When you hire a New York car accident lawyer, one of the first pieces of documentation that he or she will work on for you is what’s called a personal injury demand letter. This letter is separate from the documentation you supply to your lawyer, which includes medical bills, car repair estimates and hospital records. Its purpose is to bring the crash to the attention of the other driver’s insurance company for consideration for a settlement. It is a vital part of beginning settlement negotiations. You can read more details about personal injury demand letters by clicking here.
At CarAccidentCases.com, we understand why many people choose to take on their own auto accident cases themselves. Many of them are worried about paying for a lawyer to represent them, and they believe that the Internet is a great resource for them to help them present their cases on their own. Unfortunately, thousands of dollars can be lost in settlements when this occurs, and one of the reasons is because victims seldom understand how to write an excellent personal injury demand letter.
A personal injury demand letter contains:
- A heading that identifies the insurance company as the recipient, along with all of your personal information.
- The facts leading up to the accident, including location, the weather, the date and the approximate time.
- A description of the accident itself that includes the makes and models of the vehicles involved, license plate numbers, names of both drivers and passengers, and the cause of the accident.
- Reference numbers for police reports that were filed.
- Reference numbers for tickets that were issued by police after the crash
- Any other pertinent information, such as, medical personnel that were on site, witness names who were present, etc.
- A description of damages that resulted from the crash.
The more information you can include in the letter, the better. However, it is easy to leave something out, which is why at CarAccidentCases.com, we always recommend hiring a New York auto accident attorney to make sure nothing is missed and your case is filed promptly and complete with all of the required details. Doing generally results in fair compensation for victims and a much shorter waiting period for a decision from insurance adjusters.
You can learn more about personal injury settlements and the process of calculating what victims are awarded by reading the articles in this series: Understanding Your Personal Injury Settlement for Your Car Accident Case.
Please check back often for more interesting and valuable articles on the following topics:
- What to do if you’re in an accident with a commercial truck
- Motorcycle accident victims’ rights
- Mistakes that are often made during car crash settlement negotiations
