Nixon, Raiche, Vogelman, Barry & Slawsky, P.A. has represented hundreds of clients who have suffered severe and disabling injuries as the result of automobile or motorcyle crashes, the injuries have included paraplegia, traumatic brain injury, and disfigurement. We have much experience in the proper evaluation and representation of victims of driver negligence and injury. Our representation and advocacy is respected state-wide, and we prepare each case thoroughly for trial for the maximum benefit of our clients.
Auto collision frustration
It’s increasingly clear that if you’re injured in an auto collision due to the fault of another, the wrongdoer’s insurance company will try to avoid paying you the “reasonable compensation” that New Hampshire law calls for. That’s why it’s more important than ever to take steps to protect your honest interests immediately after the auto collision happens.
These steps include (1) declining to sign a statement, or giving a telephone statement to the wrongdoer’s insurance adjuster; (2) getting at least two detailed written estimates of the damage to your car; (3) having someone take pictures of your car damage; (4) declining to sign written authorizations allowing the insurance adjuster to get records or reports from your doctor or hospital; (5) seeking (and demanding) adequate medical treatment from your doctor or HMO; and (6) obtaining independent advice (it’s free) from your family lawyer or a lawyer recommended to you.
Failure to follow any of these steps may result in your legitimate claims being denied, or at least unfairly delayed or minimized —and frustration to you.
Please buy more auto insurance.
Please look at your auto insurance policy today—if you have one, and can find it.
Make sure you have “bodily injury” limits protection of at least $250,000 per person. This will automatically provide you and your family $250,000 per person protection against injuries and losses caused by negligent and uninsured, or underinsured, drivers.
And make sure you have at least $10,000 per person (or, preferably, $25,000 per person) “medical expense” insurance. This provides for payment or reimbursement of auto crash medical expenses for you and your family regardless of who causes the crash.
Consider buying “umbrella” bodily injury and uninsured motorist insurance with $1,000,000 per person limits - it’s relatively cheap (around $165 per year - less than three cents a day!). Offset any premium increases due to your increased bodily injury and uninsured motorist insurance protection limits by increasing up the $1,000 “deductibles” applicable to collision and comprehensive insurance. The reasons? Because in this day and age folks are getting severely, sometimes tragically, injured and disabled due to the negligence of other drivers, some of whom have little or no “bodily injury” insurance of their own to protect you and your families.
Again, please call your insurance agent, or your family lawyer, today
about how much auto insurance you should have. Don’t
allow yourself or your family to be crippled financially,
as well as physically and emotionally, by an uninsured or
underinsured driver.
The sad saga of Senate Bill 459
Did you know that your own auto insurance company can deny
you the benefits it promised— in writing—to pay
you? That's the law in underinsured motorist insurance cases—if
you settle your auto crash claim against a wrongdoing auto
driver who has less auto insurance than you do, and if you
don’t first get the written consent of your own auto
insurance company to the settlement.
Sound fishy? It is. And despite strong pro auto insurance
consumer efforts by conservative-oriented legislators,
Big Insurance, through its powerful lobbyists, watered down Senate Bill 459, a pro auto insurance consumer
Bill, in State House corridor and back room wheeling and dealing.
However, Big Insurance now at least has to give you a written
warning (guess what?—in language chosen by their lawyers!)
before they yank your paid-for auto insurance coverage out
from under you on the basis of technical, unfair auto insurance
policy language. Despite the strong pro-consumer efforts of
the above-named legislators, and others, New Hampshire auto
insurance consumers, including you and your family, came away,
as usual, with about “half a loaf” of increased
auto insurance protection.
The law of negligence.
Many people believe that merely because they are injured in an accident of
some kind, they are automatically entitled to collect money for their injuries.
Nothing could be further from the truth. In New Hampshire, as in all other states,
people are entitled to recover for physical injuries only if they prove that
another person was negligent. Negligence means the failure to exercise reasonable
care, which is defined as that amount of care and caution a reasonable person
would use under the circumstances. Only if an injured person proves that another
person was negligent, and that the negligence caused the injuries in question,
is the injured person allowed to recover monetary compensation for those injuries.
Moreover, even the injured person has to prove that his or her conduct met
a certain standard. This is known as the Doctrine of Comparative Fault.
The law of comparative negligence.
The concept of negligence law means that merely because your are injured, you
are not necessarily automatically entitled to recover money damages. You need
to prove that some other person actually did something wrong which caused you
harm. Further note that even the injured person has to meet a certain standard
of behavior and that behavior is spelled out in the Doctrine of Comparative
Fault.
New Hampshire is a comparative negligence State. This means that when a jury
hears a case, they are required not only to look at the activity of the person
who allegedly was negligent, but also at the behavior of the person who was
injured. The jury is required to balance the behavior of the injured person
against the behavior of the allegedly negligent person for the purpose of determining
what percentage of fault should be attributed to each person.
Thus, in an automobile accident case, where one person has collided into the
rear of another person’s automobile, if it is established that the person
who was hit had break lights which weren’t working, the jury would have
to determine who was more negligent; the person who wasn’t paying attention
or the person who had defective brake lights. Only if the jury determines that
the person who was sued was more than fifty percent (50%) liable for the accident
occurring, is the person who is injured allowed to recover.
General FAQs
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