injuries are too severe, car accident claims are not always expensive enough to exceed policy limits.
Regardless of that, some insurance policies and programs, such as the umbrella policy, are made to help people unable to pay for the full amount of compensation a claim is asking them for.
Types of Injuries That Exceed Insurance Policy Limits
One of the best ways to know if a car accident claim will exceed policy limits is by studying the injuries the victim suffered after the accident. Since some injuries include more expensive treatments than others, lawyers can predict a claim will exceed policy limits if their client is suffering from extremely severe injuries.
These are some of the injuries that could make a claim exceed the insurance policy limits:
Traumatic Brain Injuries
Spinal Cord Injuries
Paralysis
Herniated Discs
Permanent or Semi-Permanent Disabilities
Why do spinal cord injuries and traumatic brain injuries often exceed policy limits? Because victims need to go through expensive surgeries to heal from them, and some victims may even need more than one.
What Happens When Car Accident Claim Exceeds Insurance Limits?
Getting to the main part of this article, it's time to know what happens when car accident claims exceed policy limits. If victims are in a case where this happens, it doesn't mean they won't receive the money they need to cover the damages of what happened, but they need to do different things to get that money.
Firstly, people who go through a long case with the defendant and insurance company can say they don't want to get involved in any other legal process related to the case and stick to what the insurance company will give them, according to the verdict they got.
However, this also means the victim will need to pay for all the left expenses out of their pocket without receiving any other kind of compensation for the accident. Fortunately, there are many ways of getting that compensation when a settlement exceeds insurance policy limits.
Here are the most common things that could happen after a verdict exceeds policy limits:
Underinsured Motorist Coverage
Underinsured motorist coverage is an insurance policy that helps victims when they get into a case where insurance policies are not enough to pay for what happened. That's the reason the policy's name states it's for underinsured victims.
In a nutshell, insurance companies following this policy will give additional coverage to victims if policy limits weren't enough to cover car repairs or injuries.
This insurance policy works similarly to the Umbrella Insurance Policy that helps liable parties for personal injury cases offer more compensation than their current policy limits can give the victim asking for liability insurance.
Although many confuse them, underinsured motorist coverage is not the same as uninsured motorist coverage.
The latter gives compensation money to victims of a car crash who haven't enrolled for any insurance company or liability insurance policy. Victims can't take advantage of this policy when a liability insurance claim exceeds policy limits, but it's always good to know that policy exists.
Bad Faith Lawsuit
Bad faith lawsuits are one of the most uncommon outcomes after car accident polity limits are exceeded, and it consists of the victim of a car accident claim filing a lawsuit against the insurance company for not doing enough to help them.
People can also sue insurance companies if adjusters did something wrong on purpose to make sure they don't need to give the victim enough money for the medical bills needed to heal from all the serious injuries they may have gotten after a car accident.
As it was mentioned before, it's not common to see a car crash victim suing the insurance company just because their settlement exceeds the company's policy limits. It's worth noting that bad faith laws change depending on the state where the accident happens.
Get Money from Different At-Fault Parties
More than two people can be liable in a car accident, and all of them need to answer for what happened to the victims of the crash.
As long as the victim of a car accident can prove all the liable parties of a crash are the ones who caused it, all of them need to pay for the final compensation of the victim.
However, there's something victims need to take into account about this matter, and it's that Missouri is a comparative fault state. What that means is that the victim will receive less compensation if it was also liable for what happened.
It is important to know how to dispute a car accident fault. It doesn't matter if the victim was only 1% liable for the accident since it will mean the victim will receive 1% less of what they should have gotten in the first place.
Beyond Policy Limits Lawsuit
When victims find out the settlement the judge got exceeds the compensation they need to cover all their current expenses, they file a beyond-policy-limits lawsuit to make sure everyone has what they need from the accident.
As this policy name suggests, it's there to help victims of car crashes who don't get all the money they deserve to pay for the lost wages and medical bills of the crash. How does this policy achieve this? It makes the defendant pay for everything out of their pocket.
Regardless of that, winning a beyond-policy-limits lawsuit is no easy task since the person filing the lawsuit needs to prove the money they receive from the insurance company is not enough to cover all the expenses they have left to pay.
Filing a beyond-policy-limits lawsuit against the liable party for an accident is the victim's best choice when dealing with this issue. Why are things like that? Because it's too difficult to prove an insurance company showed bad faith signs.
Additionally, victims can only benefit from car accidents with more than one liable person if their case is like that, but others whose case only consists of another driver crashing with their car can't get funds from any other party.
What Should People Do When the Insurance Company Can't Cover All Damages?
The first thing car crash victims need to do if policy limits are not enough to cover serious injuries and medical bills is to talk everything out with a personal injury lawyer who is experienced, qualified, and prepared to go through a new legal process for their clients.
Car accident policy limits are complex to understand, and that means car crash victims need someone by their side who can explain every part of the process to them. The Powell Law Firm has everything a personal injury victim would look for in a personal injury attorney for a car accident claim.
Along the benefits of hiring this law firm to file a car accident claim is that it doesn't charge its clients anything for meeting with its attorneys, and that means anyone can schedule a free consultation to talk about the details of their case. Thanks to that, victims can first meet a lawyer from this firm to make sure they feel comfortable with how they work.
The Powell Law Firm takes more cases apart from wrongful death and car accident cases since victims of truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, dog bites, medical malpractice, and even workplace negligence can call it to see how this law firm can get them the compensation they deserve.
As for car accident claims that exceed policy limits, the Powell Law Firm has no problem helping its clients get all the compensation they deserve for what happened, even if it's by filing a beyond-policy-limits against the liable party for the accident or a bad faith lawsuit against the defendant's insurance company.
Bottom Line
Going through all the legal processes related to filing a lawsuit against another person can cause a lot of distress due to all the things people need to understand regarding how every step of the process works. Hence, one always needs a lawyer who can serve as a legal counselor in these situations.
Nonetheless, even if the victim wins the case and will get the maximum amount of compensation the insurance company can give them, they won't be able to fully recover from what happened if they don't have enough money for it. When this happens, most car accident victims have to go through the same process over again.
This doesn't need to happen to anyone in Missouri as long as they call the Powell Law Firm! All the lawyers working for this company know what they need to do in each situation to not only get the victim the compensation they deserve but also make the process less stressful for them.
The only thing clients need to do to contact this law firm is to call it through the phone number on its website and schedule a free case evaluation whenever both people are ready and available for it.