Collectability

What is Collectability?

Collectability is the third requirement for someone to be able to recover for a Car accident that was not their fault. If you have ever heard that you can not get blood from a turnip that is exactly what this page will explain and where to find coverage when the person who causes the accident is judgment proof. Judgment proof is another way to describe someone who does not have any assets.

Where to look for Collectability

First, find out if the at-fault has insurance and how much. Tennessee does not allow an injured party to find out the amount of coverage a tortfeasor has therefor if someone has car insurance what does that tell us. First, that the at fault party has at least twenty-five-thousand dollars in coverage because those are the state minimums in Tennessee. While at the scene ask the at fault driver what his or her limits are. Most people will tell you. However, remembering to do this at the scene is easier said than done.

Next we have to start making educated guesses and at Betz and Baril we have represented thousands of injured people recover and some things we ask to establish coverage:

1. Is it a commercial policy
2. how old is the vehicle that caused the wreck
3. who is the insurance company
4. does the at fault party have assets
5. is the tortfeasor the owner of the vehicle

Another place to recover is from our own insurance policy. We need to look at our Uninsured Motorist coverage and hopefully we have it and if we do hopefully we have insured ourselves to protect against uninsured or underinsured motorists. Betz and Baril suggests to carry a minimum of 250 thousand dollars in liability as well as Uninsured Motorist Coverage.

Medical Payments on a policy can be helpful as well but most policies in Tennessee are rarely above 5000 dollars and tend to be non existent with most policies.

Will anyone else have any claims to my settlement?

Medical bills that are related from hospitals will often result in the hospital filing a lien as to the services they have rendered and in Tennessee they are entitled to certain amounts of a policy as well as limited in the amounts they can collect directly from the policy.

Next are health insurance companies they are entitled to what they have paid out on claims. This is known as subrogation and the amount they can collect can be reduced or eradicated depending on various situations.

Call Betz and Baril at 865-888-8888 we specialize in all matters relating to collectability. Our goal is to maximize the amount of money our clients get in their pocket not making various insurance companies look good for their shareholders. Call us, what do you have to lose.