After a commercial truck accident, make sure your family is taken care of
We worry as parents and spouses about what would happen to our family in the worst-case situation. “Would my husband/wife have the financial resources they would need to pay for essentials if I perished in a car accident?” we wonder.
Would my children be able to finance a college education if they wanted to? Is it time for a funeral? “Will there be a wedding?” We can’t sleep at night because of our anxieties. After all, disaster might strike at any time.
Those who are lucky enough to have the financial means to do so may obtain life insurance. However, even those benefits may not be sufficient to pay all our family’s expenses if we are no longer alive.
Furthermore, truck accidents might leave accident victims alive but permanently crippled, with no life insurance coverage to assist pay the costs. That is why knowing what alternative sources of income and financial assistance our family could have in the case of a fatal truck accident might be beneficial.
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Unexpected, deadly, and costly truck accidents
Thousands of people are killed every year, and hundreds of thousands more are injured in Colorado traffic accidents. Truck collisions are among the most dangerous and catastrophic of these accidents.
When a huge truck collides with a passenger car (much less a motorcycle, biker, or pedestrian), the smaller car and its passengers almost invariably suffer the most serious injuries. A big rig’s size and weight difference from a sedan, for example, is so great that a collision may flatten, mangle, or rip the car in half.
Drivers and passengers in passenger cars are fortunate if they survive a truck accident; many do not. Those who do are often victims of severe, life-altering injuries that leave them permanently disabled. A significant truck crash’s injury toll often includes:
Spinal cord injuries leave people permanently paralyzed and faced with the enormous task of adjusting to a new way of life.
Traumatic brain injuries can leave sufferers with lasting cognitive, motor, and emotional deficits, or worse, put them in a coma or semi-conscious condition from which they may never wake up.
Limbs crushed and traumatically severed, requiring numerous operations and prostheses to repair and yet leaving a sufferer with chronic agony for the rest of their lives.
Injuries to the neck and back that never fully heal and instead leave a person in constant, unbearable pain.
Burns can produce excruciating agony, disfiguring scars, and long-term mental anguish.
Victims of Colorado truck accidents and their families endure physical and emotional grief and immense financial hardship as a result of their injuries and deaths. Whether or whether the accident victim survives the impact of the accident, medical expenditures for treating severe injuries from a truck accident may run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Accident survivors lose months of work at the very least, and many never return to work in their previous capacity, if at all, depriving their families of critical cash.
Every area of life grows more challenging and costly. Victims and their bereaved families need assistance with day-to-day duties that the wounded truck accident victim used to undertake, such as childcare, transportation, house maintenance, and financial management. For many families that do not save for a rainy day or know where to turn for aid, bankruptcy and financial ruin are a very real and painful toll of a truck tragedy.
After a truck accident, here are some insurance resources for your family.
Even though living following a truck accident might seem hopeless, victims and their families frequently have more financial resources than they realize.
If you or a loved one were to suffer catastrophic or fatal injuries in a Colorado heavy truck accident, your family might be able to seek compensation through several sources:
Car insurance. Medical payments coverage (MedPay) insurance, generally known as “no-fault” coverage, is required for all registered car owners in Colorado. MedPay insurance covers the expenses of medical treatment incurred by the driver due to an injury received in a motor car accident, regardless of who was at fault for the event.
People who MedPay insures are also entitled to a death benefit. The minimum amount of MedPay coverage that a Colorado driver must have is not particularly large – only $10,000 in injury benefits and $5,000 in death benefits – but you can always purchase higher coverage amounts if you can afford them, and even the minimum benefit can help with expenses after a catastrophic truck accident.
Medical coverage. If you have health insurance, it will most likely cover part of the costs of your medical treatment after a Colorado truck accident, subject to any co-payments, deductibles, and coverage restrictions. So, perhaps, your family will be spared from facing the whole burden of the large healthcare-related expenditures associated with treating your injuries in a truck accident.
Insurance for workers’ compensation. If you or a member of your family is injured in a Colorado truck accident while on the job, you and/or your family may be entitled to workers’ compensation payments. Workers’ compensation in Colorado pays medical expenses and lost earnings due to a work-related accident, regardless of fault. Families of employees who die on the job may get up to $150,000 in death benefits, including $7,500 in burial costs.
Long-term disability insurance as a supplement. A kind of private insurance that covers extra expenses of missing work due to a long-term disability is carried by some persons or received as a job benefit by others. AFLAC and its talking duck mascot market this form of insurance on television.
You should have life insurance. Some individuals may have private life insurance or obtain life insurance as a reward from their employer. If the insured dies in a Colorado truck accident, this policy normally provides a lump-sum compensation.
