Oskaloosa Car Accident Injury Attorneys

If you have been hurt in a car accident in Oskaloosa or Mahaska County, the decisions you make in the days and weeks following the crash can have a lasting impact on your health, your finances, and your ability to recover full compensation. This guide covers what you need to know.

A car accident is a frightening experience under any circumstances. When it results in broken bones or severe soft tissue pain that lingers for weeks or months, the physical and financial pressure can become overwhelming quickly. At the same time, insurance adjusters from large companies will be working to close your claim for as little money as possible, often before you fully understand how serious your injuries are. Knowing your rights, understanding your treatment options, and knowing how to deal with the insurance companies involved can protect you from making costly mistakes that are very difficult to undo.

Broken Bones From a Car Accident: Critical Steps to Protect Your Rights

Suffering a broken arm, leg, back, hand, neck, or any other bone in a car accident makes an already stressful situation significantly worse. The long-term consequences of fracture injuries can be serious, and taking the right steps early in the process is essential to protecting your health, your rights, and your financial future.

Do Not Discuss Settlement Until You Know the Full Extent of Your Injuries

One of the most common tactics used by insurance companies is to offer accident victims money immediately after a crash, before they know how serious their injuries truly are. Do not even consider discussing settlement with the insurance company for the other driver until you are out of the hospital and have finished treatment for your injuries.

Accepting a quick offer and signing settlement documents will almost certainly mean giving up your right to any future compensation. It can also mean you are left holding responsibility for repaying your health insurance company for the medical bills it already paid on your behalf. This process, known as subrogation, is a provision in virtually all health insurance policies that requires you to reimburse the plan from any personal injury recovery you receive.

If your health insurance plan is not a self-funded ERISA plan, Iowa law provides some protections so that if you do not make a full financial recovery, your health insurance company is also not entitled to make a full financial recovery. However, if your plan is a self-funded ERISA plan, which is very common when you work for a company with 500 or more employees, federal law applies. If you settle your case without first reaching an agreement with the plan, you may have breached your contract with them, and you could end up paying back the entire amount of the settlement regardless of how small it was.

Always Use Your Health Insurance for Medical Bills

Many Oskaloosa car accident victims make the mistake of allowing their medical bills to be sent directly to the at-fault driver's insurance company. The insurer may have asked you to send them your medical bills, but that does not mean they will pay them promptly, or at all. This is a tactic designed to put pressure on injured people to settle their claims when unpaid bills begin piling up and collection calls start coming in.

If you have health insurance, provide that information to all of your medical providers and ask them to bill your health insurance. Some hospitals and providers will tell you that they cannot bill health insurance if an auto accident is involved. That is simply not true. It is a tactic providers use in hopes of being paid the full billed amount rather than the discounted contractual rate your health insurer has already negotiated with them. For example, a hospital may bill $50,000 for fracture treatment but have a contracted rate closer to $10,000 with your health insurer. The difference matters enormously when you are trying to maximize what you recover.

Under Iowa law, the minimum car insurance liability coverage is only $20,000. If the driver who caused your accident carries minimum limits, you could find yourself owing money toward your medical bills even after their insurance is exhausted. Using your health insurance from the start, and working with an attorney on subrogation, helps protect you in that scenario.

Understanding Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage

If you have your own car insurance policy, there is a strong chance you have uninsured motorist (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. UM coverage compensates you for your injuries, medical bills, and lost wages up to your policy limit if the at-fault driver carries no insurance at all. UIM coverage provides additional compensation when your injuries and damages exceed the coverage limits carried by the at-fault driver.

For example, if you suffered broken bones that required surgery and your health insurance paid $25,000 in medical bills, but the driver who caused the accident only carries a $20,000 policy limit, you would want to bring a UIM claim to pursue your full damages. Keep in mind that there are legal requirements for bringing a UIM claim, including obtaining your own insurance company's approval before settling with the at-fault driver. An attorney can walk you through this process to make sure you do not inadvertently waive coverage you are entitled to use.

Trigger Point Injections After a Car Accident in Iowa

Car accidents do not always produce injuries that are immediately obvious. In some cases, significant pain develops or intensifies in the days, weeks, or even months following a crash. When rest, physical therapy, and other conservative treatments are not effective at managing that pain, doctors may turn to trigger point injections as a treatment option.

What Are Trigger Points and Why Do They Develop After a Crash?

Trigger points are hyperirritable spots located within a taut band of skeletal muscle. Patients who develop trigger points often experience muscle spasms, inflammation, and localized or referred pain in those areas. Trigger points most commonly occur in the upper back, upper spine, and shoulder, though they can develop in other parts of the body as well.

Trigger points are typically caused by trauma to the muscle, which is exactly the kind of physical stress the body absorbs in a car accident. A collision places sudden, violent force on the muscles of the back, neck, and surrounding areas, making car accident victims a common population for trigger point development.

How Trigger Point Injections Work

During a trigger point injection, a numbing agent such as lidocaine or a similar anesthetic is injected directly into the trigger point, providing relief from pain and muscle tension. In some cases, a steroid is used instead of an anesthetic. These are outpatient procedures administered by a medical professional using a very small needle. In ideal circumstances, only a single injection is needed to resolve the pain, though some patients require ongoing treatment.

Like any medical procedure, trigger point injections carry some risk of side effects. Minor soreness at the injection site is common. Infection is possible, though rare. In some cases, a hematoma may form or, in very uncommon situations, the needle may break. Patients should review all potential complications with their physician before proceeding with this or any other treatment for their pain.

Can You Recover the Cost of Trigger Point Injections?

