CALL/TXT Utah Car Accident Lawyer Jake Gunter. (801) 373-6345. Free Consult. Don’t be left in the dark after your company truck or vehicle accident. Let Jake’s nearly 20 years’ experience help guide you through your injury case.
CAR ACCIDENTS INVOLVING COMPANY VEHICLES IN UTAH.
Being involved in a Utah car accident when you are in your company vehicle can get complicated. Here are most people’s immediate questions.
(1). Who is going to pay my car accident medical bills.
(2). Which insurance company is covering the damages? My own car insurance or the company insurance of the company truck I was driving?
(3). Does my own car insurance personal injury protection benefits (video) still kick in to help pay my bills, even though, my car wasn’t involved?
(4). Is this a workers compensation claim and a personal injury case? And the list goes on.
WHICH CAR INSURANCE PAYS WHEN YOU ARE DRIVING A COMPANY CAR.
Work truck or company vehicle car accidents can be tricky on which insurance company is primarily responsible for paying for your injuries. Most of the time the primary insurance company is the business’ insurance carrier at the time of the car accident. Then, sometimes, your own personal car insurance can kick in to provide coverages. But that depends on how your own personal car policy of insurance was written and whether you exhaust all the company vehicle’s insurance benefits.
If you are injured by a company truck, generally company vehicles have higher insurance policy limits. Often $500,000 or 1 million in Utah for commercial insurance policies. The Utah State minimum for non-business vehicles is $25,000 per person, up to $65,000 per occurrence for consumer, non-commercial insurance policies.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE? THE DRIVER, OR THE COMPANY WHO OWNED THE CAR?
The negligent driver is always on the hook for their reckless conduct. The employer who owns the car, or was employing the driver is also on the hook for their employee’s conduct. When a company or business is responsible for an employee’s negligent driving, this is called ‘joint liable.” In dumb legalese talk it’s called “Respondeat Superior,” or “Vicarious Liability.”
When you make an insurance claim against the company that owned the truck, it is just an insurance claim to the business’s insurance company. If you file a lawsuit over the company involved car accident, then you can sue both the driver (employee) and the company (owner). Sometimes there is strategy decision in only suing the company and leaving out the at-fault driver.
Until it is a lawsuit, the company driver has little to do with settling your car accident that involved his company vehicle. It is just an insurance claim.
UTAH CAR ACCIDENTS WHILE AT WORK CAN BE A WORKERS COMPENSATION CASE AND A PERSONAL INJURY CASE.
If are you are actively at work when the car accident occurs, you can have both a workers compensation injury case and a personal injury case.
(1). Personal Injury Utah Car Accident Claim. You would have a third party personal injury case against the person who hit you while in your company truck.
(2). Workers Compensation Case. You would have a workers compensation injury case with your own employer. Sometimes you decide to file both, other times you only proceed with the personal injury case.
Workers Compensation Lien. Every dollar that the workers compensation carrier pays for your injuries, they will want back from your personal injury settlement. Normally at a reduced amount, but the workers compensation carrier will have a lien on your personal injury settlement proceeds.
WHO PAYS MY MEDICAL BILLS AFTER A CAR ACCIDENT IN MY COMPANY TRUCK?
The normal order of who pays your medical bills after a company truck accident is as follows:
- Any PIP Policies. Any personal injury protection (“PIP”) benefits associated with the primary motor vehicle insurance covering the vehicle you were in at the time of the car accident. Personal Injury Benefits “PIP” are required for all Utah consumer car insurance policies. But is not always required for commercial vehicles. Your Utah car accident attorney will need to check the actual commercial policy to find out. If there is a secondary PIP policy, like your own car insurance, you can see if you can stack that on top of the primary PIP carrier for extra benefits.
- Private Health Care Insurance. All possible PIP policies and benefits must exhaust first before your private health care insurance will start paying. Your car accident attorney can help provide them with an exhaustion letter and PIP ledger.
- Lien Medical Care (video). If you don’t have private health care insurance you can get your medical bills paid on a lien. Where the doctor doesn’t get paid until the case is settled.
- Cash Pay. Ultimately all medical bills, whether or not caused by the at-fault driver, are your responsibility to pay. Sometimes the settlement doesn’t come soon enough, but the medical providers will still insist on getting paid. People don’t like hearing this payment option.