Speaker 1:
What are three things I should do after a car accident? [crosstalk 00:00:07]
Mike Bertucci:
Yeah. I’m glad you asked that because a lot of people don’t know what to do after they get in a car accident.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Mike Bertucci:
So the three things you want to do are, call the police, you want to get medical treatment right away and you want to speak to a lawyer. So with that first one, you want to stay at the scene of the accident, call the police and make sure you speak to them when they get there, because they will investigate what happened, help you fill out a police report and that’s going to be really important when it comes time to deal with the insurance companies. And always remember, if you need a translator, you can call a family member or a friend or ask the police and they may be able to get somebody for you.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Mike Bertucci:
For the second thing, you want to get medical treatment right away. You may not feel the extent of your injuries right away due to the adrenaline from a car accident, but it is important to seek medical treatment right away even if your injuries are minor. And keep in mind that if you delay your treatment by even one or two days, the insurance company might not think you’re injured, and so they won’t pay you a fair amount for your personal injury case.
Now with that third thing, you want to speak with a lawyer and call us right away. We will handle the insurance companies. We will help you get the medical treatment that you need, and we will ensure that you get a fair settlement. And the last thing, it’s important to keep in mind that hiring a lawyer will get you three times the amount of money in a settlement.
Speaker 1:
Yes. Okay. Thank you so much.
Michael Agruss:
It’s a great answer for being on the show, right? For the first time.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. Very straightforward. And it’s very helpful. [foreign language 00:01:30]. Get medical treatment right away. [foreign language 00:02:57]. Three time [foreign language 00:04:03] you can benefit [foreign language 00:04:05]. Yes. Thank you for your answer. Yeah. The next question is, is it important to have a car insurance?
Michael Agruss:
That’s a really good question. So the short answer is yes, it’s the law in Illinois. You have to have car insurance. So for some reason, if you are pulled over, you’re in an accident and you don’t have proof of car insurance, you can actually get a $500 ticket.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Michael Agruss:
So yes, everyone needs to have car insurance. It’s the law. You’ll get a ticket if you don’t have it. And then, what’s also important about car insurance, which people may not think of as well is because typically people think, I have car insurance to protect me if I’m in an accident. I’m at fault to per, to pay the damages for the other car.
Speaker 1:
Right.
Michael Agruss:
But in Illinois, in addition to having it be required to have auto insurance, when you get auto insurance, you have something called uninsured motorist coverage. That’s required too. So, if you are involved in an accident and the at-fault driver doesn’t have insurance, you’re allowed to go after your own insurance company for your damages. So, one is the law. You need to have car insurance. And then two, keep in mind having car insurance protects you from other people out on the road who don’t have insurance.
Speaker 1:
Right. Okay. Thank you. [foreign language 00:05:34] Illinois state. [foreign language 00:05:38]. Illinois state [foreign language 00:07:10] Yes, thank you. It’s these very important about the insurance, because I know a lot of people, they don’t cares said, well, “I’m not driving this car for law.” That’s my way.
Michael Agruss:
Right. And once again, insurance, you can get entry level insurance for not a lot of money. So, even if you can’t afford the best insurance or a lot of insurance, just get something. It’s so important.
Speaker 1:
Right, yeah. But Michael [foreign language 00:07:37]. Thank you for your answer here. Next question for Mike Bertucci as well. Can I go to jail if I cause a car accident?
Mike Bertucci:
Okay. That’s a good question. So know you won’t go to jail, but it is important that you don’t leave the scene of the accident because you want to make sure you, like we talked about before, call the police, speak to them and make sure that they fill out the police report.
Speaker 1:
Right. Okay. [foreign language 00:08:18]. Thank you for your answer. Next question is, should I stay at the scene of an accident if the accident was minor?
Michael Agruss:
Yes. You always want to stay at the scene of the accident, and here’s why. Typically speaking, the police will come to the scene of the accident. We’ve talked to clients recently and depending on how severe the accident is and depending on the time of day, even though the police don’t come to the scene of the accident, you can still call it in, report it. You want to have some sort of documentation. You can always go to the police report after or you can always go to the police station afterwards to fill out a police report. But the reason you want to stay at the scene is typically the police will come. You want to have some sort of documentation of the accident. And that’s for insurance purposes, even if it’s just property damage. You want to have proof the accident happened. And you want to also make sure that everyone’s information gets in the police report.
