Misconceptions Regarding Virginia Car Accident Injury Claims

For those who have been injured in a car accident and are considering filing an injury claim in Virginia, the following are the most common misconceptions injury victims have according to a Virginia car accident lawyer. To learn more or discuss your case, call and schedule a consultation today.

#1 It’s Not My Fault, So The Other Party Will Pay For Everything

One of the biggest misconceptions that people have is that it wasn’t my fault, so the other party is going to pay for everything. People just don’t realize that often it doesn’t really have anything to do with who the other driver is but really depends on the amount of insurance coverage that they had. They are the ones who are going to be hiring a defense attorney to defend the case, the other one whose bottom line is going to be hurt if they pay out any recovery. So, they might think they’re going to be taken care of and in fact oftentimes the insurance company is working diametrically at those to their interest. So, that’s a big misconception.

#2 Idea of “Full Coverage”

Another misconception is the idea of full coverage. A lot of people will say that they have full coverage or will assume that if they have liability and collision coverage that it  means it is full coverage and that all losses are insured. Well, the limits of your liability policy and the at-fault policy are what will be most important. A lot of the times somebody is going to have maybe $25,000 or $30,000 in coverage on their vehicle and you might suffer injuries far in excess of that. So, if you have underinsured or uninsured motorist provision on your policy, that is going to be important for you to be able to recover damages in a situation where you’re involved in an accident with either an uninsured driver or someone with low level limits on their automobile liability policy. The whole idea of “full coverage” is definitely a misconception.

#3 You Can Wait To Bring a Lawsuit

Another misconception is that is that lawsuits can be brought a few years from down the road. In Virginia, there is a two year statute of limitation that governs personal injury actions, so that means that your case needs to either be settled, completely resolved, or that you need to file a complaint in either a general district court or circuit court before that two-year time period runs or else your claim will be time barred. The two years typically begin to run from the date of the accident, so it is important to contact an attorney as soon as you can. A lot of people don’t know that that there is a statute of limitation and if you have serious injuries that require treatment for a long period of time, you might still be in treatment more than two years after the fact. In a case like that, you’d be out of luck if you waited until you were done with treatment to contact an attorney or to pursue a claim. It is also extremely important to know that filing a claim with the other party’s insurance company will not toll the statute of limitations.