A car accident can cause sudden and violent changes to your family, leaving scars that last for years. Many of these may never fully heal. Your finances, as well as physical and mental health, could suffer in the immediate aftermath of an accident, making it important to seek out compensation as soon as possible. Find out how a car accident can change the lives of your family members to give yourself the best chance to recover from one.
Physical Injuries and Deaths
The most drastic changes that a car accident can cause your families are physical injuries and even deaths. Injuries can range from minor scrapes and bumps to severe, permanent, and debilitating injuries that negatively impact the quality of life of those impacted. Family members who died in an accident can leave a permanent void in the lives of survivors and be a source of constant pain and suffering. Some injuries can only show up after a considerable period of time from the point when the actual accident occurred.
High Medical Costs
Car crashes can also bring a substantial financial burden to families who are impacted by them. They may face high medical bills to cover the following immediate and long-term treatments:
● Hospital stay
● Surgery
● Rehabilitation
● Medications
● Therapists
● Physical aids (walkers, wheelchairs, specially-designed vehicles)
● And more
Your family could face financial burdens that far exceed their ability to pay after an accident. However, that’s no reason to avoid treatment or worry about your financial future in this regard, as you are likely entitled to substantial compensation. A personal injury lawyer in Greenville can help your family recoup these costs so you can focus on making a recovery without worrying about the cost to do so.
Loss of The Vehicle
In many car accidents, the vehicles involved require substantial repairs or are totaled and sent to the junkyard. This can impose great hardship on your family, especially if they relied on the car as their sole means of transportation. In many cases, you’ll be able to obtain a rental car from your insurance company after an accident, but this can take a few days to process. In other cases, you may have trouble obtaining any financial assistance, especially if you or the other driver lack insurance.
Lost Wages
After an accident, you could face substantial lost wages due to time your working family members are missing from their jobs. In severe accidents, one or more members of your family may also have to switch careers, which can impose high costs in the near and long-term. The good news is that should you pursue a lawsuit or settlement with the responsible party, you can recoup some or all of your lost wages.
Lower Credit Rating
A car accident can be financially ruinous not just due to the high immediate costs it imposes but also because it can destroy a family’s credit. If your medical bills are too high, you may have trouble paying them, causing the bills to be sent to collections. This can lead to a vicious cycle where you face higher interest rates when you do need to borrow or simply can’t access capital to make higher-ticker purchases, such as a new vehicle or a house. This makes it vital to seek out professional legal assistance to fight for your rights and the compensation to which you and your family are entitled after an accident.
Inability To Perform Daily Activities
Having been left without a family vehicle can impact not only the healthy development of your career but other daily activities that can turn out to be vital for you and your family. Apart from the obvious impediment in getting to and back from work, not being able to access mundane services will surely take its toll on a family’s well-being. Being accommodated with the possibility to reach certain destinations in a particular period of time can keep one away from reconsidering the original plan.
For example, knowing how fast and through which means of transport you can reach the closest medical facility is imperative. When the family vehicle is eliminated from the equation, a new emergency plan has to be put in place. Depending on an individual’s living area, being able to access all these emergency services can become very demanding or, in some cases, impossible.
In the present context, the pandemic can really affect the health of the entire family. Having the possibility to move around in a personal car reduces social contact and really lowers the chances of getting infected through a crowded place. Being forced to travel by bus, train, or subway when this didn’t use to be a practice required by your daily activities, is nothing further from just a very unfair position.
Reaching out to certain family members that require special care will have to suffer if there is a travel distance involved. Consequently, families that lost their vehicle will probably have to resort to solutions such as borrowing a car from close friends or having to spend money on renting a vehicle for at least short-term emergencies and necessities.
Bottom Line
A car accident can happen out of nowhere and cause lifelong changes to your family. Knowing what to expect from one can help you move from the shock of one to protect your rights and financial future when you’re most vulnerable to losing them. With this knowledge and the assistance of a personal injury lawyer, you’ll be in the best position possible to recover to the greatest extent possible.
The final advice is to never choose to go through this battle on your own, and always seek the professional advice of a specialized lawyer. By choosing to do so, the process will become less demanding for you and your family, both in terms of time spent dealing with the case and the overall stress that one may accumulate through battling a case on his own.
Disclaimer: This article is a paid article.