Re: good to hear they paid for your truck
Posted by Chris in Tampa on 1/23/2023, 12:59 am
As cypress says, make sure you don't get pressured into a settlement. Ask your attorney's about anything that is confusing before signing anything. They do seem like a really big firm. I would assume, but I don't know, that a final settlement would involve a final set amount of money. It just needs to be enough to cover expected costs going forward, including medical. I don't know what happens when someone settles and then something comes up later. If anything else is bothering you in any way, no matter how minor, get it checked out. If you sign a final settlement, I guess you get nothing further. That's why it's important to make sure you get a really good settlement amount. I don't know how any of it works. If you have medical insurance, you certainly shouldn't have to responsible for any costs to meet your deductible. (whether for last year or any of this year's deductible for any expenses this year) I assume you would have to pay the medical costs yourself, up to the deductible, and then in a settlement you would get money that would cover that. If you do have medical insurance, I don't know if your insurance company would go after the driver at fault, their insurance company or no one at all. If your insurance company didn't have to pay, they certainly wouldn't want to if they could get another company to pay. If they had to pay, you wouldn't want them to raise your premium for that reason. I've just never thought about these kinds of things.

I would assume being an emergency, you hopefully won't get any kind of out of network surprises for your coverage if anything was out of network. Make sure your medical bills are getting paid and there are no unexpected surprises. We got a medical bill for my grandmother from July 2021 in the past month from an ambulance trip she had taken at that time. It was only $25. It was sent to insurance to see how much they would pay and then after that it was sent to my grandmother. (but we get her mail forwarded to us since she passed away) No reason as to why it took so long, a year and a half. (so we might get a bill a year or more from now for some of her final medical bills, at least for the ambulance trips maybe)

I don't have a good idea of how insurance works, but just make sure there aren't any surprises in the end that come out after a settlement is signed and your insurance company says, this big bill needs to be paid.

If you were to stick with Progressive, which maybe eventually you wouldn't, would they increase your premium perhaps. A settlement just might have to take into account all these things that could be more now because the accident happened.

I can't imagine all the stuff that you have to deal with regarding it, but it's just important to make sure you don't get further hurt by the accident in a financial way in the end. And of course, you deserve a lot in punitive damages for everything you are going through. I'm sure your lawyers will be very aggressive on that.



I am scanning a lot of family photos that my grandparents had and there are some documents as well. In 1981 my grandparents were in a car crash. It reminded me of yours. A school bus hit them head on and my grandmother was seriously injured at the time. (only some minor injuries on the bus) She fully recovered. They settled with those at fault and one of the documents they signed was a complete release of any liability in exchange for a set amount of money. (and didn't have to admit any liability) I assume they had another release, or more, that they signed. The one I have is for the truck they were in only, for a payment of about $3,500. I assume they had another for medical bills, and/or maybe punitive damages, but that wasn't among the papers. It's just one page, but it releases those at fault from any responsibility in very legal terms.

Picture of the truck:



Documents from their 1981 accident:

General Release:
http://tropicalatlantic.com/temp/2023/01-23/a.jpg

Newspaper article:

First part of an article, with photo of bus and truck:
http://tropicalatlantic.com/temp/2023/01-23/c.jpg

Continuation of article:
http://tropicalatlantic.com/temp/2023/01-23/d.jpg

And a good result, the driver wasn't allowed to drive a bus again.
http://tropicalatlantic.com/temp/2023/01-23/e.jpg

Eventually I'll delete the documents. I redacted some information even though it was over 40 years ago.

But it's an example of, once you sign something, that's it. No going back to get anything later. And again, I think there must have been more of a settlement since it said on that page that release was only for the truck. But something like this is what you would sign eventually and it's important to know exactly what it's saying. But you have lawyers to go over all of that.
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Hey Jim - Here's to a healthy & safe 2023 - cypresstx, 12/30/2022, 6:21 am
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