How to Prove Negligence After a Car Accident

Although Minnesota follows a no-fault system when it comes to car insurance claims, there are scenarios in which injured parties may seek compensation from the at-fault motorist. But before they can recover a single dollar from the opposing party, they must be able to prove negligence played a role in the incident.

Since there are countless ways for drivers to be negligent while behind the wheel, there are also countless kinds of evidence to prove it; however, there are certain types of proof that are valuable in virtually all car accident claims. These include:

Official Police Reports: Responding officers are going to question everyone at the scene. If the other motorist admits fault or accepts blame, police are going to note as much in the official accident report. Under Minnesota’s implied consent law, police also have the right to administer chemical tests if they believe anyone involved was driving while impaired. Whether they conduct blood, breath, or urine tests will be noted in the report, as well, and the results of these tests can also be used as evidence of negligence.
Photographs of the Wreckage: The arrangement of the vehicles at the scene can reveal what happened in the seconds leading up to the crash. If one car crossed over the centerline and struck another vehicle head on, for example, photographs of the wreckage will indicate as much.
Eyewitness Testimony: Passengers, nearby motorists, cyclists, and/or pedestrians might have seen what happened in the moments before the collision. Although eyewitness testimony is not the most reliable kind of evidence, it can corroborate your version of events and provide additional insight regarding the cause of the wreck.
Statements from Accident Reconstruction Experts: When a crash involves multiple vehicles or liability is unclear, claimants can turn to accident reconstruction experts for help. These professionals can deduce what happened based on the available evidence.
Gathering the evidence mentioned above may sound like a lot of work, but doing so is not necessary following every car accident because of Minnesota’s no-fault laws. Injured parties only need to prove negligence if they pursue a claim against the at-fault driver, which they may do if the collision results in:

Permanent injury;
Permanent scarring or disfigurement;
At least 60 days of disability;
At least $4,000 in reasonable medical expenses, excluding diagnostic procedures like X-rays and MRI scans; or
Death.
Discuss Your Case with a Car Accident Lawyer in St. Cloud, Minnesota

If you were hurt in a motor-vehicle collision with a drunk, distracted, or reckless driver, a personal injury attorney from Bradshaw & Bryant will help you gather the kinds of evidence mentioned above to prove negligence. For six consecutive years, attorney Michael Bryant has been recognized as a SuperLawyer and has been named among the state’s Top 40 Personal Injury Lawyers by Minnesota Law & Politics. Call 320-259-5414 or fill out our Contact Form to schedule a free case evaluation with a car accident attorney in St. Cloud.

---

Mike Bryant
A founding partner with Bradshaw & Bryant, Mike Bryant has always fought to find justice for his clients—knowing that legal troubles, both personal injury and criminal, can be devastating for a family. Voted a Top 40 Personal Injury "Super Lawyer"  multiple years, Mr. Bryant has also been voted one of the Top 100 Minnesota  "Super Lawyers" four times.

International Student Feels Curbed by Insurance Company

An international student studying English here in San Diego learns a hard lesson when her car is hit by a drunk driver and the driver’s insurance is slow to pay for the repairs.

“I parked there, street parking,” Yihua Kong said. 

Yihua said it was just after 9 p.m. on June 4 when, according to an Oceanside Police report, a 26-year-old man was driving too fast and smashed into Kong’s Toyota Rav 4 and her roommate’s car. 

“I’m in bed, you know, I’m listening to TV and I hear a big noise,” Yihua said. 

Yihua’s car had the left wheel and bumper torn off. Police considered the damage major, as indicated in the report. Yihua’s roommate’s car was also hit with “moderate” damage, the report states. 

The 26-year-old man told officers he had been drinking and the District Attorney’s office tells NBC 7 Responds the man has already pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor DUI charge. 

“I need to go to class, I’m working,” Yihua said, “I’m running because sometimes I take the Uber.” 

Yihua said she has a liability-only insurance policy through Allstate. According to the police report, Progressive is the drunk driver’s insurance company. 

Nearly two-and-a-half months later, Yihua said her car has not been repaired, nor has she received any money from Progressive. Yihua contacted NBC 7 Responds and together, contacted Progressive more than a dozen times over the last two months to get reimbursement for her damaged car but at this date, Yihua still has no car and no money for repairs, a rental car or for her car’s storage. 

“I’m an international student, I don’t have family here,” Yihua said, “And my English is not good.” 

In an email to NBC 7 Responds, Jeff Sibel with Progressive’s Public Relations Department said, “We have been in contact with Ms. Kong and have explained to her what is causing the delay with her claim. We are working to expedite the claims as quickly as we can, however, we are waiting on another carrier to process salvage before we are able to resolve the claims.”

Yihua said that carrier is the company her roommate’s insurance policy is with, State Farm Insurance. The roommate tells NBC 7 Responds he was paid by State Farm back in June and doesn’t understand why Progressive has yet to settle Yihua’s case. NBC 7 Responds reached out to both Yihua’s insurance carrier, Allstate and State Farm Insurance for a comment but have yet to hear back. 

