Med-Pay Insurance
Claims Arising from Car Wreck Cases in Georgia
Craig Hardegree, Esq.
Med-Pay coverage is a form of no-fault
coverage which pays for medical expenses incurred by you
or any occupant of your vehicle regardless of whether the
wreck was your fault or the fault of someone else. It
doesn’t matter if you hit a deer, a ditch, another driver
or if another driver hit you – as long as you were in your
vehicle and incurred medical bills as a result of the
accident, Med-Pay will cover the bills, up to the Med-Pay
limits which you have purchased.
Med-Pay is usually sold in limits of
$1,000, $5,000, $10,000 and on up to $50,000.
Surprisingly, there is very little premium difference
between $1,000 of coverage and $50,000 of coverage. Even
more surprising is the fact that many people don’t have
this type of coverage at all and of the ones who do – even
those with “full coverage” – they only have the minimum
Med-Pay limits offered by their insurance company.
There are several reasons why people
usually do not purchase adequate coverage in this
category. A majority of people simply haven’t looked into
the type of coverages which they have – and usually don’t
until it’s too late; until after they have an
accident. Some people who have looked at their policies
see the term “medical coverage” and mistakenly believe
they have coverage for medical bills. Usually the term
“medical coverage” appears in connection with the
Liability portion of your policy and there, it is only
referring to coverage for other people if you cause
an accident. Some believe they only need $1,000 in
Med-Pay coverage, thinking their health insurance will
pick up where the Med-Pay stops. This may happen, but
often it doesn’t. Many health insurance companies refuse
to pay accident-related bills or only pay on the condition
that you reimburse them if you reach a settlement or
obtain a verdict from the at-fault driver.
Another belief that sometimes leaves people
inadequately insured is their theory that any accident
will probably be the fault of “the other person”; that all
of their own medical expenses should be paid by the other
person’s company. However, even if the other person is at
fault in the accident, this still isn’t true.
Contrary to what many people believe, the
law does not require the other person’s insurance
company to pay for all your medical bills, even if the
other person causes the accident. The other person and
his insurance company are only required to pay what a jury
tells them to when a jury renders a verdict. However,
short of actually going to court and presenting your case
to a jury (a process that will take two or more years) a
settlement from the at-fault party's company will be based
purely on negotiations – on what each side believes a jury
would do if the case went that far. In more conservative
areas, juries often make awards which are actually less
than the amount of medical expenses. As a result,
insurance companies often make settlement offers which are
less than the amount of medical bills and which provide no
compensation for lost time from work or pain & suffering.
If you have adequate Med-Pay coverage, at very least all
of your medical expenses will be paid.
If you have been
involved in a car wreck, auto accident, truck collision, motor
vehicle crash or any other personal injury case and you live in
the cities of
Carrollton, Bremen, Bowdon, Villa Rica, Temple, Hiram, Dallas,
Douglasville or in Carroll County or Douglas County or in the
Counties of
Haralson, Paulding or Clayton, please
contact
our Douglasville Personal Injury Law Center for a free consultation
with a personal injury lawyer.
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