Legal Question in Personal Injury in Mississippi

Re: insurance claims personal injury

My partner is the firm's attorney licensed in Mississippi.

Your insurance coverage should not be affected by your accpetance of medical payments coverage up to the policy limits of your own insurance policy. That will not cause your own premium to increase. That the at fault party's insurance coverage is being underwritten by the same carrier will not affect your own individual coverage either. You do need to ascertain the at fault party's insurance policy limits are for your bodily injury claim to consider if you may have a UM/UIM claim too under your own coverage.

Given the severity of your injury and its long term impact on your earning capcity in your employment, I would recommend that you retain counsel.

R Layne Holley

Re: insurance claims personal injury

Your carrier is most likely telling you to use your medical payments coverage available under your policy. Medical payments coverage is no-fault coverage, there for you if you get into an incident, regardless of whose fault it may be. There is nothing wrong with you utilizing this coverage in your scenario because it will pay for your medical expenses, as they are incurred, as opposed to the truck's liability policy which won't pay as you go and, in the end, will settle with you for a one-time lump sum payment. Thus, unless you have health insurance or another way to pay for your medical expenses, you should use your medical payments coverage on your own insurance policy. You pay a premium for it and have it around for this type of scenario.

However, the most intriguing thing about your inquiry was your reference to work. Depending on what you were or were not doing at the time this happened to you, you may have a very viable and important workers' compensation claim. In that case, you need not concern yourself with your medical payments coverage since the workers' compensation carrier is on the hook for everything.

Should you hire a lawyer? Not necessarily. Should you consult with a lawyer? Absolutely. Until you are able to talk to an attorney about the details of what happened and explore all of your scenarios, workers' compensation or otherwise, you won't know whether or not you need to hire an attorney. You should call an attorney experienced in both workers' compensation and personal injury law in order to explore all of your options and, more importantly, get an idea about the value of your claim.