This list does not include all of the insurance benefits your family may be eligible for if you or a loved one is seriously wounded or killed in a Colorado truck accident. It may, however, give you an idea of the breadth of insurance alternatives that could be accessible to your family in the worst-case situation, allowing you to conduct some more research and ensure that your loved ones know where to go if tragedy hits.
On the other hand, your Family’s Legal Rights After a Truck Accident Insurance is only one of the financial options available to your family if you are catastrophically or tragically wounded in a terrible Colorado truck accident.
You and your family may also be able to seek legal redress from anybody whose bad judgments or irresponsible acts resulted in the truck accident that injured you. Here’s how to do it.
In addition to MedPay Coverage
Many Colorado drivers believe that due to the state’s no-fault insurance regulations, they cannot sue an at-fault party for injuries and damages experienced as a result of a car accident. That isn’t correct. In reality, Colorado law states that if you are seriously injured in a truck accident, you have the right to sue the people or companies who caused your accident and injuries—injuries like the ones described above that leave you permanently crippled, disfigured, or dead.
Who is responsible for what?
Who is responsible for your catastrophic or deadly truck accident injuries, and who is liable to you and your family? Quite a few folks. Experienced Colorado truck accident injury attorneys will frequently look into whether any of the “usual suspects” may be to blame for the collision, such as:
Truck drivers, if careless or reckless driving caused the accident that resulted in serious injuries.
Trucking businesses hire truck drivers or run the truck involved in the accident, particularly if their actions disregarded warning signs that the driver or equipment was unfit for the road.
Shippers who load goods onto huge trucks without properly securing them, putting the cargo at danger of shifting during travel, causing the truck driver to lose control.
Mechanics who do not keep cars in good functioning condition.
Truck and truck component manufacturers if they sell substandard items that cause mechanical failure and a collision.
Medical practitioners give truck drivers prescribed drugs without alerting them about potentially harmful side effects that might lead them to lose attention or control behind the wheel.
Government agencies are in charge of developing, constructing, and maintaining safe roads for truckers and the general public if they fail to do so and cause an accident.
These are merely samples. Every truck accident has its own set of facts and circumstances that determine who is legally responsible for you and your family. Working with an expert truck accident lawyer is the most dependable approach to determining who may be legally accountable to you and your family following a truck accident.
In a truck accident case, how much money may you get?
In the aftermath of a fatal truck accident, the legal remedies you or your family may seek may entitle you to significant compensation. Because no two truck accident situations are the same, it’s hard to tell how much money you or your family may be able to collect. However, victims of a catastrophic truck accident caused by someone else’s careless, reckless, or intentionally harmful actions typically have the legal right to seek compensation for
medical bills and other expenses related to the treatment of truck accident injuries, regardless of whether the victim survives.
Wages lost in the past and future due to the accident victim’s inability to work due to their injuries or death in a truck accident.
The physical and mental agony caused by the injury or death.
Injuries or death result in the loss of companionship, emotional support, and other connections.
Loss of property.
Costs of a funeral and burial.
Punitive damages to punish the persons who caused your injury or death in exceptional situations.
As you would expect, the amount of money necessary to compensate for each of these categories varies greatly from instance to situation. No one can predict whether all (or any) of these characteristics will be applicable in any given truck accident.
However, these are the most common types of monetary damages available to truck accident victims and their families, and they may be substantial in certain situations.
The essential thing for you and your family to realize about pursuing legal action for money damages following a truck accident is that you will need the assistance of an expert truck accident injury attorney to maximize your compensation.
Lawyers who defend clients in truck accident cases understand the necessity of starting to work as soon as possible and thoroughly analyze the facts to identify all persons and companies who may be legally liable to the victim and his or her family.
Why? Because the amount of money your family may get if you are seriously injured in a truck accident depends, in part, on how many parties are liable for your injuries and how much money those parties have available to pay damages with.
Because there are more insurance policies and assets possibly accessible to tap, the more persons and corporations an attorney can locate who may owe you and your family monetary damages, the higher the chances of being reimbursed.
Seek the advice of a knowledgeable Colorado Springs truck accident attorney.
Attorney Jeremy D. Earle, JD specializes in truck accidents.
So, if you’re having trouble sleeping at night thinking about what could happen to your family if you’re seriously hurt or killed in a truck accident, here’s what we recommend:
Learn about your insurance coverages and make a list for your family to refer to in the event of an emergency.
Find an expert Colorado truck accident injury lawyer that your family may contact if you or a loved one suffers significant injuries.
With that small amount of forethought, you may rest certain that your family will know where to go for assistance if you are injured in a truck accident.