How to Pay the Bills While Your Truck Accident Case Is Pending

Every person who walks through our firm’s door has a role in their family’s economy. Sometimes, they are the family’s primary breadwinner. Other times, they maintain the household. These people stock groceries in the pantry and take the kids to practice on time, among hundreds of other things. Sometimes, they are living on their own, doing their best to earn a good living.

A family’s economy is crushed when one of the members can’t help out. Often, a catastrophic injury leaves someone unable to work or unable to maintain his or her household duties. As such, it delivers a crushing blow not just to the injured person, but to the entire family.

After a catastrophic crash, most families that come into our office have already incurred a mountain of medical bills. Many of them expect the at-fault trucking company’s insurance company to pay for all their medical bills as they come in.

Unfortunately, that’s not how the system has been set up. A bad truck driver’s insurance company won’t pay anything until the case is completely over through a settlement or trial verdict.

In Cook County, where most of our cases are filed, that can mean years of medical bills accruing before the trucking insurer pays anything. There are some options, however, that can help you while your case churns through the civil justice system.

3 Options on How To Pay Your Bills While Your Truck Accident Case is Pending:

Option 1: Medical Payments Coverage (AKA MedPay)

 If you have auto insurance (which you should), you likely have medical payments coverage under your policy.

Under your medical payment (“MedPay”) coverage, your auto insurance company will help pay crash-related medical bills up to the limits of your MedPay coverage. Look at your insurance policy’s declaration page to determine how much MedPay coverage you have.

Your attorney will submit your medical bills to your insurance company, and they will issue a check to you for the amount of the bills up to the policy limits.

Here’s a tip: Buy at least $50,000 in MedPay coverage for your policy. It could help a lot down the line.

Option 2: Make Sure Medical Providers Bill Your Health Insurance

There’s a reason that you pay your monthly health insurance premiums: to protect yourself from huge medical expenses as a result of something like a truck accident. Sometimes, medical providers, who have agreements in place with most health insurance companies, try to avoid submitting your bills to your health insurance because they believe they can recover more money from a settlement.

To the best of your ability, don’t let the auto insurance companies get away with it. If the hospital refuses to submit your bills to your health insurance company, we’re happy to talk with them. Oftentimes, we can illustrate to them that processing your bills through your own health insurance is in the hospital’s own best interest.

Option 3: Check Your Eligibility for Assistance Programs

As an injured victim, there may be several public and private assistance programs that can help you endure the difficult financial situations that lie ahead.

In the past, we’ve had clients successfully apply for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security Disability benefits, short-term and long-term disability insurance benefits, and unemployment benefits. Talk to your lawyer about your potential eligibility for any of these programs.

In addition to those programs, our clients have worked with some great local charity organizations that help people in need. If you need assistance, talk with us about what you need, and we will do our best to connect you to an organization best suited for your needs.

Injured in a truck accident? Contact us today.

Our lawyers at Shannon Law Group can help you after a devastating truck crash. Call us 24/7 at (312) 578-9501 to get started. You can also fill out the form at the bottom of this page.