Palm Beach car accident lawyer

Published on: August 12, 2020

Property Damage Options When Involved in an Accident

The first thing you feel after being in a car accident where no one got injured is relief that the accident was not worse than it was. Only then do the worries about finances start. How much will it cost to fix your car? Will you be able to get to your job while your car is being repaired, and if so, how much will you have to pay for alternative transportation, such as rideshare rides or a rental car? Do you have the money to pay your insurance deductible? How much will your car insurance premiums increase as a result of the accident? If you have to go to court, how much time and money will that cost? Your options for the most cost-effective way to pay for property damage vary according to the circumstances of the accident. Freeman Injury Law can help you choose the best course of action.

Florida Car Insurance Basics

Everyone who registers a vehicle in Florida must have two kinds of insurance. The first is Personal Injury Protection (PIP) insurance, which covers medical bills and injury-related lost income only; it does not pay for property damage. The other is property damage liability insurance, which pays for repairs to the other driver’s car if the accident is your fault. What do you do about repairing your own car, then? It depends.

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Published on: November 7, 2018

Palm Beach Car Accident Lawyer Negotiates $375K Settlement, Clearing Comparative Negligence Hurdle

By Dean Freeman

Florida is a “no-fault” state when it comes to auto insurance and how people are compensated for car accidents. To be crystal clear though: Fault still matters in Florida crash litigation. Jurors are asked to “score” each party’s fault. Based on the comparative negligence finding, total damages plaintiff can collect are proportionately reduced. It’s rarely “all-or-nothing,” but an experienced car accident lawyer will work diligently to dispel or minimize any allegations of comparative negligence.

Recently, a West Palm Beach car accident lawyer at Freeman Injury Law cleared a major fault-related hurdle when he was able to secure a multi-million-dollar settlement on behalf of a crash victim seriously injured in a wrong-way, head-on collision.

Let’s start with the fact that wrong-way car accidents are relatively rare compared to other types of crashes. Hundreds of thousands of crashes are reported to police every year, and of those, just 2,600 in 2016 were wrong-way crashes, many involving drivers who are novice, elderly or impaired. They are the sort of occurrence that just should never happen. From the perspective of a car accident lawyer, fault in wrong-way crashes is typically straightforward – and all on the wrong-way driver. But Palm Beach Car Accident Lawyer Christopher Lassen‘s case was a bit more complicated. Continue reading →

Published on: February 24, 2016

Report: Car Insurance Costlier for Florida Renters

By Dean Freeman

Want a cheaper rate on your car insurance? Try buying a house.

That’s the revelation from a recent analysis by the non-profit Consumer Federation of America, which discovered that Florida renters, on average, pay $279 more for car insurance – or about 10 percent higher – than those who own their homes. And apparently, the insurance companies are not shy about the fact home ownership is factored into their rates, except in California, where the practice is illegal.

This is troubling on a number of levels. First, there is the fact that its discriminatory and more likely to mean that lower-income and minority communities pay higher car insurance rates. Secondly, there is the fact that insurers are making it tougher for drivers who probably need it the most to obtain adequate liability coverage. Continue reading →

Published on: January 22, 2016

Cleveland v. Ward – Lost Income Proof for Self-Employed Crash Victim

By Dean Freeman

Lost income and loss of employment benefits are among those factors taken into account when awarding damages to a car accident victim.

In most cases, if you’re employed by someone else, you simply request a letter from your company indicating your position, rate of pay, hours typically worked, number of hours or days missed after the accident and whether you took sick leave, vacation time or a leave of absence.

However, when victims are self-employed (as an 26 million people in the U.S. are), proof of lost income gets trickier. It’s usually advisable to hire a forensic accountant to assist in studying past income and offer a forecast of potential future income and business growth rate (or lack thereof). Continue reading →

Published on: March 25, 2015

Midwestern Indem. Co. v. Brooks – Stacked UIM Coverage in Bicycle Accident

By Dean Freeman

When it comes to auto insurance policies, too many Florida motorists purchase only the bare minimum required, so as to keep their monthly premiums low. A quarter of Florida drivers don’t have any insurance at all.

The trouble with this is two-fold. First, if you are involved in a crash with someone who is uninsured or underinsured, you will not be able to collect from them or the insurer the amount necessary to compensate you for your losses. And if you also have limited insurance – or no UM/UIM coverage – it may be extremely difficult to collect damages.

The good news is that while drivers aren’t required to carry UM/UIM coverage, insurance companies have to get a written waiver from drivers in order to drop it from the policy. Most drivers don’t do this, and that means most have UM/UIM coverage.

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