Foley Griffin was recently retained by a professional driver who was injured in a serious car accident. The accident, not our client’s fault, caused the client to suffer an injury to his shoulder. He was recently advised by his doctor that he will need surgery on the shoulder. Following surgery, it is expected that he will need a significant amount of rehabilitation. Obviously, as a driver, he will be unable to work during this time period.
It is possible that the client will face significant financial difficulties if he is unable to work for a long period of time. Under New York State no-fault rules, the client is eligible for up to 80% of his lost wages, or up to a maximum of $2000.00 per month. Clearly, this amount of money is not remotely close to the amount of money he was earning as a driver. One way that we can all protect ourselves in this situation is to purchase additional insurance now. For a nominal sum of money, you can increase the monthly lost wages benefit to $4000.00 per month. In this way, if you were put in the situation like our current client and you were unable to work, you could receive up to $4000 from no-fault. Without question, it is worth the investment.
The solution for this client is to make a claim against the responsible insurance company for the difference in lost wages that the client may incur. At this time the case is too new to estimate the amount of lost wages, but if required, we are prepared to make this claim.
At Foley Griffin we offer our clients the opportunity to review their auto policy at any time. If we see areas where an increase in insurance would benefit the client (such as increase in monthly wages), we will make suggestions to the client.