Arizona Lawyer: How to Handle Insurance After a Car Accident

Scottsdale Injury Attorney Explains What to Do After a Crash

Video Transcript:

Ryan Skiver: 

With the minimum insurance being $25,000 in Arizona and an emergency room overnight stay easily eating that up, unfortunately, that amount of coverage really isn't going to be enough to protect you and your family.

Tom Mustin: 

Dealing with insurance after a car crash can be confusing, and you might not know where to go for answers, that's why we're talking to attorney Ryan Skiver on today's episode of Ask The Lawyer. Ryan, thanks for joining us.

Ryan Skiver: 

Thanks for having me.

Tom Mustin: 

Alright, let's talk about insurance basics, first of all, what type of policies should you have for your car insurance in Arizona?

Ryan Skiver: 

Well, it's important that you have liability coverage 'cause the law requires that you have at least $25,000 of liability coverage, there are additional types of coverage that are important and really necessary as well, there is underinsured and uninsured motorist coverage, which protects you from other drivers, so if another driver doesn't have enough insurance to cover the damages that you or a family members suffer, then the underinsured motorist coverage on your policy would kick in, and for a driver who doesn't have insurance, which unfortunately is pretty common here in Arizona, the uninsured motorist coverage would kick in and cover you as well, so those along with the medical payments coverage is another option that will essentially give you money to cover your medical bills after you are injured in a crash, those are really the key ones that come into play when you're talking about a personal injury type of claim, but there's also other coverages that will protect you as well, such as comprehensive or collision, and collision is useful, because if the other driver doesn't have coverage or you can't wait until a liability determination is made, you can go ahead and get your car fixed in the meantime while your claim is ongoing and those decisions are made.

Tom Mustin: 

So Ryan, is the minimum insurance that's required by the state of Arizona really enough to cover you in case of an accident or a major accident?

Ryan Skiver: 

With the minimum insurance being $25,000 in Arizona and an emergency room overnight stay easily eating that up, unfortunately, that amount of coverage really isn't going to be enough to protect you and your family. I have handled many cases where the medical bills on the case could be hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, that's why it's important that you get as much coverage as you can possibly afford, even including things like an umbrella policy, if you can, to help protect you and your assets.

Tom Mustin: 

And what if you're in a major accident, say four members of the family in there, is... Can you give an example of medical costs versus insurance premiums in those cases?

Ryan Skiver: 

Sure, well, obviously, the medical cost, if you've got four family members who have been injured in a crash, their medical bills are likely to be very high, we've had situations where each of those members of the family may have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars in medical bills from that crash and the insurance coverage, if there's a minimum policy of 25,000-50,000, which means 25,000 per person or 50,000 total for all of the people who are injured, those amounts aren't gonna come close to covering those large medical bills. So when you think about that, in comparison to what the actual insurance coverage costs, which is usually only a few hundred dollars, obviously, it makes sense to make sure that you're paying that money and getting as much coverage as you can so that you don't have to worry about having to pay someone else's medical bills that may be hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, and instead you just pay that premium of several hundred dollars.

Tom Mustin: 

And in case of an accident, a lot of people are confused about whether they should use their car insurance or their health insurance, can tell us the differentiation there?

Ryan Skiver: 

Absolutely, so if you're taken to the emergency room, you are going to wanna be using your health insurance, you may have coverage, like I spoke about with medical payments, that will also come into play, but the best approach is to use your health insurance coverage and make sure that those bills get paid. The medical payments coverage then from your actual auto policy would give you the money to be able to pay any of those deductibles and to give you extra money to make sure that you can take care of yourself in the time after that crash.

Tom Mustin: 

So use Health insurance. What if you don't have health insurance? What do you do in that case?

Ryan Skiver: 

If you don't have health insurance, depending on how much income you make, in Arizona, we have the option of what's called Medicaid or access, if you aren't making a certain amount of money, you may be able to get signed up for access at the hospital while you're there. A lot of times, they'll help you fill out those forms to make sure that you can get some insurance coverage, the other option is sometimes doctors will agree to hold off on collecting those medical bills until you're able to get a recovery in your personal injury claim. So there's those options along with other things such as leans, consensual leans. But your best bet is always to put it on your personal health insurance and then figure out the rest after that, and getting an attorney involved as soon as possible who understands all of those concepts and can help you kind of walk through that minefield is always your best option.

Tom Mustin: 

Okay, so what happens if you have to go back to the doctor for some kind of follow-up and your car insurance hasn't gone through yet, can you still get covered by that?

Ryan Skiver: 

Sure, the way that we go about doing that is we make sure that you get all of the treatment that you need and collect all of those bills and records, and then submit that to the insurance company, so we wanna make sure that our clients and/or the doctor's patients have reached what's called Maximum Medical Improvement, so we don't leave lingering medical bills out there that are included as part of your claim. That's why it's important to get an attorney involved as well, to make sure that you're covering all of those possible damages that can be included as part of your claim.

Tom Mustin: 

So who actually ends up paying these medical bills, and can you walk us through the reimbursement process?

Ryan Skiver: 

Depending on what route you go, if you have health insurance, the medical bills will be paid by your health insurance, and depending on the type of health insurance you have in place, they may be entitled to some reimbursement from any recovery that you make from the insurance company. But in the long run, essentially, the goal is to have the third party, who's responsible for the crash and your injuries and damages, pay for those medical bills through their insurance coverage, so then when we're able to recover that money from their auto insurance carrier, then if there's a lean by a doctor or a health insurance, we negotiate with them and pay those amounts out of the recovery that we're able to get.

Tom Mustin: 

And in some cases, I know people just don't wanna pay an attorney, they'd rather walk through it and navigate the claims on their own, even in case of a serious accident, tell us why, in your experience, that's probably not a good idea.

Ryan Skiver: 

When you're thinking about whether to hire an attorney, certainly there are cases where it may make sense if it's a smaller claim, and all you have is the initial hospital visit where it's not necessarily get an attorney involved, but it doesn't hurt to check into it and speak with an attorney, because those consultations are free, and oftentimes, we can find additional damages and additional amounts that are available to you. Further, when an insurance company is dealing with an individual who doesn't have an attorney, they take that into consideration in the valuation they make of your case, they realize that you're less likely as an individual to take your case into litigation or file a lawsuit and take it all the way through trial, which means they have less risk basically of having to pay more money. So when you get an attorney involved, they realize that it's much more likely that you will file a lawsuit if they don't offer you enough money, and as an end result, they usually will offer you more money to make sure that they don't have to go to trial and risk losing a verdict in your case.

Tom Mustin: 

Well, a lot of really great information as always, Ryan, thanks so much. Good to see you again.

Ryan Skiver: 

Good to see you too. Thanks for having me.

Tom Mustin: 

So that's gonna do it for this episode of Ask the Lawyers. My special guest has been Ryan Skiver. If you wanna ask Ryan a question about your situation, call the number on the screen. Thanks for watching. I'm Tom Mustin for Ask the Lawyers.

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