Articles Posted in Car Accident

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After you’ve been involved in a car accident, there are A LOT of forms to complete for the insurance company in order for you to start recovering benefits.

It’s not simple. You have to jump through a lot of hoops. The process can be long, tedious and very frustrating.

Why don’t they just make the process simple? I have no idea. The forms are created by the government, but are heavily influenced by the lobbying efforts of large insurance companies. So, the forms, along with the questions in the forms are skewed from the outset to create a bias against innocent accident victims and in favour of large, deep pocked insurance companies.

If English isn’t your first language, or you have problems completing paper work; or you have sustained a brain injury in the accident, then completing these forms will be particularly difficult. Get a lawyer to help you out.

The purpose of this Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post is to assist you in completing the somewhat tricky OCF-3 Disability Certificate follow a car accident.

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This Civic Holiday was a time to relax, enjoy time spent with the family, along with some nice weather….For most.

For insurers and the Ontario Government, it was a time to reign in some new changes to the Insurance Act which were swept under the rug. Unbeknownst to Ontario drivers, the value of the pain and suffering and their injuries following a serious car accident claim have been diminished yet again at the behest of large, deep pocketed insurance companies.

So; what are these changes of which I speak?

Many of you may not know this, but there is a deductible for pain and suffering claims (tort) following a car accident.

Back in the 1970’s there was no such deductible. This meant that you could sue, and recover compensation at law for large injuries and for smaller ones. If the accident wasn’t your fault, and you got injured, chances are you would be able to recover some form of compensation for your pain and suffering.

After the introduction of no fault insurance in Ontario, a deductible and a threshold were both introduced in order to limit the recovery of accident victims in the guise of saving insurers money on claims. The hope was that fewer claims would be advanced, thereby reducing the expenses for insurers. Those savings were supposed to be passed along to the consumer in the form of lower car insurance rates. That deductible has soared from $10,000; to $15,000; to $30,000.

So what’s the significance of the August 1, 2015 date?

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Here’s a call NOBODY likes to get:

“This is the Social Worker from your local hospital. Your spouse has been involved in a serious car accident. They’re here in the Critical Care Unit. Their condition is stable, but you should come to the hospital right away“.

Your heart will skip a beat or two; and rightfully so. This is something you would never expect or want to happen. Millions of questions, concerns and grim scenarios are likely rushing through you head.

This first thing to do of course is to get to the hospital to be next to your spouse/loved one. Soon after the situation will stabilize and the next steps are very important. Here are some of Goldfinger Injury Lawyers’s tips on what to do if your spouse or loved one is in the hospital with a serious injury.

1. You should know that if anyone contacts you from any insurance company, you are under no obligation to speak with them. Chances are that if an insurance company has heard about this accident, they will want to get some information right away. Naturally, people want to be helpful and share information with the insurer. But, often times, the information which you are providing to an insurer without the assistance of a lawyer can damage your case right from the get go. Insurers won’t stop calling. It’s their job. I’ve actually seen adjusters arrive at an injured party’s bedside while they are medicated in a hospital bed and get them to sign forms and take a statement from them. This is all done under the guise of “information gathering”, but the reality is that they are slowly building their case at limiting their potential exposure and liability. Don’t speak with an insurer without a lawyer. You don’t have to take their calls if you don’t want to. It’s that simple.

2. Co-operate with the police. The police, much like insurers have fact gathering missions. But unlike insurers, the fact gathering missions of the police serve a much different purpose. If you’re more comfortable dealing with the police with a lawyer; then by all means, seek one out. But if the accident wasn’t your fault, then you should have nothing to hide. The police will want to bust the wrong doer just as bad as you for their negligence or bad decisions. It’s beneficial to your case to co-operate with the police as best you can.

3. Follow your doctor’s recommendations: if the doctor recommends that you stay in hospital an extra day, or get discharged to a long term care facility; then do so. Even if all you want to do is go home; or you have no interest in going to a long term care facility; the doctor knows best. Follow their advice so you can get better. It’s never good for a case, or for your health for that matter if you fail to follow a doctor’s orders. Particularly after a bad car accident.

