If you are in a car accident, then that can shake you up quite badly. Maybe you will have PTSD afterward. It might take weeks or months till you’re mentally recovered enough to drive again.

After the accident, you may also have some financial difficulties. For instance, maybe you have to pay for some medical bills out of pocket. You might have to pay for the damage to the car to get it drivable again. You may also miss some work and not have the wages coming in that you normally would. 

Collecting lost wages following a car accident presents challenges, but you can often do it. However, you may need the help of a competent car accident lawyer. 

Let’s talk about why you might need to hire an attorney to help you if you missed out on some wages after a car accident.

You Got in an Accident in a Company Vehicle

You might have a situation where you got in a car accident while in a company vehicle. Maybe you’re a delivery driver, and you’re operating a truck while on company time. You intended to drop off your cargo of products at one of the store locations that carries them.

However, a vehicle came out of nowhere and hit you. You sustained some physical injuries. Maybe you’re not in the best shape mentally after the accident, either. 

You Must Try to Collect Worker’s Compensation

In that scenario, you will probably have to miss work for a while. You will need to recover both mentally and physically. During that time, you should be able to collect most of your lost wages, since your company will presumably have worker’s compensation insurance.

Worker’s comp exists so that an employee who sustains an injury while on the job can collect the money that they’re due while they recover. You normally can’t get the full amount through worker’s comp that you’d normally receive, but you can usually still collect most of it. 

To get that money, you will need to immediately tell your boss what happened. They can get all of the relevant information from you and file a claim with their insurance company on your behalf. 

That gets the ball rolling. In short order, you should start to get the money you need to cover your lost wages while you recover. 

However, maybe you have a situation where the insurance company that provides your employer’s worker’s comp policy won’t pay out your claim. Maybe they will do so because of some technical matter. 

Remember that insurance companies typically have for-profit status. That means they want to pay out as few claims as possible so that they can keep more of the money that they collect from policy holders. 

In this scenario, you will probably need to hire a lawyer so that you can go after the insurance company. That’s likely the only way you can get the money you need while you’re recuperating.

You Might Need a Lawyer if Your Employer Doesn’t Have Worker’s Comp

You might also need to hire a lawyer if you’re in that same scenario, where someone hit you while you’re driving a company vehicle, but it turns out that your boss or company doesn’t have a worker’s comp policy. In most cases, an employer must carry worker’s comp. The law demands it. 

In some instances, though, you might have a boss or company that decided they didn’t want to keep paying for their worker’s comp policy. Maybe they had a policy, but they let it lapse.

By doing so, they’re probably breaking the law. They might face some stiff penalties for that, but that shouldn’t concern you. You’ll need to recoup your lost wages while facing some unwanted downtime.

If you hire an attorney, then you can sue your employer. They owe you money through lost wages that their worker’s comp policy should cover, but they let you down. 

Suing your employer might end your time working there, but hopefully you can at least get the money to cover your lost wages. 

A Driver or Insurance Company Won’t Admit the Other Driver’s Guilt

There’s one more scenario where you might need to hire an attorney who knows about this area of the law if you’re trying to collect your lost wages following a car accident. Maybe you’re driving when another vehicle hits you. This time, you’re not driving a company vehicle, but your own private car.

You’re in an at-fault state, meaning that the at-fault driver’s insurance needs to pay for things like damage to the car and medical bills. The insurance company also needs to cover any lost wages.

However, the other driver won’t admit their guilt, or maybe their insurance company won’t admit it. You feel certain that the other driver caused the accident, though.

In such a situation, it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that you will need to hire a lawyer and sue either the other driver or their insurance company. You might not want to do it, but you will have little choice in the matter.

If you’re suing the other driver, then you will have to prove in court that the crash happened like you said it did and not in the way that they claim. You might do that by calling witnesses to the stand who saw the accident, if any exist. 

Your lawyer may also hire some expert witnesses who can appear on the stand. They might state that based on accident photos, it’s clear that the other driver caused the crash and that you did not.

If you have to sue the other driver’s insurance company instead because they won’t admit the other driver’s culpability, then you and your lawyer can go after them instead. You need to do whatever it takes to get the money you need, as it will sustain you while you’re recovering. 

Any of these situations will require a lawyer’s help.