Avoid Talking to the Insurance Company
When the insurance company for the liable party comes calling, the best thing you can do is refer them to your attorney. They will be asking you for a recorded statement and claim that it will help them help you in your case. This is not something you want to give them if you are interested in full and fair compensation. They are trained to ask you questions that put you in a bad spot. Any answers that you give that might make it seem like the accident was your fault or that your injuries aren’t too bad, they will use that against you in their pursuit to reduce your claim or throw it out altogether.
How Boating Accident Compensation Works
Utah is a shared fault state which means you can receive compensation but if you are deemed to be 50% or more at fault, then you will be barred. If you share fault less than 50%, then your compensation will be reduced. For example, if you are awarded $10,000 for your injuries, but have 20% shared fault, your award will be reduced to $8,000 to account for your role in the accident. That is why it is so important for us to keep you from making case-ruining mistakes by talking to the insurance company.
Frequently Asked Boat Accident Questions
Utah has some great lakes and great places to do boating and jet skiing. If you’ve been injured in any of those activities, you may be wondering, “What do I do to find an attorney who can help me in that situation?” Find somebody who has experience in boating accidents. Find somebody who knows how to handle that type of a case, who has handled those types of cases, and who has a personal injury practice that deals with watercraft and boating accidents. The final thing I would say in that area is to get somebody who’s a trial attorney, knows how to try the case, and will prepare the case for trial, if it has to go that far. Let the insurance company know right from the beginning that if it has to go to trial, you’re willing and prepared and you’ve got the backup to do that.
If you’ve been involved in a boating or watercraft accident in the state of Utah, you’ll probably get a call from the insurance company that represents the other person involved, and they’ll want to take your recorded statement. I recommend that you not give them a recorded statement until you’ve had the opportunity to talk to an attorney. They want to take the recorded statements because they’re trained to get the information that helps their case early on. They try to make your case worse before you know what’s going on with your injuries. Don’t give them a recorded statement without talking to an attorney.
In the state of Utah, if you’ve been injured on the water in some type of watercraft, you need to look at what the other party was doing to determine who was at fault and who bears the responsibility for those injuries. You should find an attorney who has experience in dealing with those types of issues, and you should contact them quickly as it is hard to preserve that evidence if you don’t act on it in an expeditious manner.
If you have been injured in a boating accident or a personal watercraft accident in the state of Utah, you should know that the responsible parties can be the boat owner, the boat driver, or the insurance policies that are carried by those individuals. A lot of times, people have questions about who is responsible when you’re out on the lake.
If you’ve been injured in a boating or watercraft injury in the state of Utah, you may want to know how long it is going to take to resolve. It’s going to depend on your specific case and the defense of that case. Some of the things you’re going to be looking at are your injuries. Have you treated with the doctors and the healthcare providers enough to get to a point that you know how you’re recovering, when you’re going to recover, and how fully you’re going to recover? You’ve got to look at the seriousness of the injury and what permanent residual affects you’re going to have there, and then you have to look at how hard the insurance company is going to fight you to get you a fair offer. It’s really hard on any specific case to say outright how long it is going to take to resolve. You want an attorney who’s going to push your case along and always be moving it forward and moving it in the direction of getting a fair resolution for you.
Determining the value of a boating accident case can be difficult early on. The medical bills need to be looked at, the medical treatment needs to be looked at, and the amount of additional medical bills that will be incurred need to be looked at. Any time missed from work needs to be looked at. You also need to consider things that might prevent you from doing the things you really like, and what limitations you will have in the future. All of those are components that calculate the damage for a boating accident.