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You’ve been injured in a car accident, or you’ve made a claim for Long Term Disability Benefits.

Benefits have not yet been paid. The insurance is giving you a tough time. They’re treating you like you’ve done something wrong; when all you’ve done is been in the wrong place at the wrong time resulting in serious injuries. All you want are the benefits you need to help you get better, and make ends meet. After all, isn’t that what insurance is for? Isn’t that why you’ve paid mountains of money in premiums all of these years.

You receive a notice in the mail from your insurer. They want you to attend an IME (Independent Medical Examination) with some doctor or therapist who you’ve never heard of, in a strip plaza or office tower that’s far away from home.

Transportation has been arranged, but the assessment is still going to take up a lot of your time.

You have yet to receive any benefits so why should you bother to attend? You don’t want some strange doctor or therapist touching you, or asking you all sorts of personal questions, and then reporting their findings to strangers at the insurance company. It all seems weird. And who’s paying for these examinations anyway? They aren’t covered by OHIP, and you know that doctors’ time isn’t cheap.

If the request for an IME is as a result of a car accident, unfortunately, the Insurance Act and the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (that’s the law dealing with car accident benefit claims) requires that you attend.

Here is an excerpt of the relevant section of the SABS:

Examination Required by Insurer

42.  (1)  For the purposes of assisting an insurer determine if an insured person is or continues to be entitled to a benefit under this Regulation for which an application is made, an insurer may, as often as is reasonably necessary, require an insured person to be examined under this section by one or more persons chosen by the insurer who are members of a health profession or are social workers or who have knowledge in vocational rehabilitation. O. Reg. 546/05, s. 21.

So, you’ve now read the law which basically requires your attendance at these examinations. Still..what happens if you just don’t go? Read on and we will tell you!

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For many, this May long weekend marks the official beginning of spring/summer; depending on how you evaluate the temperature. After a very long, cold and windy winter, this May long weekend is a warm welcome; even if the temperatures aren’t “July in Windsor warm“.

As an accident lawyer, our firm has seen many cases over the years, which have stemmed from negligence or bad decisions over long weekends.

With this edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we wanted to give you some safety tips; do’s and dont’s; to make sure that this May long weekend is a pleasant and safe one, for you, your family and those around you.

1. Don’t drink and drive. Whether it’s a car, motorcycle, ATV, E-bike, Sea-doo, or a boat; alcohol and motor engines don’t mix. I can’t begin to tell you about the spike in calls that our law firm receives following long weekends with respect to alcohol related injuries, or drunk driving accidents. When you drink, your judgement is impaired. So is your co-ordination. Getting behind the wheel of a motor vehicle after drinking not only puts your own life at risk, but also the lives of your passengers and other motorists with whom you’re sharing the road or waterway. We all have seen the public service advertisements from such groups as Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving. Driving drunk is ALWAYS a bad decision whereby you’re putting somebody’s life at risk. The consequences can last forever so be smart about it.

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The time immediately following your car accident can me the most difficult time; and the most important time in terms of getting your case on to the right start.

There is a LOT of work to do immediately following your car accident. Lawyers know this. Insurance adjusters know this. Unfortunately, the general public doesn’t know this.

I can say with utmost certainty, that the amount of work required on behalf of accident victims and their families has gone up exponentially with the introduction of no-fault accident benefits in Ontario. This no fault accident benefit scheme was supposed to protect consumers (that means every day Ontario drivers like you and me).

In the beginning, I’m sure that it did. The system was not as complicated, not as adversarial, and did not have a myriad of forms or medical experts who focus on only in accident benefit claims. Nowadays, the system has more forms than you could ever possibly imagine; concentrated clinics and health care professionals who only handle treatment for car accident cases; along with a backlog of over 60,000 mediation and arbitration cases dealing specifically with accident benefits before the Financial Services Commission of Ontario (FSCO).

