Can you get a loan based on your auto accident claim and more importantly should you?

This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because invariably, I would say 50 to 60 percent of the people that I represent in car accident cases call me at some point usually at the beginning portion of their claims and they’re asked – they want to ask me for a loan.

Unfortunately South Carolina law prohibits personal injury lawyers or lawyers generally for providing loans to their clients based on any expected recovery that they might get from a personal injury claim which leaves my clients a little bit out in the cold.

Because of the fact that your lawyer cannot provide you with a loan directly, there are a lot of companies that have moved into this particular vacuum that want to provide my clients with loans while they wait for the cases to settle.

Classic examples would be 877 Cash Now, JG Wentworth, Blue Sky, which is the Indian reservation, Peachtree Lending, and a whole host of other companies that have moved into that particular area.

They obviously serve a purpose and they’re talking about structured settlement, this, that and the other. What they’re really kind of gearing that towards, where it really needs to be used is when someone is going to be receiving an extraordinarily large sum of money, i.e. a medical malpractice action or a large settlement based on mass tort. But it’s going to take them two to three to four years to actually get the thing processed.

That’s an instance where these particular companies might actually serve a purpose. The people who are in car wrecks unfortunately – obviously their cash reward is going to be considerably less and so what they’re ultimately going to walk away with is going to be – it’s not going to be millions of dollars. It’s going to be thousands of dollars.

So if you go out and you borrowed 1000 bucks, 1500 bucks, but you’re doing it at 120 percent interest rate which is the part that they fail to mention to you, then you’re going to be paying out the nose and what I often see is my clients are the victims of their own success in the sense that they go and they get this particular loan. They tell me about it. I facilitate it in some way, shape or form or basically just wash my hands off it. Then when it comes time to settle, invariably, I’m giving the overwhelming majority of their money to the company that they actually borrowed money from to begin with.

So let’s just say for demonstration purposes, they were going to walk away with a $3500 amount of money after I paid their medical bills and I take my legal fee.

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But they’ve got a $1900 outstanding loan plus interest with Bridge Loan, which is a local company. They’re looking at maybe $1300 in their pocket and that is a really bad situation not only for them to be in but for me to be in, because my job is based on good customer service and providing my clients with great results.

They’re not real happy at the end of the day when they’re walking with $1300, even if on some level they realize that the reason why that occurred is because they insisted on getting a loan that I told them really was a bad idea.

You need to be aware of these particular companies and you need to weigh the pros and cons about whether you actually want to borrow money because there’s a distinct possibility that at the end of the day, you walk away with nothing or very little. I don’t want you to find yourself in that situation.

If you have any questions regarding a car accident claim or loans in general, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.

What is a Deductible and Why is it Important to You?

The deductible is the amount of money that you agreed to pay your insurance company in order to be able to make a claim typically through your collision coverage. You're going to run into this in the event that you decide to use your collision coverage instead of the defendant's insurance company to get your car repaired.

A typical deductible is going to be anywhere between $250 to $500 to $1000. The higher your deductible, the lower your premium and that's kind of a balance that you have to strike depending on ultimately how much money you have in pocket and how much you're going to want to come out of pocket.

In the event that you actually have an automobile wreck and this is relevant to you of a deductible, you typically will get your deductible back but it's going to be anywhere between three to four months down the road, once your insurance company actually recoups it from the defendant's insurance company.

If you have any questions concerning your car accident or your insurance deductible, don't hesitate to contact the Hartman Law Firm at (843) 300-7600 for a free consultation today.

Is There Any Reason For You To Delay The Settlement Of Your Property Damage Claim?

No. In fact, under the law, you have a duty to mitigate your damages. You need to get your car moved from the storage facility because once it gets towed, it gets taken to the tow yard and then it typically starts running a tab of about $20 to $30 a day.

The insurance company needs to be contacted immediately and they need to go and take it from the tow yard to a storage facility so that it will not continue accruing storage fees. Lastly, the liability carrier, once it has accepted liability, only has an obligation to provide with a rental car for a reasonable period of time and typically a reasonable period of time is going to be the period of time in which it takes for them to talk to their driver, find out whether there was what the liability issues were and essentially how the wreck occurred.

More importantly, make a determination about whether your car is going to be a total loss or not. Once they make a decision about whether they're going to repair your car or whether it's a total loss, their obligation to provide you with a rental car ends at that point. It's actually in your best interest to resolve your property damage claim as quickly as you possibly can.

If you have questions regarding your property damage or your auto accident, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600 today.

What is GAP insurance and why is it important to you?

I run into this a good bit with a lot of my clients. Pretty much anybody who’s in a situation where they have a car that is financed by an outside lender needs to have GAP insurance in place and I will explain why.