NBC 7 Responds has spoken with both insurance industry experts and the California Department of Insurance who tell us Yihua’s case should not have taken this long. The state recommended Yihua file a complaint with their office and a spokesperson said her case is under investigation. 

To learn more about consumer resources the California Department of Insurance provides

Japanese company replaces office workers with artificial intelligence

A future in which human employees are replaced with the aid of machines is ready to come to be a truth at an insurance firm in japan, where greater than 30 personnel are being laid off and changed with an artificial intelligence system that may calculate payouts to policyholders.

Fukoku mutual lifestyles insurance believes it will increase productiveness by means of 30% and see a go back on its funding in much less than  years. The company stated it'd shop about 140m yen (£1m) a year after the 200m yen (£1.4m) ai machine is established this month. Retaining it's going to price about 15m yen (£100k) a yr.

The move is not going to be welcomed, however, by means of 34 employees who could be made redundant with the aid of the cease of march.

The device is based on ibm’s watson explorer, which, according to the tech firm, possesses “cognitive generation which can suppose like a human”, permitting it to “analyse and interpret all your statistics, such as unstructured text, photos, audio and video”.

The technology may be capable of examine tens of thousands of scientific certificate and element within the period of health facility remains, scientific histories and any surgical methods earlier than calculating payouts, consistent with the mainichi shimbun.

Even as the usage of ai will significantly reduce the time had to calculate fukoku mutual’s payouts – which reportedly totalled 132,000 at some point of the present day financial 12 months – the sums will not be paid until they have been authorised by a member of body of workers, the newspaper stated.

Japan’s shrinking, getting older population, coupled with its prowess in robot technology, makes it a prime testing ground for ai.

In step with a 2015 file through the nomura studies institute, nearly half of all jobs in japan might be carried out via robots by means of 2035.
Advertisement

Dai-ichi lifestyles insurance has already introduced a watson-based totally device to assess bills - although it has no longer cut body of workers numbers - and japan put up insurance is inquisitive about introducing a similar setup, the mainichi stated.

Ai should quickly be gambling a role within the usa’s politics. Next month, the economic system, alternate and enterprise ministry will introduce ai on an ordeal foundation to assist civil servants draft solutions for ministers throughout cabinet conferences and parliamentary classes.

The ministry hopes ai will assist reduce the punishingly lengthy hours bureaucrats spend making ready written answers for ministers.

If the experiment is a fulfillment, it could be followed by using different authorities organizations, in accordance the jiji information organization.

If, for example a query is asked about electricity-saving rules, the ai gadget will offer civil servants with the relevant facts and a list of pertinent debating factors primarily based on past answers to similar questions.

The march of japan’s ai robots hasn’t been absolutely glitch-unfastened, but. At the stop of ultimate yr a crew of researchers deserted an try to increase a robot wise sufficient to skip the entrance exam for the celebrated tokyo college.

“ai is not right at answering the sort of questions that require an capacity to comprehend meanings throughout a broad spectrum,” noriko arai, a professor on the national institute of informatics, told kyodo news corporation.

Maintaining Insurance Access under Trump — A Strategy

Donald trump’s election as president puts the destiny of the cheap care act (aca) in jeopardy. Complete repeal is unlikely, given a probable filibuster through senate democrats, but primary changes through the budget reconciliation process (which cannot be filibustered) are almost positive. At the identical time, putting off coverage insurance for the hundreds of thousands of human beings now aided by way of the aca consists of its personal political dangers for the brand new management. Complicating subjects further is growing situation even among aca supporters approximately the long-term viability of a number of the insurance exchanges, through which extra than 10 million humans presently buy private coverage (generally with federal subsidies). Numerous business insurers are either exiting or scaling returned their participation in those marketplaces, and plenty of smaller nonprofit insurers have close their doorways. One look at predicts that 35% of u.S. Communities will quickly have only one available trade coverage choice.1

There are various methods to shore up the exchanges, which include supplying greater beneficiant subsidies for enrollees, increasing the consequences for not buying insurance, imposing technical fixes to the chance-adjustment system, and offering full funding for the hazard-hall application (which become enacted to compensate insurers for massive start-up losses however is rather paying 13 cents on the greenback on these losses). Some other idea that has emerged is to create a “public alternative” — a new government plan that would both compete nationally or, much more likely, provide a public-coverage safety internet in markets lacking ok personal opposition. However there may be no point in asking the incoming republican congress to create a brand new government plan or a more difficult mandate.

A better idea, i believe, and one that could conceivably result in a political compromise, is to rely on medicaid managed-care plans to offer an change plan anyplace they operate in which there could otherwise be simplest one collaborating insurer. This approach ought to work despite the fact that aca premium subsidies for trade enrollees had been eliminated and replaced with the aid of some alternative model of tax credit or rebates.

For starters, medicaid is the most successful program for helping the uninsured inside the united states of america — in spite of its welfare-primarily based roots, issuer antipathy, and persevering with stigma. Because the reagan administration, program enrollment has greater than tripled, to more than 72 million. It has grown because states can boom coverage while moving much of the price to the federal treasury, the consistent with capita cost of the program is extraordinarily low, and maximum states use controlled-care businesses to serve beneficiaries, thereby making sure aid from a few insurers. Furthermore, expansions lessen hospitals’ ranges of uncompensated care while additionally reducing strain on employers to offer insurance to low-salary personnel. And the program is administered in specific methods in distinctive states, minimizing complaints approximately a monolithic countrywide software.

