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Tactics Used By Insurance Companies In Challenging a Car Accident Claim
Just because a company is in the business of insurance does not mean that it has noble motives. A car insurance company is a company just like any other, meaning that its reason for existence is to generate profits for itself and its shareholders. This plain truth should not shock the conscience, as it simply speaks to the nature of doing business in a capitalistic economy such as that of the United States. Rather, this information should function as a “reality check” for car accident victims.
A car insurance company protects profits by working to minimize payouts for car accidents claims. The purpose of this article is to shed light on the payout minimization tactics utilized by car insurers. When they are deployed overly aggressively in the interest of an inadequate payout, the services of an experienced car accident attorney are an asset.
Car Insurance Companies Time Settlement Offers Strategically
Being Proactive with Insurers Following a Car Accident
Traffic in the O’Hare Airport area is an intense nexus of departing and arriving travelers, taxis, ride-sharing services, and individuals who simply traverse I-90 or I-190 on a daily basis as part of their work commute. With so much activity, often governed by time-sensitive schedules, car accidents are an unfortunately daily inevitability. Whether around the perimeter of O’Hare or in nearby Rosemont or Park Ridge, when you meet the misfortune of a car accident, it is important to navigate the subsequent healthcare, insurance, law enforcement, and if necessary, legal interactions with as much preparedness and assertiveness as needed to cover your accident expenses, medical bills, and other losses.
Receiving the Full Compensation You Are Entitled to under Your Insurance Policy
It is in an insurer’s interest with regard to profit margins to pay out the minimum compensation required when a valid claim is filed. As such, knowledge and assertiveness are essential in obtaining the full extent of compensation you are entitled to receive from car accident claim. So know your insurance policy and do not settle for less than you deserve. Consider relying on an experienced car accident attorney – especially one who has dealt with insurance companies countless times and knows full well the internal procedures they utilize in an effort to pay out less than full compensation to claimants.
Compensation for Auto Accident Injuries Involving Industrial Vehicle
Driving in the Chicago area at rush hour is anxiety-inducing enough when major throughways such as 90/94, 290, 55, and Lake Shore Drive are facilitating traffic with optimal results. When additional variables are present, such as unexpected temporary lane closures or reductions, the stress, and danger increase. This is especially the case when driving alongside a semi-truck, flatbed carrying wide contents, or an industrial grade vehicle utilized for purposes such as construction, waste management, or agriculture.
The larger, longer, and wider the vehicle, the greater the chance it has of a crossing a lane boundary, especially when weather conditions or city construction has reduced lane sizes. When a boundary is crossed, a collision may occur. Similarly, a chain reaction may occur when one driver panics at the sight of a veering large vehicle, thereby introducing chaos and disarray into traffic and causing an auto accident. When one of these scenarios plays out and personal injuries are suffered, the law allows for victims to pursue monetary damages for medical bills and other losses.
Apportioning Responsibility for a Late-Winter Slip-and-Fall
In the Chicago area, the battle between the end of winter and the start of spring in the months of March and April can wreak havoc on Illinois roads, sidewalks, and points of ingress and egress at local businesses. Rain turns to snow, snow turns to rain, and sometimes precipitation however between its solid and liquid states, coating surfaces with a dangerous layer of icy slush. The city is usually dogged in its efforts to plow snow to the sides of roads and dissolve ice with salt. The same is true of most local business owners, whom, like the city government, literally have a duty to safeguard persons visiting, entering, exiting, or crossing a business’s premises.
As such, if a retailer, bar, restaurant, or other business fails to protect customers (and even mere visitors or passersby) by diligently keeping ice at bay and posting warning signs about slick surfaces, and a slip-and-fall in which personal injuries are sustained results, the business may be held liable for the injuries and other losses.
Seeking Compensation for Injuries Suffered in a Mass Transit Accident
The Chicago area is a virtual unfathomably bustling hub of activity, with more than 1.5 million people riding the “L” trains and buses operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) every day. Most of the time, the CTA system functions well, safely delivering area residents and visitors to and from home, work, and cultural centers. Sometimes, however, things go wrong.
If you have ever stood outside waiting for a bus at rush hour during the city’s famously inclement wintertime weather, or witnessed the mad dash of a throng of people rushing to catch a train home from a baseball stadium or Michigan Avenue thoroughfare, you have likely marveled with at least some small degree of anxiety over how the overlapping layers of movement can all work without devolving into constant conflict and danger. When, on occasion, things go wrong and an accident occurs, the consequences can be dire, with severe injuries and fatalities a disconcertingly real possibility.
