When you shop at a store or visit your doctor’s office, you expect the premises to be safe. If it isn’t and you’re injured, you should be compensated.
The same is true when you go to a friend’s house. You assume that the place is safe and that you will not be hurt.
No one wants an accident to happen. But, just like motor vehicle accidents, they can happen to you despite your best efforts.
Most Private Property Owners Have Insurance
Commercial businesses generally have public liability insurance to cover claims for unexpected accidents like slip and fall injuries or if a roof collapses during business hours.
Likewise, most homeowners and renters are required to purchase public liability insurance by their mortgage companies, banks or their landlords. So, chances are, the private property owner has insurance.
The Insurance Company Will Cover Your Friend’s Liability
Understandably, many people who are injured at a friend’s or family member’s home, worry that the friend or relative might be personally responsible. They also worry that the friend or relative might be angry at them for making a claim. For that reason alone, many people in this situation hesitate to do so.
Do You Want to Live Permanently With Pain Or A Disability?
Yet, when you think about what your future could be like if you don’t receive any compensation, you might reconsider worrying about your friend’s feelings.
Yes, your medical expenses will likely be covered by your health insurance in any case. However, there are many expenses that health insurance will not cover:
- What happens if the hallways in your home are too narrow for your medical equipment to fit through?
- What if your child is seriously hurt and needs full-time care but you have to work?
- Will you have to pay to modify your home so that your wheelchair fits through your bedroom door or turns the corner into the bathroom?
- Perhaps you need a modified van so you can still drive and not be housebound the rest of your life?
- Or, maybe your permanently-injured child needs socialisation because she’s become depressed sitting at home.
How will you pay for these necessities?
This Is What Insurance Is Intended For
Your friend or relative’s homeowner or renter public liability insurance may provide the financial options to help you get through a temporary or permanent setback caused by negligence.
If there were a product or service out there that could make your injured-child’s life easier, safer or more comfortable, wouldn’t you want it?
If a simple modification to your bath or shower can help you stay in your own home, wouldn't you make it?
Of course you would - but only if you could afford it. But after a devastating accident, most people can’t...
What happens if your injuries prevent you from working? Do you want to be adequately compensated, or do you want to rely on hand outs from the government?
What Can You Do?
If the accident, including a slip and fall on private property was not your fault, you may have the right to seek compensation from the property owner’s insurance company. You may have to give notice to the insurance company as soon as possible.
A qualified attorney can tell you if there is a time limit in which to give the notice or file a suit and will obtain the following kinds of documentation:
- Your medical records and prognosis.
- Lost time from work and future wage loss.
- Living expenses and bills, past and future.
- Transportation costs to appointments.
- Reports from experts on the negligence that caused your injury.
While it is understandable that you might be sensitive to the effect of filing a claim on your friend, you need to consider what will happen to you and your family in the future.
The property owner has insurance for exactly this reason - to cover accidents and injuries that occur as a result of negligence.
At Taylor & Scott, we are Sydney’s leading and most experienced personal injury lawyers. We have been helping our clients win difficult personal injury claims since 1905.
One of our experienced lawyers will be happy to provide a no-obligation free initial assessment of your case, drawing on the firm’s century of legal experience.
If we act for you, it will be on a no win – no pay basis.
At Taylor & Scott “We Care For You”.
