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If you were partly at fault, your insurance claim will be affected differently than if you were completely at fault. In many states, there are no-fault laws that require drivers to share the blame when they cause an accident. However, if you’re injured in a car accident with another driver who was also partially at fault and this person ends up filing a lawsuit against you for money damages, then it’s possible that your own personal injury protection coverage could be voided by the courts due to comparative negligence on behalf of the other driver.
Who Determines Fault?
If you are partially at fault for an accident, the insurance company will determine who is to blame. If it finds that both parties were partly to blame for the accident and decide that one party was entirely responsible for their actions, then they will reduce your claim. This can be because of things like speeding or running a red light.
Factors that Affect Fault
When determining fault, the insurance company will consider a number of factors, as per personal injury lawyer in Brantford. These include:
Age: The older you are, the more likely it is that your insurance company will find you at fault for an accident.
Gender: Women tend to be less aggressive drivers than men and less likely to cause accidents when they do drive. This means that they can sometimes be found partially responsible if they were involved in an accident.
Negligence Laws
Negligence laws are the basis for determining fault and liability in an auto insurance claim. In general, negligence laws are based on a person’s actions and the results of those actions. A person is considered to be negligent if they fail to exercise reasonable care or control over their vehicle or property, causing harm to another.
Contributory Negligence
Contributory negligence is a legal doctrine that holds that a person who is injured by another person’s negligence may be barred from recovering damages if the injured person was also negligent.
Comparative Negligence
If you are partially at fault for an accident, your insurance company will pay a percentage of the claim. The amount they will pay is determined by how much you were responsible for causing the damages in question.
Personal Injury Protection
If you are injured in a car accident, you may be able to receive benefits from your own insurance company. These can include medical bills and lost wages. However, it’s important to note that PIP is not a substitute for liability insurance coverage–so if you have no other sources of income or don’t realize that there was another driver involved in the accident (or if the other driver was uninsured), then this benefit may not be enough to cover all of your expenses.
In some states personal injury protection (PIP) is available on its own without any other type of coverage. However, this is not true everywhere across America!
No-Fault States
In no-fault states, if you were injured in an accident and your vehicle was hit by another car, the driver’s at-fault insurance will cover the medical bills and lost wages for both vehicles.In these states, instead of filing a lawsuit against each other, motorists settle cases out of court through their own insurance companies.
No-fault laws vary by state–some require that drivers must carry bodily injury coverage (BIC), while others do not mandate this type of coverage at all.