This is a video in our LawTok series: Straight Talk with a Personal Injury Lawyer
Video Transcript:
Hey folks. Rob Morrin here with Morrin Law Office, your Kentucky personal injury lawyer. I want to talk to you about whether or not you can handle your own injury claim after you’ve been hurt in a car accident, hurt at a store falling, hurt in some other way where it’s caused by someone else’s negligence. Can you handle your own claim? Your constitutional right IS to handle your own claim. Now, should you handle your own claim is a completely different question.
Can you handle your own claim? Yes. If you’ve got the time and the hours to spend into it and to figure out, okay, what do courts pay for in terms of jury trials, in terms of jury verdicts, what do they pay for the past 20 years? You’re going to have to spend time learning that. Okay. You’re going to have to spend time learning about what the insurance company’s really required to do. Can you get it done? Yes. And now if your injuries are very severe and there’s a very small policy, you may be able to get it done.
But, what I want you to be aware of is if you’ve got severe injuries and you’ve got a lot of medical bills and the other party only has $25,000 in liability coverage, you’re going to be looking at UIM coverage, underinsured motorist coverage. That’s the coverage that you purchase or a family member who you reside with purchased. It can be on a car, it can be completely unrelated. And these specific language you have to use, it’s Allstate versus Coots. You can look up the case if you want. And that contains a specific language you need to provide to the UIM provider before you settle with your liability, that allows you to make that UIM claim. You may have purchased $50,000 in UIM coverage and that will cover anything in excess of the liability coverage. So $25,000, you get that max out because you’ve got a broken bone, you have to have surgery or whatever.
Then you can move on to the UIM, but you have to provide them a specific notice. You have to send a certified mail and it’s got to contain very specific language. You need to look at that case, Allstate versus Coots, if you’re going to try to do that. My recommendation is find a professional who does it every day, who only does personal injury and get them to help you because they will bring value and it will be added to your claims.
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