A classic hypothetical is going to be a case in which you’re involved in a car accident and your car is totaled. Let’s just say it’s a 2004 Ford Explorer. You paid $10,500 for it two years ago.

Unfortunately, the blue book value of that car is going to be maybe $6000, $5500, because of the mark-up of the dealer when you bought the car originally.

Naturally you’re going to have to borrow that money plus whatever down payment you come up with. You’re going to have to borrow that money from a lender and if you do not have GAP insurance, this is where the math actually breaks down for you.

When the insurance company for the defendant eventually totals out your vehicle and they hand you a check for $6000, that check first of all is going to go directly to your lender. You’re not actually going to get it, which is fine because it needs to go there in order to pay off the overwhelming majority of what it is that you owe.

However, the additional $4500 that you owed on your note for your car is still out there and viable to be collected by the lender from which you borrowed the money. If you do not have GAP insurance in place, you are still on the hook for that $4500.

Most of my clients, chances are this is their primary vehicle or it’s their only vehicle and it’s usually their means to get back and forth to work. So now not only can they not make it to work but they’re also stuck with being injured and they have an additional $4500 that they have to pay their lender, plus they get the joy of going out and trying to find the money to buy a new car to get back and forth to work with, with the burden of this particular $4500 that they still owe.

Really the only option that you have at that point is you can try to finance that debt into the car that you’re about to purchase and you’re going to have to find a really good lender, someone who’s really willing to work with you and that’s going to be a difficult proposition, I have to tell you, to find a lender who’s willing to do that because essentially they’re giving you $4000 in addition to whatever it is you’re borrowing for the new vehicle and they have absolutely nothing to show for it, nothing that they can actually seize to get that $4000 back. They’re doing it on good faith. That’s a highly unlikely scenario.

So what I find is, is that my clients are in a bind where they owe that kind of money and then they call me and they want to know, “Well, what is it that we should have done in order to protect ourselves in this particular situation?”

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You have to buy what’s called GAP insurance and apparently this is a closely held secret in the auto insurance industry, which is kind of strange because a lot of times, lenders will require you to have GAP insurance but sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t.

Either way, you need to be aware of it and you need to secure it if you’re in a situation in which you owe considerably more than what your car is actually worth, because if that’s the case, you’re going to be left on the hook for a substantial amount of money and you’re not going to have anything to show for it.

Go out. Google “GAP insurance”. Find yourself a third party insurance company that’s specific to GAP insurance and purchase a policy for your vehicle, so that you don’t find yourself in this scenario in which you get into a car wreck, you’re hurt, you can’t get back and forth to work and on top of everything else, you owe an additional $5000, $6000, $7000. I’ve seen as much as $10,000 or $11,000 in some instances. I really can’t tell my clients anything. I just tell them that they’re kind of in the position that they’re in and to make the best of it.

So my suggestion to you, the public, would be get some GAP insurance. If you have questions about GAP insurance or auto accidents generally, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600.

What is Mesothelioma and What are These Ongoing Cases Being Shown on TV?

First thing is first. What is mesothelioma? It is an aggressive cancer that attacks the lining of your lungs, specifically the epithelial cells, typically associated with asbestos which was a product that was used both in construction, early 20th century, i.e. tile or sheetrock, which is the stuff that makes up the actual walls of your home.

It was used early in the 20th century in these particular instances. Later in the 20th century, it was used as a flame retardant as well as insulation before fiberglass became the primary use for installation as we all know today.

The byproduct of the use of asbestos is this particular form of cancer, mesothelioma, which has ravaged the American public and unfortunately the chemical companies that were responsible for creating and using this particular substance went to great lengths to keep its potential carcinogenic or cancer-causing agents a secret from the American public and they successfully did so for the better part of 50 years.

At the same time, they were aggressively marketing this particular product for all of the various areas that I’ve just finished mentioning.

The most common area of exposure was navy yards, dock workers, anybody who works in welding, anybody who works around boats or the like.

Those are the people who are most likely to have come into contact with asbestos. Asbestos causes this particular form of cancer, which is an extremely aggressive form of cancer. As far as survival rates are concerned, the survival rate for mesothelioma is about 40 percent once you’ve been diagnosed. In other words, you got a 40 percent chance of living for at least one year after you’ve been diagnosed with mesothelioma.

It’s actually one of the longest ongoing mass tort claims in American history because the litigation and claims against them have been ongoing I would say the better part of 30 or 40 years ever since it became clear that this in fact was a cancer-causing agent.

The common symptoms that are associated with mesothelioma is actually going to be something similar to either pneumonia or potentially bronchitis. You’re going to have a hacking cough, potential sputum or phlegm, blood and just an overall feeling of sickness like you’ve got pneumonia or something along those lines.

