Gap insurance is a special insurance you can buy when you purchase your car from the dealer which will cover the gap between the blue book value of your car and the financial note or contract that you signed to purchase your car.

So when you drive your new car off the lot it drops in value from 10 to 20% the second you drive off the lot and if you were hit by a truck on that very same day you would not be compensated the same amount for the car that you paid for the car and that is the gap that is created.

Gap insurance pays the difference between the value of your car and the value of your note that you owe on that car. This can become terribly important if your car is totaled weeks months or even years after you have purchased the car and it has depreciated in value yet your note has not depreciated in value you can be left “upside down” regarding the value of the car versus what you owe on the note.

Insurance is not expensive and is a useful tool in the event that you needed and therefore we recommend gap insurance.

You are entitled to stay in a rental car until the defendant has either totaled your car out and given you a check for the value of your car or alternatively if they repair your car until such point in time is your car is given back to you in a repaired condition.

You may need to pay your health insurance carrier back for sums of money they have spent on your behalf that were necessitated by an auto accident or somebody else’s negligence.

There are different types of health insurance liens and some or more stringent than others when it comes to paying them back.
take for example Medicare, this is a “super lien” and they must be paid back money that they have spent on medical bills for you related to an accident. Medicaid is a joint Federal and State program which may also need to be paid back.

When it comes to Medicaid for example, the attorney is actually required to contact Medicaid and determine what they’re alleged lean in your case is in order to determine how to satisfy their lien. The word alleged is used because often times Medicare is sloppy and will include all types of medical expenses that were incurred during the time of treatment for the accident but may not be related to the accident. If medical treatment and bills were incurred that are not causally related to the accident than they do not need to be a reimbursed from the accident proceeds.
Other more common health liens would be from your very own health insurance carriers like Blue Cross and Blue Shield as an example that has paid medical bills. They do not have a “super lien” but if they put you on written notice of their lien by letter to you or your lawyer, then they will have a lien that must be dealt with at the time to settlement. The good news is that these liens can be reduced, typically by 1/3 or more but they must be addressed once you are placed on notice. The reason that health insurance liens can be reduced by one third or more is that your attorney is the one that is engaged in the recovery of compensation and payment for your injuries and that compensation is what will be used to satisfy the health insurance lien. In other words, one party or another whether it be Blue Cross and Blue Shield or whether it be your attorney is going to spend money and expend effort to recoup said funds and whoever recoup those monies is entitled to be paid for their effort to do so. So in the case where the plaintiff’s attorney recoups the money and satisfies a health insurance lien you and your attorney are the ones that are expanding the time and effort to recoup the money and therefore it is standard in the industry that a 1/3 fee towards recovery shall apply. So that translates to a one-third reduction of the outstanding lien which means that you would only have to pay back two-thirds of the lean to the health insurance company. This is actually a good thing for an injured victim and therefore the use of health insurance to pay for medical bills upfront can be a good idea. Another benefit of using health insurance to pay bills is that the health insurance company has negotiated lower payments to the doctors and hospitals for the services they provide. So if a hospital, doctor or health provider were to charge $100 for a service the health insurance company will typically negotiate a lower rate like 60 or $.70 on the dollar. That would translate into paying $70 for a $100 bill which saves you money in the long run and then on top of that you can negotiate a reduction in your outstanding lien which is a secondary benefit to you. The money to repay the liens comes out of your settlement or verdict.

Yes, lost wages are compensable in any personal injury case. So if you are out of work for weeks or months or longer then we will work with you to obtain documentation from your employer indicating how much time you missed from work and how that time translates into dollars.

Those dollars are recoverable as lost wages in a personal injury settlement. Happily, those monies are not taxable when they are recovered by settlement or by a verdict in court.

The defense is entitled to proof of your lost wages and might delve a little deeper by asking for tax returns or W-2s to further substantiate a lost wage claim in any given case. While we almost never provide tax returns because we do not feel as if it is their business W-2s for a given period of time is a valid request to substantiate a claim for lost wages.

Sometimes a lost wage claim can become more complicated where a person is self-employed or operates on commission only or in situations where a paycheck or W-2 does not tell the whole story. In these cases, a tax return or further supporting documentation may be necessary to tell the whole story.

Depending on the case sometimes defense counsel may put up more of a fight or less of a fight depending on how valid they feel the lost wage claim is in a given case and therefore sometimes more documentation or proof may need to be provided and in other times less documentation is requested.

If it is not possible to provide formal lost wage documentation for one reason or another in these cases presenting a lost wage claim in court will probably not be possible. So for example, if a person was paid in cash and does not have formal documentation of a W-2 then it is unlikely that a lost wage claim can be made in court as it cannot be properly documented.

Time and mileage traveling to medical care following an injury technically may be compensable. Indeed in workers compensation cases in Maryland, mileage and time lost from work certainly are compensable expenses of a claim.

As for regular personal injury type cases, these expenses technically may be compensable but may or may not be something to be pursued in court. The reason being that if you are in court pursuing significant damages for significant injury often time attempting to pursue smaller or diminished expenses like this can have a negative impact on a much larger claim.

Thus when talking about expenses like this or even a small lost wage claim a personal injury victim should think twice before engaging the defense in a small battle like this which can take the fact finders eye off the bigger ball of more significant damages.

That is to say in a situation like that may be possible to win the battle but it might cost you the war. So while minor expenses like this are compensable it’s not always the best avenue to take.

So to understand this concept a little better assume an injured victim has $25,000 in medical bills and $10,000 in lost wages and therefore is in pursuit of recovering $100,000 or more for their claim. If the insurance company is willing to fully and fairly compensate the claim short of litigation than the pursuit of diminimus expenses such as gas to or from a doctors office may be appropriate to recover however the pursuit of $400 or less in gas in the overall pursuit of a six-figure claim can very much have a negative effect on the overall value of the case. Why? Because you want to present to the factfinder a claim that is worth six figures and therefore you need to produce medical testimony and bills and possibly lost wages which would substantiate such a significant claim and more importantly you want the factfinder to focus in on one fair and substantial numbers to compensate for the claim. By bringing to bear a three or $400 gas bill one is doing the exact opposite of having the jury focus on large numbers. To the contrary, you are asking the jury to focus on a $400 bill which undoubtedly the defense attorney will want to argue and fight over. The net results of this bad decision is to have the jury focus on and give time and consideration to a $400 bill and not be focused and concentrating on a $100,000 verdict.
This entire defense tactic of getting the jury to focus on the completely wrong issues is a long and ongoing tactic they use to minimize cases and not fully compensate victims for their injuries. Consequently for small expenses such as gas and in some cases even lost wages it is not always a good idea to put these expenses before a jury simply because they have been incurred by the victim.