Medical treatment adds up fast after a serious accident, and trigger point therapy is no exception. If another person's negligence caused your car accident, you may be able to file a car accident claim to recover your damages, including the cost of trigger point injections and any other medically necessary treatment. Additional damages that may be recoverable include compensation for lost wages and mental anguish. To succeed on those claims, you will need to demonstrate that your injuries, including the trigger points themselves, were caused by the accident and that the other party was at fault through their negligent conduct.

An experienced Oskaloosa car accident attorney can help you build that case and make sure treatment costs are properly documented and included in your claim from the very beginning.

Dealing With Insurance Adjusters in Iowa: What Every Car Accident Victim Needs to Know

After a car accident in Oskaloosa, one of the first calls you are likely to receive is from an insurance adjuster. Regardless of which company they represent, all insurance adjusters share several things in common. They are trained in techniques designed to reduce the value of your claim. They will attempt to convince you to accept a smaller settlement. They will have a significant advantage over any unrepresented injured person who does not know Iowa law. And while they may act friendly and sympathetic, they do not have your best interests in mind and are not legally required to be truthful with you.

Understanding the specific tactics used by the major insurers that operate in Iowa can help you avoid mistakes that cost you thousands of dollars or more. You can also read more about what insurers do not want you to know before you make any decisions about your claim.

EMC Insurance

EMC is a Des Moines-based company and one of the largest workers' compensation insurers in Iowa. Most of their adjusters are professional and will respond to communications. However, being pleasant and responsive does not mean an adjuster is looking out for you. Do not let a cooperative tone persuade you that the amount of money EMC says they owe is the full and fair amount of what your case is worth.

Liberty Mutual

Liberty Mutual is consistently one of the top three writers of workers' compensation coverage in Iowa. Their adjusters have access to in-house Iowa attorneys who assist behind the scenes or sometimes take over a case directly. If Liberty Mutual assigns an attorney to handle your claim, you should strongly consider retaining your own attorney. In workers' compensation cases involving injuries that occurred after July 1, 2017, allowing a Liberty Mutual attorney or adjuster to talk you into retiring or leaving your job rather than being formally terminated could cost you tens of thousands of dollars. The changes Iowa Republicans made to the workers' compensation laws in 2017 created numerous traps for injured workers that make it far too risky to navigate the system alone.

Sedgwick and Gallagher Bassett

Sedgwick and Gallagher Bassett are not traditional insurance companies. They are third-party administrators (TPAs), meaning they manage claims on behalf of self-insured companies or other insurers that do not have their own Iowa adjusters. In our experience, these organizations are often significantly more difficult to deal with than a standard insurance company adjuster. Obtaining records, getting return calls, and receiving timely responses to correspondence can all be major challenges. The vast majority of cases involving Sedgwick or Gallagher Bassett end up requiring a lawsuit to reach a resolution.

AIG

AIG is a large New York-based insurance company with numerous subsidiary companies. Their adjusters often take what can fairly be described as an aggressive, unresponsive approach: failing to return phone calls, not timely responding to letters and emails, and in some cases being openly dismissive of the difficulties their claimants are facing. Not every AIG adjuster behaves this way, but it is a pattern that appears often enough to warrant preparation going in.

Travelers

Travelers operates a large claims center in Overland Park, Kansas, and like Liberty Mutual, they have in-house Iowa attorneys who assist adjusters or sometimes take an active role in managing claims directly. If you are dealing with a Travelers attorney on the other side of your claim without legal representation of your own, you are at a significant disadvantage. They have the financial resources, the legal knowledge, and the training to pay you as little as possible. Having an attorney in your corner levels that playing field.

Zurich

Zurich is a large international insurance company based in Switzerland, with one of its largest subsidiary companies being Farmers Insurance. Claims are often handled by adjusters located far from Iowa who may have limited familiarity with Iowa law. Regardless of how courteous a Zurich adjuster may seem, they are trained to minimize payouts, and the distance from Iowa rarely works in a claimant's favor.

Why Oskaloosa Car Accident Victims Should Not Go It Alone

Car accident cases involving broken bones, ongoing pain requiring treatment like trigger point injections, and powerful insurance companies are not well-suited for self-representation. The stakes are simply too high, and the risks of making a costly, irreversible mistake are too real. Insurance adjusters work these types of cases every single day. Most injured people in Oskaloosa have never dealt with a serious injury claim before, and they are going up against opponents who have processed hundreds of similar cases.

An experienced Iowa car accident attorney can ensure your medical bills are handled correctly from the start, prevent you from settling before you know the full scope of your injuries, hold insurance companies accountable for the full value of your claim, and protect you from subrogation pitfalls that can take money directly out of your pocket. If you are not yet ready to speak with an attorney but want to learn more, you can request a free copy of The Legal Insider's Guide to Iowa Car Accidents: 7 Secrets to Not Wreck Your Case. It is available at no cost or obligation and covers the most common and costly mistakes Iowa car accident victims make.

Seeking Legal Assistance in Oskaloosa

Seeking legal counsel from experienced Oskaloosa Iowa car accident attorneys such as those at Walker, Billingsley & Bair can provide invaluable support in filing insurance claims or pursuing personal injury lawsuits. With a comprehensive understanding of Iowa law, their team can help gather evidence, establish liability, and secure the compensation deserved by accident victims.

Suffering from the aftermath of a car accident shouldn't impede your pursuit of justice and fair compensation. The Iowa injury lawyers at Walker, Billingsley & Bair work hard to level the field between injured Iowans and insurance companies.

That's why we provide this FREE book; The Legal Insider's Guide to Iowa Car Accidents: 7 Secrets to Not Wreck Your Case. To learn more about what our legal team will do to help you protect your Iowa injury claim, contact Walker, Billingsley & Bair to schedule a no-cost consultation. Call 641-792-3595 to order your free accident book today.

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