The significant thing to take away from all of this is if you’ve experienced that or you think that you’ve been exposed in any way to asbestos in the context of your job or just generally speaking in your house if you’ve got an older home. There’s a possibility that you may have a potential mesothelioma case.

If you have questions about mesothelioma or any other questions that you may have, please contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600 today.

What is the South Carolina Tort Claims Act and why is it important to you?

The South Carolina Tort Claims Act dictates what sort of damages you can get against any state entity or federal entity for that matter specifically in South Carolina.

What is included in that category is going to be schools or hospitals in the medical malpractice context or any potential state building that you might be injured in a slip and fall. That would be for example, if you were injured at the Medical University of South Carolina.

These particular caps are going to come and play and it’s a product of Tort Reform and the number is 300,000. For example, a client that I worked with several years ago, fell at a school in Beaver County and she had a very significant injury and the unfortunate thing was it was a sort of injury that we could have recovered a considerable amount. She was a young woman and it was something that she was going to be living with for at least another 30 to 40 years.

But because of these particular caps, the only amount of money that we could actually get because it was against the state was $300,000. Now the significance of that is, is that because it’s $300,000, the only way that you can actually get the money is if you got a death claim.

So it essentially minimizes the injury if you have anything other than that. In this particular instance, the client was bedridden for the better part of three months because if she had moved incorrectly, she would have been paralyzed from the waist down.

Fortunately, we were able to recover $240,000 for her, which was a good recovery. But as you can see, because you’ve got the cap there, and the insurance adjuster is aware of it, it actually works against you in the context of negotiations.

Therefore, if you have been injured in any state entity, be it a medical university or you slipped and fell at the courthouse or wherever it may be, you are going to be dealing with a $300,000 cap regardless of what your injuries may be or how grievous they may be.

You need a lawyer to get the best result for you because they’re going to have knowledge of these caps and they’re going to be aware of it and they’re going to be able to walk the line that you’re not going to know as a layman.

If you have questions about the Tort Claims Act or anything else, contact the Hartman Law Firm at 843-300-7600 today.

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Can you get a loan based on your auto accident claim and more importantly should you?

This is a topic that’s near and dear to my heart because invariably, I would say 50 to 60 percent of the people that I represent in car accident cases call me at some point usually at the beginning portion of their claims and they’re asked – they want to ask me for a loan.

Unfortunately South Carolina law prohibits personal injury lawyers or lawyers generally for providing loans to their clients based on any expected recovery that they might get from a personal injury claim which leaves my clients a little bit out in the cold.

Because of the fact that your lawyer cannot provide you with a loan directly, there are a lot of companies that have moved into this particular vacuum that want to provide my clients with loans while they wait for the cases to settle.

Classic examples would be 877 Cash Now, JG Wentworth, Blue Sky, which is the Indian reservation, Peachtree Lending, and a whole host of other companies that have moved into that particular area.

They obviously serve a purpose and they’re talking about structured settlement, this, that and the other. What they’re really kind of gearing that towards, where it really needs to be used is when someone is going to be receiving an extraordinarily large sum of money, i.e. a medical malpractice action or a large settlement based on mass tort. But it’s going to take them two to three to four years to actually get the thing processed.

That’s an instance where these particular companies might actually serve a purpose. The people who are in car wrecks unfortunately – obviously their cash reward is going to be considerably less and so what they’re ultimately going to walk away with is going to be – it’s not going to be millions of dollars. It’s going to be thousands of dollars.

So if you go out and you borrowed $1,000, but you’re doing it at 120 percent interest rate which is the part that they fail to mention to you, then you’re going to be paying out the nose and what I often see is my clients are the victims of their own success in the sense that they go and they get this particular loan. They tell me about it. I facilitate it in some way, shape or form or basically just wash my hands off it. Then when it comes time to settle, invariably, I’m giving the overwhelming majority of their money to the company that they actually borrowed money from to begin with.

So let’s just say for example, they were going to walk away with a $3,500 amount of money after I paid their medical bills and I take my legal fee.

But they’ve got a $1,900 outstanding loan plus interest with Bridge Loan, which is a local company. They’re looking at maybe $1,300 in their pocket and that is a really bad situation not only for them to be in but for me to be in, because my job is based on good customer service and providing my clients with great results.

They’re not real happy at the end of the day when they’re walking with $1,300, even if on some level they realize that the reason why that occurred is because they insisted on getting a loan that I told them really was a bad idea.

You need to be aware of these particular companies and you need to weigh the pros and cons about whether you actually want to borrow money, because there’s a distinct possibility that at the end of the day, you walk away with nothing or very little. I don’t want you to find yourself in that situation.

If you have any questions regarding a car accident claim or loans in general, contact the Hartman Law Firm at (843) 300-7600 today.