When you sign up for insurance, what do you look for? Are you concerned with a low monthly premium, or did you go through all of your coverage options and make sure that you had the most protection? Everyone has different priorities when they are getting insured, which can lead to some confusion when the time comes to use the coverage options. For instance: if someone else causes your accident, will you have to pay the deductible? The answer to this question may actually depend on a variety of different factors, including whether or not you are willing to wait for the other driver’s insurance company to make a payment.
Since these steps can get pretty complicated in a hurry, it is often your best bet to work with a personal injury or car accident attorney. Visit this website to get connected with someone who can help you make sense of your specific situation AND give you the support that you need and deserve when you are going up against the insurance company. In the meantime, read more about how deductibles work below.
What Is a Deductible?
When you select your coverage options, there will be a deductible in nearly every package. A deductible is the amount of money that you commit to paying before your insurance package begins to cover the damages that you have incurred, and can range depending on how much you choose to pay for your yearly premium, as well as a variety of other factors including your driving record and history of accidents or traffic violations that have added points to your license.
Depending on this variety of factors, and more, your deductible may be very low, or could be considerably high. Depending on the structure of your policy, you may or may not be required to pay this deductible if it is easily provable that the other driver caused the accident.
Determining If You Are Paying a Deductible or Not
When you are working with a car accident attorney, they will be able to help you decide whether or not you need to pay your deductible. If you want to be certain that you do not need to pay anything, you will likely need to wait until the other driver’s insurance company pays for the damages, which could be a long time depending on how much negotiation is required, whether or not you will need to go to trial, and more.
However, if you pay the deductible for your accident and you are seeking damages from the other insurance company to cover the issues that their client caused, then you will be able to seek compensation for this amount of money in addition to the rest of the calculations that you are submitting in order to determine what you are rightfully owed. In many cases, this is known as “subrogation,” which is a legal term for when your insurance company knows or believes that you are not at fault, and covers your deductible while you are waiting to be reimbursed.
A good attorney will be able to help you make sense of all of your options since this is an understandably confusing process when you are unfamiliar. Additionally, trying to navigate the complexities of an insurance claim can be very overwhelming when you are injured and are trying to focus on recovery while you are also trying to manage these steps on your own.
