Many times when people are involved in auto accidents in North Carolina the focus is on what the at-fault party’s insurance company will pay for the treatment of the victim’s injuries.  And of course, the focus should be there.

 

But sometimes victims are so focused on that they lose sight of the availability of thousands of dollars of medical coverage that they’ve been paying for and can gain access to rather easily.

 

Medical Payments coverage, or “Med Pay” in personal injury law parlance, is supplementary coverage you can purchase with your legally required liability policy.  It is not required, as liability coverage is, but it is available.  Many people have it, but most people that I speak with don’t know if they have it or not!

 

This coverage is designed to pay for all medical expenses, up to the policy limits of the Med Pay policy, incurred as a result of injuries sustained by any person riding in the car which is covered by Med-Pay insurance. The policy limits vary and can range from $500 to $1 million.  Most policies are $1000 or $2000.  The injured occupants of the car do not have to own the car and do not have to be a named insured under the policy. Anyone who is riding in the car at the time of the collision and incurs medical treatment costs can have all of their reasonable medical bills paid up to the amount of the Med-Pay coverage.

 

Does a Med Pay claim raise your rates?  When it’s a no-fault event, then no, it should not raise your rates.  Med Pay coverage is “no fault” coverage, so it doesn’t matter who caused the accident.  If you were in a covered vehicle and were injured in an accident, regardless of who caused it, you have access to that vehicle’s Med Pay.  Moreover, if your treatment costs exceed that vehicle’s Med Pay limits, you may have access to another Med Pay policy of a different vehicle’s policy, depending on the circumstances.

 

Med Pay coverage is available even if you have health insurance.  It can also be available in addition to the liability coverage, depending on the circumstances.

 

The most important thing about Med Pay is to know if you have it!  So check out your policy or talk to your insurance agent.  And remember, if you have it, use it!  You’re paying for it after all, right?  Otherwise, why would you be paying for it.

 

When I represent an auto accident victim I help to process the Med Pay coverage free of charge.

 

So remember, if you are in an automobile accident in North Carolina and want to talk to an attorney about your options, call me.  919-929-2992.

 

If you watch any amount of football you can’t help but hear about the concern of traumatic brain injuries (TBI is the acronym you hear a lot, but they are also referred to as closed head injuries, and a few other terms that aren’t important for the purposes of this article) in that sport.  What a lot of folks don’t appreciate though is that you don’t have to be involved in a contact sport to get a brain injury.  All you have to do is drive a car and be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  And brain injuries can have a lasting impact on your life, so you don’t want to ignore them, especially in the context of your personal injury claim.

You can sustain a head injury very easily in an automobile accident.  Even with airbags, people hit their heads on steering wheels all the time in accidents.  But you can sustain a serious head injury from impacting the head rest; you can even sustain a TBI from whiplash!  All it takes is an impact that essentially rattles your brain in your head.

This is obviously concerning because of the short- and long-term impact these injuries can have on your life, such as head ache, nausea, dizziness, blurry vision, short-term memory loss, change in mood, etc.  But it’s even more concerning for me because I talk to people in accidents all the time whose health care providers have missed their head injuries! When that happens, people suffer needlessly, don’t get the care they need and deserve, and their claims are not accurately valued.

This is not to say it’s always the health care providers’ fault, of course.  Many times it’s because the patient isn’t sure of how to answer.  Patients may be having these symptoms, but because they didn’t hit their head, or because they think they didn’t hit their head hard enough, they don’t speak about their head injury.  And sometimes they don’t think what they are suffering (nausea or blurry vision for instance) is related to the accident.  Here’s an important thing to remember when you discuss your injuries with your health care provider: Do not minimize any of your symptoms!  If you feel in any way different you should speak up!  If you don’t you might not get the treatment you need.

So remember, if you have an auto accident claim, don’t remember to talk with your health care provider about every single way in which you feel different after the accident.  You may be far more hurt than you realize.

Chatham County North Carolina Traffic Tickets – What to expect, generally speaking…

The county my office is in, and the county I live in, is Orange County, North Carolina.  Orange and Chatham County make up the legal entity known as the 15B Judicial District of North Carolina.  What that means is from an administrative standpoint there is one elected District Attorney for that district (for both counties) and one Chief Resident Superior Court Judge (for both counties).

If you get a ticket in Chatham County, you’re going to be asked to show up in court in Pittsboro more than likely.  They can have court in Siler City, but that’s rare.  What do you do?

The county my office is in, and the county I live in, is Orange County, North Carolina.  Right next to that fine county, just to the west of us, is another fine county – Alamance.  The county seat is Graham, but like my county, the biggest town isn’t the county seat; Burlington is the biggest town in Alamance, but court happens in Graham.  Go figure.

If you get a ticket in this Alamance County, you’re going to be asked to show up in court in either Graham.  What do you do?

Well, you can always show up and see what happens.  From previous posts you’ve seen how an attorney might help you, but just as a reminder, hiring an attorney will mean:

• You don’t have to go to court (assuming it’s just a speeding ticket or other waivable offense),
• you don’t have to miss work and income (which might be a whole day!),
• you don’t have to deal with the uncertainty and stress of being in court,
• you get the benefit of having an attorney who knows what kind of reduction would be best for you given your charges and your driving record.

What are those benefits worth?  In my opinion, every penny you pay for them, generally.

Why waste your valuable time handling your own ticket?

Alamance County policies are a bit different from Orange and Chatham.   If you have a speeding ticket under 20 mph over the limit and a clean driving record, we can normally get it reduced to a 9 over, which won’t get you any insurance points as long as your record stays clean for three years.  The DA does not offer improper equipment reductions, so that’s not an option in this county (nor in Wake County, while you’re asking).

If your speeding ticket is worse than that, your need for an attorney is probably greater, as you’ll want to get the best reduction possible in light of the DMV/insurance point consequences, and that will require a thorough and knowledgeable reading of your driving record, something you probably just don’t know how to do because you don’t have the training.  That’s not anything negative about you, it’s just a skillset you don’t have.  I can’t dunk, and I’m OK with that, so it’s sort of the same thing. So you should call an attorney and see what you should expect.

If you have an Alamance County North Carolina speeding ticket call and attorney.  Call me!  919-929-2992.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20130416/NEWS01/304160055/Wrongful-death-lawsuit-filed-behalf-4-Wisconsin-residents-killed-65-crash

I recently came across a conversation on FB wherein someone was attempting to differentiate between “justice and gain”  She said that justice had to do with enforcing contracts or rights, essentially, but personal injury claims were all about gain.  She went on to say that people should just learn that “bad things happen” and should get over it.

I would invite her to read the story at the link above.  Would it be all about gain if someone made this company – who is allowing its drivers to drive in excess of the legal time allowed – pay to help compensate this family’s heirs for the loss of their support system, for the college educations that won’t be paid for, the graduations that won’t be attended,  for the weddings that will be missed, the birthdays that won’t be celebrated, the memories that won’t be created.  In the end, isn’t this about enforcing rights, too?

For the person who thinks that these claims are all about gain, I hope that her family isn’t the next victim, or else she  may find out just how wrong she is.