Also, what happens oftentimes with our clients is you may think it’s a minor accident. You’ve got a lot of adrenaline and you don’t really feel your pain until the next day. And then if you go get medical treatment and you want to pursue a personal injury case, if you didn’t stay at the scene, there’s no documentation of it. And then the insurance company on the other side’s going to say, “Well, it wasn’t serious. There’s no police report. How do we know you got injured in the accident?”
So, stay at the scene, wait for the police to come. Call the police. And for some reason, if the police are busy and they don’t come, make sure you end up filling out some sort of police report, whether it’s later that day or the next day at the police station, because the bottom line is, you want to exchange information and have documentation that an accident happened.
Speaker 1:
Okay. All right. Thank you. [foreign language 00:10:51]. I got a question, when we’re talking about the police report, it’s very important about the witness. If we have a witness, that’s help for the case or not? Or some cases it’s not a minor, but if we have okay, major impact. So the witness is important for the individual and also for the lawyer, right? To prove the cases [inaudible 00:12:30].
Michael Agruss:
Right. And that’s another reason why you want to stay at the seen and also fill out the police reporters. If there’s any witnesses to the accident, they will be listed in the police report. And that’s one of the first things. When a client hires us, what we do is we look at the police report. We reach out to the witnesses and we get statements from them to make sure that their version of the events and what happened line up with what our client says happened at the accident. And look, if it’s a rear end accident and who’s at fault is not a big deal. It’s not disputed. The witnesses aren’t necessarily as important. But a lot of times in car accidents you’ll have multiple versions of what happened. It’ll be an intersection accident. Or I had the green light, but the other person saying they didn’t. So yeah, 100% you want to get witness statements. And that’s also another super important reason why you want to stay at the scene and fill out a police report.
Speaker 1:
Okay. All right. Thanks. [foreign language 00:13:21]. Yes. Thank you for your answer here. Next question is, after a car accident, should I speak with the insurance company if they call me?
Mike Bertucci:
No. And this is really important, so I’m glad you asked that. No. You should not speak to your insurance company or any insurance company because they don’t have your best interests in mind. The insurance companies, whether it’s yours or the defendants want to minimize the claims and minimize the amount of money that they have to pay you. So they’re really only looking out for themselves. So you should let Mike Agruss Law deal with the insurance companies so that you can focus on recovering.
Speaker 1:
Okay. All right. Thanks. [foreign language 00:15:22] car insurance company [foreign language 00:15:27]. Yeah. We take a short break. We’ll be back. Thank you.
Speaker 4:
[Foreign language 00:16:47].
Speaker 1:
[crosstalk 00:17:57]. Yes. Thank you for your time and your patience. I try to recapture everything for the Vietnamese audience right here. The next question for you is, if I’m injured in a car accident and I do not have health insurance, how can I receive the medical treatment and who will pay for the bill?
Michael Agruss:
It’s a very good question. And a lot of people who are involved in car accidents who don’t have health insurance are very concerned about this issue, which is, who’s going to pay my bills? And this goes off of what Mike was just answering with speaking to insurance companies. So the moment we get retained, we reach out to the insurance companies and we let everyone know, “Hey, we represent this person. All the communications come through us.”
The next thing we do is we make sure our clients get proper treatment, whether they have health insurance or not. We have a network of doctors who we’ve worked with over the years, whether it’s orthopedic physician, pain management doctor, physical therapist, whatever it may be, whatever our client clients need, we have a network of doctors. And we’ve developed a relationship where if someone, one of our clients does not have health insurance, what these doctors will do is they will provide treatment to our clients and they will lean the file. And what that simply means is rather than send our clients the bill, they send us the bill. And then when we settle the case and get money from the at-fault driver, we use that money to pay for the medical bills.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Michael Agruss:
So, people should know that not only can they get medical treatment after a car accident, even if they don’t have health insurance, they can get the treatment and then we will help them get their bills paid when it comes time to settling the case. And then one other thing I wanted to mention about this as well is most people on their auto insurance policy. So their own car insurance, they have something that’s called medical payment coverage.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Michael Agruss:
And you’re allowed to use that to pay your medical bills. And once again, this is something that we will investigate and we will take care of. And so, I think it’s really important for the viewers to know, as Mike was talking about, “Don’t talk to insurance companies.” We’ll handle that. If you’re injured and you need treatment, whether you have insurance or not, we’ll handle that. And we deal with all of that busy work and making sure our clients are taken care of so they can focus on getting better.
