It could take several months to resolve your Lyft accident case. It could even take a few weeks before you get any kind of response about an insurance claim. The insurer will sometimes prolong or stall the claims process for so long that you become desperate and accept a low settlement offer.
An attorney may be able to help by pressuring the insurer to compensate you fairly and quickly. If they still choose not to, your attorney can sue them or the at-fault party.
How Long Will It Take To Settle My Lyft Accident Case?
As a motorist, a Lyft passenger, or another victim of a Lyft accident, you deserve compensation. You might already be pursuing that compensation through an insurance claim, which is usually the quickest way to receive compensation. However, you might still have to wait a while for your case to settle.
Reaching a settlement can take several months or longer. Generally, this is because there are lengthy processes involved in building and resolving a case. For example, it can take some time for the person filing a claim to collect enough evidence for their case. After presenting the evidence, it can take even longer to negotiate the settlement.
Negotiations take a lot of back-and-forth communication and deliberation. This in itself is a time-consuming process.
How Long Would It Take To Litigate My Lyft Accident Case?
Instead of pursuing your compensation through a claim, you may be pursuing it through a lawsuit against the Lyft driver, Lyft itself, or a third-party motorist. It can take even longer to resolve a case this way because the processes involved are even more complicated. These cases can take a year or longer.
During litigation, there are distinct processes that elongate the settlement or verdict process, including:
- Sending and receiving letters with the at-fault party’s counsel
- Filing your case with the appropriate court
- Gathering evidence to support your claims
- Developing and giving arguments in front of a judge or jury
- Recruiting experts and eyewitnesses to provide testimony in court
- Depositions, during which your attorney exchanges information with the other involved parties
- Negotiations to reach a fair settlement
- Deliberations to reach a verdict
Litigation May Be Your Best And Only Option
While this process can take longer, it is sometimes the best avenue. Some reasons that your attorney may choose litigation include:
- Your injuries are serious
- There are multiple involved parties
- You are up against a large corporation or entity
- One or more of the involved parties is negotiating in bad faith
- The insurance company is employing stalling tactics
How Can A Lawyer Help To Resolve My Lyft Accident Case?
A Miami rideshare accident lawyer can help in many ways. For one, if you haven’t decided between filing an insurance claim or a lawsuit for your compensation, your lawyer can help you make that decision.
If you and your lawyer decide to file a lawsuit at any point in your case, your lawyer will need to process the lawsuit quickly in order to meet the filing deadline. Generally, this deadline is four years from the date of an incident, per Florida Statutes § 95.11(3)(a).
If you’re currently pursuing your compensation through a claim, your lawyer can strengthen it with more evidence, submit a stronger claim, or appeal a decision that’s already been made.
How Your Lawyer Will Help
Regardless of how you pursue your compensation, your lawyer will do a lot for you, including:
- Pursuing all of your damages: There may be some damages you don’t know you can recover, like physical pain and suffering and even mental anguish. Your lawyer can pursue these damages if you are eligible to claim them.
- Pursuing fair amounts for your damages: Your lawyer can attribute fair monetary amounts to your non-monetary damages, like your physical suffering, and then pursue those amounts for you.
- Collecting evidence for your case: This includes evidence that’s difficult to obtain, such as footage from a traffic camera, information from the event data recorder in the Lyft driver’s vehicle, and data from the Lyft app.
- Collecting invaluable corroborating evidence: This could even be testimony from an expert, like a car accident reconstructionist. Such evidence would be invaluable for your case in the courtroom.
- Negotiating your settlement: In negotiations, your lawyer will pressure the insurer to settle fairly and quickly. For example, if the insurer stalls your claim, your lawyer could potentially threaten them with a bad faith lawsuit.
- Litigating your case: Your lawyer would take care of the entire litigation process and demand a fair verdict from a judge or jury.
Learn More About How Long It Could Take To Resolve Your Lyft Accident Case
It could take many months to resolve your Lyft accident case, or even years if you sue. However, our firm may be able to help by pursuing your compensation for you and pressuring the insurer to compensate you fairly and quickly. Your lawyer may even be able to sue Lyft itself for your due compensation. Regardless, you can expect your lawyer to fight hard for a timely resolution.
The Daytona Beach rideshare accident lawyers from our firm have a lot of experience taking on insurance companies, even companies like Lyft. You can trust in this experience. To learn more about our team and what you can expect from us, contact the Law Offices of Anidjar & Levine today for a free consultation.