If and when you should hire a motorcycle accident lawyer to represent you if you have been injured in an accident depends in part on how seriously you were injured and how willing the insurance company for the person who hit you is willing to admit the fault of their insured (the careless driver who hit you). In relatively minor accidents which were clearly the other driver’s fault, the insurance company may be willing to repair or replace the motorcycle you were riding, pay for all of your medical expenses, pay you for the wages you lost out on because you were unable to work (and future wages if your injury hasn’t healed sufficiently for you to go back to work), and even pay you some money for your pain and suffering and inconvenience.

If the above scenario describes your case, you may still wish to contact an experienced motorcycle personal injury lawyer to review the case before you sign the settlement papers. The lawyer will be able to tell you whether the settlement is fair in light of your injuries and damage to your bike and protective gear you were riding at the time of the accident. The experienced personal injury lawyer knows how certain physical or mental conditions caused by an accident can lie dormant for several months and may advise you on holding off on the settlement for a while just to make sure you cover all your bases. Indeed, the attorney may tell you that your case is worth substantially more than what the other party’s insurance company is offering and sign you up as a client.

In cases involving more serious injuries—such as serious injuries to your feet, ankles, legs, pelvis, hips, or groin, or a broken neck (quadriplegia), a broken back (paraplegia), or serious chest injuries—or cases involving the death of the motorcycle operator and/or his or her passenger, if any, you should definitely contact an experienced motorcycle personal injury law firm as soon as possible.

You or a member of your family—or your attorney acting on your behalf—should contact your own insurance agent right away and inform the agent of the accident, even if it was the other driver’s fault. Promptly reporting all accidents you are in—even those that are not your fault—to your insurance agent is a standard requirement in the typical motorcycle (and automobile) insurance policy. If you wait too long to inform your insurance company of the accident, your insurance company may be relieved of its duty to pay you any damages if your insurance otherwise covers the injury. This is particularly true when you get into an accident with a driver who is uninsured or your damages are more than the other driver’s policy limits (i.e., underinsured) and you have to turn to your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage to make up the difference. (Uninsured/ underinsured motorist insurance coverage is not required by the state, but it is well worth the extra money for the added protection it provides.)

In the typical personal injury case, including motorcycle cases, often before you hire a lawyer—indeed, sometimes while you’re still in the hospital recuperating from your injuries—an adjuster assigned by the other party’s insurance company may contact you. The adjuster has one goal and only one goal in mind: to settle the claim as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Insurance companies are not charitable institutions gleefully handing out generous sums of money to injured persons. They are big businesses that have to answer to their shareholders who are only concerned with the stability of their investment, not the health of persons injured or killed by the insurance company’s clients.

Some unscrupulous adjusters will tell you that you don’t need an attorney, that the attorney will just be taking a big chunk out of the settlement the insurance company is willing to pay you, and you’d be better off handing the matter on you own. However, studies consistently show that injured persons represented by an attorney generally end up with more money in their pockets, even after the lawyer is paid his or her fee (which doesn’t happen until and unless a favorable settlement or jury award is obtained for you) than if you try to settle the claim on your own.

The insurance adjuster will want to take a recorded statement from you as soon as possible after the accident. Except in those cases where your injuries are relatively minor, there is no question that the insurance company’s insured was at fault, and you feel competent enough to handle the case on your own, you should tell the adjuster that you are hiring an attorney and will be turning everything over to him or her and you have nothing further to say right now.

DO NOT GIVE THE ADJUSTER A RECORDED STATEMENT UNTIL YOU HAVE HIRED AN ATTORNEY WHO WILL ADVISE YOU ON WHETHER TO GIVE A RECORDED STATEMENT TO THE ADJUSTER. In most cases, if your lawyer lets you give the adjuster a recorded statement, you should only give a recorded statement to an adjuster with your attorney at your side. If you have suffered a serious injury, the insurance company will send one of its most experienced adjusters to get your statement, and the experienced adjuster will know what questions to ask to make it look like you caused or contributed to the accident, or you are not in as much pain or as injured as you claim to be.

If you hire our Law Firm to represent you, from that very moment we will immediately begin preparing your case for trial. Although 95 percent of all personal injury cases settle before trial, we believe that only by preparing your case for trial from the start shows the insurance company we are not going to back down and accept less than a full settlement for our clients. Insurance adjusters know which firms are serious about going to trial and which firms are settlement firms, and will settle the case for less than its full value if necessary to avoid going to trial.
We will strive to get you the highest monetary compensation for your damages. These include:

• Your medical expenses, both medical expenses you have already incurred and compensation for all medical care related to the accident that you will need in the future. In many cases, the insurance company will try to settle the case before you have completely recovered from your injuries, or if you have suffered a traumatic brain injury, amputation, or other serious injuries that may take years to heal and require numerous operations. If you need special equipment, such as a wheelchair, around-the-clock caregivers, or a specially modified van, we will make sure that these elements of damage are included in your settlement or jury award.

