When you hear the words “car accident,” you might think about someone driving recklessly at high speeds and blowing through an intersection. While that is a common type of car accident, you don’t always need to be traveling at high speeds to get into a collision.
A car traveling at 5 or 10 mph that rear-ends your vehicle can cause significant damage and injury. In fact, rear-end collisions are the leading cause of whiplash injuries.
According to recent estimates, approximately 3 million people suffer from a whiplash injury each year. What makes this type of injury especially upsetting is when another driver’s negligence causes it. You might think that the course of action is to go online and file an insurance claim to get all your medical bills and lost wages related to the accident covered.
However, things aren’t always as simple as they might appear. When you reach resistance from an insurance company, or you’re getting a lowball offer that won’t cover your losses, it’s time to get McCoy & Hiestand, PLC involved.
Our Louisville rear-end accident attorneys are proud to take on the role of a strong advocate for our clients who have suffered a whiplash injury due to another driver’s actions. If you’re dealing with this type of injury, you should know what all your available options are to pursue a remedy. It will help to have all the information you need to know about whiplash.
What Is Whiplash and How Does It Occur
Whiplash is classified in medical terms as Cervical Acceleration-Deceleration Syndrome.
It’s a neck injury caused by a sudden impact from an external force. When your car is struck, the force of the impact can jolt you forward and then immediately back again. This causes you to hyperextend backward the muscles and ligaments in your neck and back.
This type of accident can be caused in low-speed collisions from any direction. Whiplash can also occur in slip and fall accidents, playing sports, and from physical abuse, such as shaking.
Common Symptoms and Delayed Onset Signs
If you are the victim of a whiplash accident, you are going to feel soreness and stiffness in your neck. That is from the soft-tissue strain, but it is not the only symptom. You could also experience the following signs of whiplash after a rear-end collision:
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Shoulder and upper back pain
- Fatigue
In the instant of an accident, you might also experience a surge of adrenaline that can delay the onset of your whiplash injury. You might not experience symptoms for several hours or even days after the accident. Here’s what delayed injury symptoms might look like:
- Worsening pain
- Numbness or tingling in arms
- Blurred vision
- Cognitive issues
- Sleep disturbances
- Anxiety
- Increase irritability
- Muscle weakness
- Trouble swallowing
The level of discomfort that you experience with your whiplash injury can play a crucial role in determining what you should ask for in your settlement claim. That is why you want to discuss the extent of your injuries with a qualified attorney.
The Importance of Immediate Medical Evaluation After a Car Accident
It is important to seek medical attention after any type of car accident, whether you feel any of the symptoms of an injury or not. It will be obvious if you need medical attention for a cut or if you can’t move your arm or leg because of a fracture. What is not always obvious are the kinds of soft tissue injuries associated with whiplash.
An immediate medical evaluation allows your doctor to conduct diagnostic exams such as X-rays and MRIs. These can determine if you are suffering from whiplash. An early diagnosis can also mean setting up a treatment plan that can head off the complications of chronic pain and mobility challenges.
Another important aspect to consider when seeking an immediate medical evaluation is the support it will provide for your pending insurance claim. The medical report generated by that visit will help establish causation.
In other words, it can prove that the accident caused the injury. If you delay the exam, the insurance company could claim that you injured yourself in some other way. That can be a challenge to your eventual claim that you’ll want to avoid.
Calculating the Value of Your Whiplash Claim
A whiplash accident would be considered a personal injury claim. As such, you are entitled to seek economic and non-economic relief. Your economic damages will include the following:
- Emergency room charges
- Diagnostic testing
- Doctor examinations
- Physical therapy
- Medical supplies, such as a neck brace
- Surgery and hospitalization if recommended
- Prescription medications
Your non-economic damages would be all the discomfort you’ve endured because of the accident. While there is no fixed price for that amount, you can apply the multiplier method.
That assigns a number between 1 and 5 to the severity of your injury. The more pain and recovery time, the higher the number. That number would then be multiplied by the total of your economic damages. This is the accepted approach for calculating whiplash settlement amounts in Kentucky.
Common Defenses Used by Insurance Companies
Your Personal Injury Protection PIP insurance policy is meant to provide you with compensation for your immediate medical expenses. However, whether you’re filing a claim directly with your insurance carrier or the at-fault driver’s insurance carrier, you can expect a rigorous defense.
After all, insurance companies are focused on making a profit, and any settlement they pay out reduces those profits.
You can expect the following common defenses from an insurance company in your whiplash claim:
Low Impact Defense
The insurance company might claim that since your car damage was minimal, the impact couldn’t have been the cause of a serious injury.
Pre-existing Conditions
If you have a medical history of arthritis or previous injuries, the insurance company might try to associate your current injuries with those past ones and blame those for the real cause of your pain.
Treatment Gaps
If you delayed seeking treatment and even returned to work, an insurance company could assert that your injury was caused by something you did after the accident, not due to the accident itself.
Social Media Monitoring
Insurance companies have the right to review all your public social media posts. If they find photos of you on vacation or dancing at a wedding after the accident, they might use that as evidence that your injuries aren’t as severe as you make them out to be.
No matter what tactics are deployed by the insurance company, a skilled Louisville car accident lawyer will be ready to knock them back, one by one.
Steps to Take After a Whiplash Injury
The priority after suffering a whiplash injury is to seek immediate medical attention.
You want to begin a treatment as soon as possible to reduce your discomfort and speed up your recovery process.
While your doctors are taking care of your physical trauma, the attorneys at McCoy & Hiestand, PLC can help with the legal matters, starting with support with filing an insurance claim. We have successfully helped many clients stand up to an insurance company and fight for the maximum benefits they are entitled to.
Our goal is to provide you with the guidance you need to make an informed decision about your pursuit of compensation.
If you’ve suffered a whiplash injury, call to schedule a free consultation with our legal team. Let’s talk about what happened and what needs to happen next.
