Four steps for building your truck accident claim

Four steps for building your truck accident claim
Jan 31 2022

You’ve been injured in a truck accident. Now what? That’s a question that we find many truck accident victims asking. These individuals oftentimes want to find accountability for their injuries, but they don’t necessarily have the time, energy, or legal knowledge to do so on their own. This is where a legal professional may prove beneficial. In the meantime, though, there are actions that can be taken to help build personal injury and vicarious liability claims. Let’s look at them here:

  1. Seek medical treatment: If you or a loved one has a suffered serious injury in a truck accident, then this may seem pretty obvious. However, you’d be surprised by the number of people who seek immediate medical attention after their wreck but then fail to receive follow up care as recommended by their doctor. Not only does this threaten to derail their recovery, but it places them in a position where their personal injury claim may lead to something less than a full recovery. Remember, you’re going to have to prove your damages in your lawsuit, and that can be harder to do when you don’t have the medical documentation and testimony needed to support your position. So, be sure to seek all medical treatment that is necessary and recommended.
  2. Gather evidence: It’s never too early to start gathering evidence to support your legal claim. While your attorney can help you with this, you should be proactive in taking pictures of the accident and your injuries, talking to witnesses and writing down their accounts and their contact information, and gathering other relevant documents like police reports and medical records. Your lawyer can also help you access trucking logs and maintenance records to determine what factors contributed to the accident, and an investigation may be conducted into the truck company’s hiring practices to see if the driver who caused the accident was someone with a track record of dangerous driving.
  3. File your insurance claim: The basis of your legal claim is probably going to start with filing an insurance claim with the responsible party’s insurance company. This may take the form of a demand letter that specifies your requested amount and the justification for that request. So, you’ll need to have evidence in hand to support your position before taking this step.
  4. Anticipate the defense: The trucker, the truck company, and their insurance providers are going to conduct their own investigation into the wreck and look for any evidence that they can use to try to escape liability. Therefore, as the insurance company is reviewing your claim, you should start anticipating those defenses and thinking about what you can do to counter them. This is the best way to position yourself for success should you end up pursing a legal claim and negotiating settlement or litigating the matter.

Fight for the outcome that you deserve

Recovering from a serious truck accident can take years, sometimes even decades. In a lot of cases, though, victims will never fully recover. This fact highlights the importance of finding accountability.

We know that it can be stressful and daunting to pursue a legal claim against a trucker, a truck company, and multiple insurance companies, but you owe it to yourself to put forth the strongest arguments you can in hopes of making yourself as whole as possible. It’s not a process that you have to face alone, either. Instead, you may want to consider working closely with a competent legal professional who knows how to build these kinds of cases and fight for what truck accident victims deserve. If you think that you could benefit from that kind of advocacy, then we encourage you to continue to read our website to see what our law firm has to offer.

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