Personal injury attorney John J. Lynett, Jr. of Slater & Zurz recently settled a personal injury claim for his client’s policy limits of $105,000. The client was injured after he was hit by an uninsured driver.
According to the allegations, an older man was forced off the highway and into a cement barrier by a driver who sped away from the accident scene. The man suffered a head injury after the accident and was admitted to a local hospital for approximately one week. His recovery was slow, and there was little the hospital could do to speed up his recovery process. After the accident, the man and his wife retained Mr. Lynett of Slater and Zurz to assist them in recovering compensation for both his head injury and the damage that was done to his vehicle. Mr. Lynett made a claim under the man's uninsured motorist coverage. The claim was recently settled prior to litigation for the client's policy limit of $105,000.
"After a hit-and-run accident or an accident with an uninsured driver, many insurance companies can be hard to deal with,” said Mr. Lynett. “They either don't want to pay or they delay in paying claims that they rightfully should. If you are paying into an insurance policy, then your insurance company absolutely has to honor their end of the agreement. However, most insurance policies have a number of exclusions that can permit the company to deny an uninsured motorist claim. Sadly, it often takes aggressive legal representation before an insurance company will agree to settle an
uninsured driver claim.”
According to a 2011 study by the Insurance Research Council, 13.8% of all motorists are uninsured; this equates to 1 in 7 drivers. According to the Insurance Information Institute (III), 21 states and the District of Columbia currently “have mandatory requirements for uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage.” In addition, certain states, such as Utah and Texas, have “passed laws and begun to develop and implement online auto insurance verification systems to identify uninsured motorists," the III reports. In Ohio, 15.7% of drivers are uninsured; this is the 12th worst state in the nation for uninsured drivers, according to the III.
Even if you have uninsured motorist coverage included in your insurance policy, it can be difficult to obtain the compensation you need after a serious accident. The personal injury attorneys at Slater & Zurz have the experience and skills necessary to take on large insurance companies and are offering free consultations on their website.
* Past case results do not guarantee or predict a similar result in any future cases undertaken by our law firm.
Sources:
http://www.iii.org/facts_statistics/uninsured-motorists.html
