Is your family dealing with the aftermath of a wrongful death accident? Are you mad at the parties you believe to be responsible? Are you panicked over how you’re going to pay medical and funeral expenses? Have you begun receiving badgering phone calls from a heartless insurance company?
If there is one piece of advice I can offer you in this devastating time, it is this: pick up the phone and call a wrongful death attorney. Most attorneys offer free consultations and if you decide to hire them, you won’t have to pay a cent unless the case is successful and compensation is awarded to you.
Many grieving family members are totally unaware that they are dealing with a wrongful death case, and that their loved one’s death was the result of negligence, and that they are entitled by law to monetary compensation for their loss. A skilled wrongful death attorney will know the exact series of questions to ask to find out the truth, and to hold the party responsible for your loved one’s death accountable for their actions.
Rightfully so, death triggers shock waves in a family. In this intense emotional state, it is extremely unwise to try and handle the complex paperwork and negotiations demanded by the insurance company, because you are much more likely to say or do the wrong thing that will hurt your wrongful death claim.
The insurance company will leap at any chance to either deny you compensation altogether, or minimize the money awarded to you as much as possible. That is an insurance adjuster’s job: to ferret out through a series of interviews with you (which can be interrogative and intimidating in nature) any weaknesses in your claim, and use them against you. Insurance companies are for-profit companies. They are not your friend. They are not on your team.
Insurance companies want to dismiss expensive wrongful death claims above all others.
The time to consult with a lawyer is ideally before you ever speak with an insurance company. This is extremely important. Whatever you do, do not sign any paperwork or consent to any recorded interviews with an insurance company without consulting an attorney who specializes in wrongful death first. This one piece of information will save you endless hassle and headaches later on.
It is always heartbreaking, to have grieving family members contact my office for help after they’ve already been interrogated by an indifferent and unsympathetic insurance adjuster, sometimes in multiple recorded interviews. If the family has innocently given the wrong information to the adjuster, I know that it’s probably too late, and they are not going to be awarded the compensation they deserve. Don’t let this happen to your family.
We will calculate for you the maximum amount of compensation you should be awarded, accounting for all possible contingencies, and will go to bat for you aggressively with the insurance company. Just as an accountant is an expert at maximizing your tax return, in ways you never would have considered, a wrongful death attorney knows precisely which complex calculations to employ to ensure you receive the maximum compensation allowed by law. You can rest assured that the insurance companies will not be forthcoming with this information.
Did you know that you may be entitled to compensation for your loved one’s lost wages and benefits they would have earned?
This means, for example, if you were insured under your loved one’s health plan, you won’t lose your health insurance. Many years of future income will not be lost.
My job is to ensure that the impact of a wrongful death accident on a family is minimized as much as possible, and they are not financially crippled by it. My job is also to help you ensure that your loved one did not die in vain, and that the party responsible will be held accountable, and will not inflict similar negligence on other innocent persons.
A wrongful death lawsuit may also be able to collect compensation for you in the following areas:
- Pain and suffering
- Mental anguish
- Loss of companionship
- Medical costs (these can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars)
- Funeral expenses
- Other expenses
Insurance companies, as red-tape maddening as they can be, aren’t the only contenders you’ll have to deal with in a wrongful death claim: don’t forget the defense attorneys, who can be like barracudas in court.
Wrongful death claims are filed in civil, not criminal, court. Without an experienced lawyer there to fight for you, you might be exposed to badgering questions from an aggressive defense attorney, and most people who are not trained in law are completely unprepared for this, even more so when they are in an intense emotional grief state. Anything you say when being interrogated by a defense attorney can (and will) be used against you.
Wrongful death claims involve potentially very large damages awarded to grieving family members. For this reason, insurance companies and any other moneyed parties involved in the defense (such as hospitals in the case of medical malpractice suits) will fight tooth and nail to see your claim denied, or minimized as much as possible.
They will hire skilled attorneys of their own, and will spare no expense to win the case against you. Let my firm, Day & Nance, get in the ring with these people, so you don’t have to. Call us for a free consultation today. With over 25 years of experience in the Henderson, Nevada area, we know how to aggressively pursue compensation in wrongful death claims, and we will use every resource in our power to see that you receive the compensation you deserve!
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