By completing one form incorrectly, you may be jeopardizing your case from the start. How so? Take the example of electing or FAILING TO ELECT for the proper benefit following your car accident. If you elect an Income Replacement Benefit, but you weren’t making any income before your accident, you may have been better off electing the Non-Earner Benefit. How do you make an Election? You have to complete the OCF-10 Election Form. If you aren’t a lawyer or somebody who works in the car insurance industry, you likely don’t have the foggiest idea about the variety of benefits available, how to claim those benefits, and what on earth to do with all of these forms. This is why the start of the case is such an important and difficult time. Getting your case off on the wrong foot can forever jeopardize an otherwise meritorious claim.

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Only 1% of car accident cases go to trial.

That means that 99% of car accident cases settle outside of the courtroom.

There are many advantages to settlement. Certainly of the settlement and the lack of appeal rights of the parties to the settlement come to mind. You control your own destiny in a settlement vs. the uncertainty of the trial process (and appeal process thereafter).

This is very important because if you win big at trial, there’s nothing stopping an insurance company from tying up the case for many more years through their appeal rights following a trial.

But I don’t want to focus on settlement in this edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog Post. What I would like to focus on is what happens when a case actually goes to trial, in front of a jury.

Jury trials need to be requested by one party or the other. They aren’t automatic. A party will file a Form 47A Jury Notice. Some cases (such as cases against a Municipality) forbid jury trials.
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Clients frequently believe that because a car accident happened, and they’re not at fault, that they’re automatically entitled to compensation for pain and suffering.

That might have been the case in the 1960’s or 1970’s during the “auto-lotto“, but that’s certainly not the case in Ontario anymore.

Lawyers refer to those times as the “auto-lotto” because just being involved in a car accident, no matter how minor, likely resulted in some form of recovery for the Plaintiff.

The laws have changed dramatically, and because of these changes, insurers are looking to different factors in their assessments to claims.

Having over a decade of experience representing accident victims in helping them get the compensation they deserve, our lawyers have observed several trends which insurers look to in assessing the value to car accident claims. These little things aren’t things which people normally think of; but which insurers place a lot of weight on.

With this latest edition of the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog, we will examine what those sometimes overlooked factors are which insurers place a lot of weight on; which people tend not to give much thought about.
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More often than you could possibly imagine, we here at Goldfinger Injury Lawyers are courted by other lawyers, professional bloggers, advertisers and spam services to post content, links etc. on the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog.

We have never, and repeat NEVER caved. Only lawyers and other staff members of Goldfinger Law have ever posted on the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog. All of our content is original, and is 100% Goldfinger Law. Can’t you tell? We have a certain style and panache which people have come to love.

Today is a momentous day. We are honoured to have a very special guest blogger to add his two cents on the field of personal injury law. We have allowed this lawyer to have his say on our blog because we certainly respect this lawyer’s ability, legal wit, and passion for the law.

Stephen Offenheim is a Toronto lawyer who has been practising on in the field since lord knows when. He is a seasoned litigator to say the least. Stephen has been an inspiration and has given me plenty of guidance over the years. It’s an honour to have his as the first ever guest poster on the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog.

So, without further a due; here is the lawyer himself, Stephen Offenheim covering the topic why it’s important NOT TO LIE in your personal injury case. Enjoy!
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Every injury case is different. That’s because every person is different; every accident is different, every injury is different; and everyone’s pre and POST accident health is different.

But, there are many similarities to personal injury cases.

For starters, all car accidents will involve some sort of motor vehicle. Liability; the legal term to describe whose fault is the accident will be examined. The severity of the injuries will be examined. And, the cause of those injuries (causation) will be examined. The concept of damages will also have to be examined.

In order for lawyers, judges and juries to get answers to the above noted topics, they will all ask very similar questions to get the information they need to assess your case.

In this respect, many lawyers can predict and prepare our clients for the questions their clients will be asked during the course of their personal injury case.

And, it’s for those very same reasons that we here at the Toronto Injury Lawyer Blog will now provide you with a list of commonly asked questions of accident victims during the course of their case. We’ve picked some pretty obvious ones, and some not so obvious ones that you would never soon guess.
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