Speaker 1:
Oh, wow. Okay. That’s very good information. Everybody need to know about the insurance [inaudible 00:21:27]. [foreign language 00:21:28] Interesting health insurance, [foreign language 00:21:45] medical treatment [foreign language 00:21:47] medical bill [foreign language 00:21:52] doctor network [foreign language 00:22:04] in recovery treatment and medical insurance payment [foreign language 00:22:54] Yes. Thank you, Mike. The next question is, for Mike Bertucci, will you handle my property damage to claim too?
Mike Bertucci:
Yes. And we actually do that for free. So we can help you get your car out of storage. We can help you get it repaired. And you won’t have to pay us a dime or penny for that service, which is really unique about Mike Agruss Law, because most personal injury firms don’t handle the property damage claim, but we do do that. So not only do we handle that for every client as part of every single case, but we also do that for free.
Speaker 1:
Okay. Wow. That sounds very generous way. Super.
Michael Agruss:
Yeah. I mean, look, we’re trying to help people out. And recently, we’ve even helped people out just with their property damage claim. So even if they’re not injured and we’re not handling their personal injury case, by all means reach out to us because settling property damage claims is typically, it’s a pretty easy and quick process for us. So, if any of the viewers are in an accident, fortunately not injured, but they’ve got a property damage issue by all means reach out and we can help.
Speaker 1:
Okay. [foreign language 00:25:05] from property damage [foreign language 00:25:48]. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. I get that. I think that’s the last question I look for today, right?
Michael Agruss:
Sure. And the most important one, right?
Speaker 1:
Yes. So, okay. The last one is a very important one. The most important. What [inaudible 00:26:28] to hire AGruss Law Firm?
Michael Agruss:
Sure. So the answer is, it’s free until we get you a settlement. So it’s free unless we win your case. And this is referred to as a contingency fee. Okay. And what this means is we take a percentage of the settlement or whatever we get for our client. And what’s also important about this as well is our contingency fee is one third and that never changes. And there’s a lot of other law firms out there where before you file a lawsuit, the contingency fee is one third. But then after you file a lawsuit, it may be 40%. And then if you go to trial, it may be 50%. So I think it’s really important for the viewers to know that our contingency fee never changes, right? It’s always one third. And then the best part about this is we do all of the work.
We front all of the costs. We pay for everything. And we work on the case. And if we only get paid, if we get a settlement, so there’s really zero risk for someone to hire us in a personal injury case. We have a really good settlement and winning streak. But look, once in a blue moon, we lose a case. And so when we lose a case, it’s important for the viewers to know they’ll never pay us a penny.
So, even if the case turns out to be something we can’t settle, or for some reason, we go to trial and we lose, they’ll never pay us a penny for our time. So, it’s very simple. It’s free until we get you a settlement. We take a one third contingency fee. That fee never changes. And even if the case turns out in a way where we don’t get a settlement or we don’t win, our clients never owe us a penny. So really, there’s no risk.
Speaker 1:
Yeah. That’s very good to me.
Michael Agruss:
Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Okay. That’s perfect. [foreign language 00:28:24] risk free [foreign language 00:29:09]. Yes. Thank you very much. The time is up too. Okay. I would like to answer more question, but then I hope okay, next time. So we get more time so we can go in a further detail about this [inaudible 00:30:59] case. Before we say goodbye again, one more time, we do appreciate your time and your patience here. Please say goodbye or anything, any message you want to send to your new client and your customer.
Michael Agruss:
Sure. Thanks for having us on the show. I’m glad Mike TUI was able to join us today and we will be back next Tuesday with you talking more about personal injury. Yes. And car accident. And Mike will be here as well.
Mike Bertucci:
Yep. Thank you for having me on the show and I look forward to coming on next week as well.
Speaker 1:
All right. Yeah. So my pleasure. Okay, to host two of you today. Again, thanks so very much and have a good day and see you next time. See you next time.
Michael Agruss:
Thanks.
