Car wreck with someone who doesn’t have insurance?

Grey Herrman: Okay, Well hello everybody. It is Friday again, so it is time for frequently asked questions Friday.

This is Greg Herman from the Herrman & Herrman law firm. I wanted to take a minute to remind everybody to follow us on snap chat.

Okay, the first question we had was from Ryan in California, he is a lawyer out there in California and his question was, are all lawyers as good-looking as you Greg? And my answer to Ryan is, Ryan only Texas lawyers, you California lawyers I don't know what's wrong with you guys, but yes y'all just not good-looking sorry.

Okay now Ryan also had another question along with Marcia Suarez and the second question is: What happens if you get hit by someone who doesn't have insurance? Well theoretically you could sue that person and go after them, and if they're millionaire or they have a bunch of money that would work out fine, but we have found in most cases if people don't have any insurance they probably don't have any money and it's just not worth chasing them so if they don't have insurance then what you do is you look at your own policy, and if you have uninsured motorists or UM coverage then your insurance would pay as if the adverse that insurance and you just make a claim against your UM policy and additionally, if you have to make a claim against your own insurance, they have additional duties of good faith and fair dealing to treat you not like an adverse, to treat you like their insurer because that's who you are. So you're actually almost in better shape making a UM claim then going after that verse the carrier should be easy to deal with, you can also make a PIP claim if you have PIP for mid pay and that is no-fault insurance, so it doesn't matter whose fault no matter how it happened, if you can enter in your vehicle you may claim against your PIP and they have to pay you that.

Most people have like 25,000 of medpay or 5,000 and that'll go towards paying your medical bills or lost wages, or well only really those two things. So that's the answer is UM, PIP and Medplay. If you have any further questions you can call our office and we have a whole book that I wrote along with some of the staff members here that explain in more detail how UM and PIP works, we can mail you a copy of the book, or you can go to our website and download it from our website, you download an e-book.

Alright the next question is from a Linda Duane, says her boyfriend worked at a local plant that shut down and relocated for over 20 years and has lung issues and worked around chemicals that cause lung issues but he hasn't gone to the doctor or spoken to anyone about it, is it something you would provide a consult for? The answer is yes, we would provide a consult, what we're going to tell you do anyways is to see a doctor because:

A) it's very serious, you know the doctor may need to get you to the emergency room or get you, I mean get, in some kind of immediate medical treatment but - he can send you probably to a lung specialist so we can, if you're going to make a case against them for these chemicals or against a chemical company, you're going to have to have some medical evidence that links the injury to the chemicals, so we would suggest going to the doctor and then come in to see us, if you can't get into your doctor for some reason then you can still come see us and we can help you find a doctor to get you into a specialist.

You go to our website https://herrmanandherrman.com or you can call our office to help or follow us on any of our social media.

Okay last question from Joshua Montes, how long after an accident do I have to make a case and how long will it take me to get the money? Alright Joshua, so as a general rule if it happens in Texas you have two years to file a lawsuit, and if you haven't made a claim and done anything within two years, your claims going to be dismissed, in other states that may be a year and maybe a year and a half, some states even have three-year statutes. If you're in Texas is generally two years, you can file a claim anytime, but I will tell you this if you don't get treatment right away and you want to wait six months or nine months or a year and then start getting treatment and they make a claim, everybody's going to have a real hard time believing you are actually injured, the jurors can have a hard time believing that, an adjuster is going to have a hard time believing that you were injured yet you never went to a doctor and you never get any treatment, you know injured people generally seek out some kind of medical treatments, so if you got a claim you got a case and you're injured, the first thing you do is seek out medical treatment, but you have to make the claim and you have to follow a lawsuit within two years in Texas or you'll be barred for it.

The second part of your case is how long will it take you to get the money, well you know that just kind of depends on what's wrong with you, if it's a little minor soft tissue type injury where you just even get over to therapy and you've been fine, we can generally get those cases settled within say 30 days of your last treatment. If you're injured a lot more seriously and you need orthopedic consult or neurological consult or you need surgery or the doctor wants you to get injections to see if those relieve the pain, then it just depends on your treatment, so assuming you follow the treatment plan with the doctor and do everything the doctor asks you to do then generally after you're released and we get a final report from the doctor telling us, you know you can have any future problems and if so, how much how much money will that cost in future medical care? If you have no any future problems or any restrictions or limitations, then that's fine that we need to get a report from a doctor saying this person is fine, and he's not going to need any future medical care, then generally we can usually get those wrapped up you know 30-60 days after you finished any treatment, but a lot of that depends on what the policy limits are of the other side, if you have a serious injury and you got a limited amount of insurance we can probably get it solved immediately, if you have a bigger policy and you're seriously injured you're probably going to want to get the full amount of treatment before you have the willingness to settle your case.

If you have a small policy there's no reason to wait because you know the policy is not going to change, but if you have a bigger policy then go ahead and get the full treatment that you need you and your doctors think you need, and then we can solve the case, so there's no real timeframe on the case it just depends on on the pulse limits and it depends on what kind of injuries you have and if you're gonna have any future injuries, alright those are my questions an answer for this Friday, we will have another FAQ Friday next week so tune in same time same channel everybody have a good weekend and we'll see you next time