• Your lost wages, including not only the wages you have already lost, but all earnings you will lose in the future because of the injury. If your injury prevents you from returning to your old job, we will do our best to get you damages for retraining for a new job if that is appropriate. If you are permanently disabled from the accident and incapable of performing any reasonable job, we will do our best to see that you are fully compensated for that.

• If you have a small business that can’t operate without you that you will have to close down because your injuries prevent you from going back to work within a reasonable time, or you suffered a traumatic brain injury, quadriplegia, paraplegia, or other injury that prevents you from operating your small business, this is an element of damages you are also entitled to recover.

• Your pain and suffering due to the accident, including your loss of enjoyment of life. Damages for pain and suffering can be substantial, and are often the highest element of a jury’s award.
• Property damage, such as the cost of repairing your bike or getting a new bike, and the cost replacing the protective clothing you were wearing and a new helmet, if necessary. Note that if your motorcycle was totaled in the accident, you are not entitled to the full cost of a brand new bike. You are only entitled to recover the reasonable price of your motorcycle at the time it was totaled. So if a new bike would cost $15,000, but yours was several years old, with a lot of miles and wear and tear on it, your recovery for the price of your totaled bike will be thousands less than the retail price of a new bike.

• Any other damages or loss you suffered as a result of the accident.

To get you the highest out-of-court settlement or jury award possible, in many motorcycle accident cases we will hire specialists in their field to testify. These are known as “expert witnesses,” professionals who are familiar with accident reconstruction, the defective design or manufacture of motorcycles, metallurgy, dangerous roads, traumatic brain injury, or paralysis, to name a few. These experts are needed to explain and prove to the jury that the motorcycle was defective, that the roadway was dangerous to motorcyclists, or the seriousness of the injury and how the victim will have to adapt his or her life to a disabling condition.

Financial experts will be called upon to testify on the amount of money it will cost in medical expenses to treat the victim for the rest of his or her life or until he or she has recovered from the injuries, as well as proving the amount of lost wages and earners the victim would have earned had he or she not been injured or killed by the negligent driver.

If you have been injured in a motorcycle accident and the insurance company offers to settle the case for what you believe is a large award, listen to your attorney when he or she tells you that the insurance company will pay a higher amount. You have the right to override the attorney’s opinion and accept the settlement amount, but you should keep in mind that the attorney is experienced in this type of case and has a better grasp of what a fair settlement is. An experienced personal injury lawyer will know the approximate value of your case by his or her previous experience and by keeping current with how much money similar motorcycle cases are settling for or the amount of money juries are awarding. Of course, every case is different and the settlements or jury awards in other cases are just guidelines the lawyer can use to help him or her determine the value of your case.

One strike the injured motorcyclist has against him or her is the fact that some people still believe that all or most motorcyclists are irresponsible rebels who don’t deserve to be compensated. Although the stigma of being a motorcyclist has largely disappeared, there are still a lot of people out there who think that motorcycle riders are anti-establishment hooligans portrayed in the old movie “The Wild Bunch.” Your lawyer will do everything possible to keep such persons from being a juror on your case. Your lawyer will also make known to the jurors that approximately one-half of the over 7 million motorcycles on the road are ridden by working professionals over the age of 40, many of whom join social motorcycle clubs which meet weekly and go on weekend day trips or monthly overnighters as a form of recreation, socializing, and relaxation.

Bear in mind that if you have been seriously injured in a motorcycle accident case and are unable to go back to meaningful work, the money you settle for is all that you will get for the rest of your life. You must budget the money appropriately. If you squander your money on an expensive new car, a big new house, etc., the money will disappear long before your need for it is gone. Stories abound among personal injury lawyers of the paraplegic they were able to get several millions of dollars for, who five years later comes back to the lawyer with hat in hand asking for money for a new wheelchair or other expense, as they had already used up all of the settlement or award proceeds. If you get a large settlement or jury award, the first thing you should do is ask your lawyer about getting a good certified financial planner to help you come up with a reasonable budget and investment strategy.

If you were the driver of a motorcycle and were the victim of another driver’s negligence, but you did not have motorcycle insurance at the time, the monetary damages you will be entitled to recover from the party that hurt you will be limited to your medical expenses, lost wages, property damage, and other “pecuniary” losses. However, you will be barred from suing for “non-pecuniary” damages, such as pain and suffering, which in serious injury cases can run into tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. This limitation does not apply to the passenger on the bike, if any, nor does the pecuniary damages limitation apply in wrongful death cases.

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