Pritzker Olsen Attorneys

Minnesota Car Accident Settlement


MINNESOTA CAR ACCIDENT SETTLEMENT - ATTORNEY FOR AUTO ACCIDENT SETTLEMENT WITH PROGRESSIVE, GEICO, FARMERS, STATE FARM OR AMERICAN FAMILY
Car AccidentThe following car accident settlement information is provided by Pritzker | Olsen, P.A., a premier personal injury law firm.  The firm has a national reputation and has been interviewed by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications.  To contact a Minnesota car accident lawyer at our law firm, please call toll-free at 1-888-377-8900 or submit the firm's free case consultation form.

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There are two kinds of car accident settlements: 1) a settlement for your car damage (property settlement) and 2) a settlement for your injuries (personal injury settlement). The car damage settlement is negotiated with your insurance company. The personal injury settlement can involve multiple insurance companies, a dram shop, trucking companies and others.

The major auto accident insurance companies are Geico, State Farm, Progressive, Farmers Insurance, American Family and Allstate. Our law firm has dealt with these companies numerous times, and our attorneys are available for a free consultation. It is also important to note that our attorneys are seasoned trial lawyers and have the skill and resources to take a case to trial if necessary.

Car Accident Settlement for Car Damage

Below are tips for getting full and fair value for your car:

  1. Get a Copy of the Insurance Company Appraisal and Read It. You have a right to a copy of this report. When your car is totalled, the insurance company appraisal is supposed to contain comparable values for vehicles available in your area. Many of the vehicles they claim are available in the local market area are neither available nor in the local market.
  2. Don’t Accept First Offer. Do not accept the insurance company's first offer. If you do some research, you can probably get more.
  3. Do Your Own Research or Contact One of Our Auto Accident Attorneys. Right away, you should do your own market research. You can look on the Internet and in the auto classified section of your local paper. To check blue book value, go to carpoint.msn.com. Blue book value is only evidence of what a reasonable value might be. No law requires an insurer to pay for the loss of your car based on the blue book or any other price/value book.
  4. Get Value for Options. A car with power windows, power locks, air conditioning, a CD player, deluxe interiors, etc. is more valuable than a car lacking those options. Go to carpoint.msn.com and use Kelly Bluebook to find the retail value of your car as it was actually equipped. Then compare it with the same car lacking those options. The difference between the two is what you should argue the insurance company should add to the value of your car. This can be a significant amount.
  5. Send Pre-Crash Pictures of Your Car.

For more information on getting full and fair value for your car after an accident, please see "10 Tips from Minnesota Auto Accident Attorneys."

Car Accident Settlement for Personal Injury

The following are tips and topics related to a car accident settlement for personal injuries:

  1. Report the Accident to Your Insurance Company. This is required under most insurance policies. This has to be done very quickly, so you should not delay. If you would like an attorney at our law firm to report the accident for you, please contact our law firm immediately.
  2. Do Not Talk to Any Other Insurance Company or a Trucking Company. Don't discuss the accident with the anyone else's insurance company representative or a trucking company representative. These people try to get information about your accident and your injuries that they can use against you. It's a good idea to talk to a lawyer before you talk to any insurance company.
  3. Insurance Company Request for Doctor Examination. This examination is called an adverse examination because you have no say in selecting the doctor, the doctor is working for and paid by the insurance company, and the purpose of the exam is not to help you get better. Most importantly, the "adverse" doctor is most likely going to disagree with your treating doctor.

    The law and your policy require you to cooperate with your no-fault insurance company. This means if you refuse to go to the exam, the insurance company will be allowed to cut off your benefits. Unfortunately, even if you go to the exam, the doctor is likely to say what the insurance company wants to hear, and you'll probably be cut off anyway. As you can see, this is a very important time in your case, and it is critical that you contact a Minnesota car accident attorney before the adverse exam.
  4. Comepensation for Pain and Suffering, Disability and Other Losses. If you want to recover for pain and suffering, disability and those types of losses, you have to make a claim for them against the other person's insurance.
  5. What is Your Case Worth? To determine the value of a case, you have to look at many factors, including fault, the severity of your injuries, how your injuries affect you, your medical expenses, your wage loss, any scars, your pain and suffering and a host of other factors. Every case is different and it depends on the skill and experience of your lawyer to know what is fair compensation for your losses. When negotiating a car accident settlement, your attorney will present detailed evidence of your losses to the insurance companies involved.

In most cases, it is best to hire a Minnesota car accident attorney to represent you. As you can see, there are a great many factors and issues that need to be assessed in order to obtain a fair recovery. Also, you're going up against a giant insurance company. Companies have scores of adjusters, lawyers and other personnel who spend all of their time dealing with cases just like yours. There's also the matter of time. Bringing a claim takes a lot of time and energy. Most people hurt in a car accident are short of both.

To contact a Minnesota auto accident lawyer at our law firm, please call 1-888-377-8900 (toll-free), email our lawyers or submit our online case evaluation form.  We have a proven track record with car accident cases and the resources needed to get you the compensation you deserve.

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Truck Accident Lawyer

Attorney Fred Pritzker has obtained another large recovery in a car-truck accident case. Our law firm represented the family of a man killed by a truck wheel that had come off of the truck, rolled off a bridge and killed the driver of a car that was traveling on the road below. A confidentiality agreement prevents us from discussing the case in detail, but we welcome you to contact Fred Pritzker (toll-free 1-888-377-8900) for more information about this case and other trucking accident claims our law firm has handled. For more information, see our truck accident FAQ.

 

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