Compensation after a Chicago Car Accident
When it comes to shouldering responsibility, car accidents may be more complicated than they might initially seem. Complexities may emerge in either the sequence of events leading up to the moment of collision and personal injuries that follow or in the capacities of each driver (and in some cases pedestrians) involved. Your job as a car accident injury victim is not to play detective. Recovering from the harms you have suffered and adjusting your work and other schedules accordingly are your proper focus. Recording every detail of the facts at issue is the territory of law enforcement, and in apportioning blame and imposing liability, the province of an attorney.
Multi-Party Auto Accidents and the Question of Fault
As a Chicago area resident, you are already familiar with the complexity of the city’s system of roads and highways. Take, for example, the frequent site of road construction area where lanes narrow and traffic snarls. Now, factor in winter weather. You are on your way to work as driving lanes on both sides of a median or temporary traffic divider are halved by red cones and a squad of city workers. You adjust accordingly, slowing to the reduced speed limit.
Compensation for Restaurant Burn Injury Victims
Between the hours of noon and 7 p.m., few places in a metropolitan area are more bustling than popular restaurants. Hosts conduct the endless jigsaw puzzle of expeditiously seating parties eager to dine and return to work in the time allotted by employers. Servers race around from table to table, taking orders, delivering food and beverages, and bussing tables to make room for the next in line. And the cooks in the kitchen line grills and prep stations with ingredients and tools. Most of the time, a popular restaurant is the definition of a “well-oiled machine,” with the relationship between patrons and staff being a harmonious one. This is precisely how a restaurant becomes popular and stays in business, turning patrons into “regulars.”
Sometimes, however, food service goes awry and a patron is injured by a spilled scalding hot beverage or tray of plates containing fresh-off-the-grill items. Besides the interruption of an otherwise clockwork-like day, restaurant-related injuries, such as burns, can be severe. When this happens – when you have suffered an injury in a restaurant – an experienced Park Ridge personal injury attorney will work to obtain compensation for your medical bills, pain and suffering, and other losses.
Duty of Care: Injured by Falling Inventory in a Retail Location
Ordinarily, when a consumer is zooming through a “big box” retain center or other bustling store in a major shopping center, he or she only sees what is straight ahead and to the left and right. This mundane truth is despite the fact that all around are shelving units and metal pallets stacking store items from the floor to the rafters. While employees are aware of these storage devices, customers typically only become aware of them when an accident is caused by a falling store item. With items often being heavy and stored at a significant height, accidents caused by falling store items can inflict severe injuries on the unsuspecting customers below. In such instances, it is only right to hold the retailer responsible for the injuries sustained. An experienced Park Ridge premises liability attorney is well aware of this principle of liability, and will advocate for your legal rights.
When a Shopping Slip-and-Fall Results in Holiday Injuries
With freezing rain and snow in the short-term Chicago area weather forecast and throngs of last-minute holiday shoppers and merrymakers set to descend upon malls from Park Ridge to Michigan Avenue, precipitation and peregrination will meet to cause injuries. For shopping slip-and-fall victims, it is critical know that every business has a special duty to protect its customers from unsafe conditions on its businesses. When a business abrogates this duty, those that have suffered injuries and other harms and losses may rightfully seek compensation from the business for medical bills, lost income due to missed work, pain and suffering, the consequences of any short or long-term disabilities stemming from the injuries, and, depending on the specific circumstances, additional damages. While nothing can “unruin” a holiday season beset with injuries suffered in a slip-and-fall, an experienced Park Ridge personal injury attorney will be there to seek all compensation to which you are rightfully owed.
When Nature and Negligence Combine to Cause a Car Accident
It is that time of year, when slippery roads, poor visibility, ill-maintained automobiles, and human error combine to produce injury-causing car accidents. In the Chicago area, when it is time to buckle down for winter, you just want to get to and from work and through the holidays without incident. When this most understandable of aspirations is thwarted by a combination of inclement weather and unsafe driving on the part of another motorist, you have a legal right to obtain compensation for your injuries and other losses. In asserting your legal rights, count on an experienced Park Ridge personal injury attorney.
Common Causes of Wintertime Auto Accidents
Road conditions in Des Plaines, Glenview, Park Ridge, and the greater Chicago area can be dire in the month of December. When the temperature outside is near freezing, roads may become slippery. This is especially the case with regard to “black ice,” which is at once extremely slippery and almost impossible to see. Poor visibility, the cruel cousin of slippery roads, only makes matters worse. Specifically, heavy snowfall, freezing rain, and even hail make it difficult to fully observe the complete picture of traffic. It is in these conditions, when slippery roads and poor visibility combine, that human error is of the greatest consequence.