The aca firstly required every state to amplify its medicaid software, and it furnished nearly full federal funding for that mandate. The superb court docket transformed that mandate into an option, and thus far 31 states plus the district of columbia have followed the expansion. Now not tremendously, there's clean proof that the number of uninsured people has declined more unexpectedly in medicaid-expansion states than some place else, that this system has progressed take care of these new beneficiaries, and that uncompensated sanatorium care has decreased.2

The aca additionally creates publicly administered marketplaces in which uninsured humans can keep for personal insurance, commonly with federal subsidies defraying the fee of charges. The ones who have signed up have higher scientific expenses than insurers predicted, possibly attributable to pent-up demand for services. At the identical time, many younger and healthful people have now not enrolled. States have been also accredited to increase nonexchange “brief coverage” to (what became out to be) more healthy populations. In the meantime, many insurers priced their products too low, in part due to the fact they misjudged the trade threat pool, but additionally to attract marketplace proportion and because they notion they might be included from pricing errors by the chance-corridor and risk-adjustment programs.

Given more time, maximum alternate markets are probably to stabilize as insurers regulate charges to in shape anticipated costs. I trust it makes experience, however, to have a fallback insurance alternative. The question is what form such an option must take.

There's already considerable overlap among medicaid and the exchanges. For starters, a few states (together with arkansas and iowa) acquired permission from the federal government to require medicaid-enlargement enrollees to gain insurance by using joining a private exchange plan. This strategy is attractive to republicans, who argue that they're giving beneficiaries a non-public plan choice in preference to enrolling them within the conventional medicaid application.
But there is a thin line between requiring medicaid-growth beneficiaries to are seeking for private coverage through the exchange and requiring other medicaid beneficiaries to pick a private plan thru a obligatory medicaid controlled care initiative. And maximum states already require medicaid beneficiaries to join a few form of managed care: almost eighty% of beneficiaries are enrolled either in capitated managed care plans or number one care case management (%) programs (in which the state itself acts because the health plan).
All of which, i might argue, factors us to the nice course closer to making sure a aggressive market for folks who purchase insurance thru the exchanges: to depend on medicaid as an coverage safety internet. This sort of policy would be truthful: medicaid controlled-care plans might be required to offer an change plan in areas wherein there would otherwise be simplest one collaborating insurer. As an example, arizona has a thriving medicaid controlled-care software. Beneath this proposal, change enrollees in pinal county, which currently has just one coverage alternative, should sign up with one of the 5 medicaid managed-care plans now in that marketplace.
Linking insurer participation in medicaid controlled care to participation on the exchanges (even if simplest as a fallback option) is supported by using the evidence that medicaid plans are the nice fit for the alternate marketplace — in evaluation to the “massive 5” insurers, which are likely to enter and exit the exchanges with a few regularity however whose number one focus will continually be the large-organization market. This technique could similarly consolidate medicaid and the exchanges and forestall the want to create new fitness plans, with new infrastructures, whose developers could have to locate and settlement with a new network of fitness care carriers. It might be proper even if hillary clinton had grow to be president and proposed a new medicare-like “public alternative.” why create a new medicare-like charge-for-provider plan while you could greater without problems contain current medicaid managed-care plans and thereby consolidate rather than fragment the public insurance marketplace? But at the same time as there will not be a new public choice in a trump administration, there will probable need to be a automobile to offer coverage to human beings now protected underneath the aca, and medicaid managed-care plans might be the first-class path for doing so.
There are, of route, limitations to this proposed plan. First, now not every medicaid application is based on capitated health plans; numerous states as an alternative use a p.C. Version, and three states nevertheless depend upon traditional fee for provider. However those programs could also turn out to be trade protection-net backups. As an example, when the massachusetts alternate to start with failed, the country created a temporary medicaid enlargement as a fallback. 2nd, change enrollees may object to being compelled to sign up and pay premiums to a “medicaid” plan, in particular when you consider that such plans have obtained combined performance evaluations.3 but with 73 million enrollees, medicaid is turning into increasingly more mainstream, and fitness plans inside the medicaid market have found out how to broaden enough company capability (albeit with highly narrow networks). 1/3, health plans will item to the idea that participation in one market (medicaid) may be conditioned on participation in another, but few plans are likely to withdraw as a result, for the reason that medicaid is regularly their primary supply of revenue.
The competition to an offer of this kind is sure to be fierce, specifically in a republican management greater inclined to do away with the aca than to fix it and extra interested in block-granting medicaid than in increasing it. However candidate trump argued that he would make certain respectable insurance for all, and administratively increasing the position of medicaid controlled care can be the perfect way to do so. Furthermore, medicaid controlled care plans have the wished administrative infrastructure, provider networks, and revel in with the goal population to make it paintings.
I believe president trump ought to undertake medicaid as the fallback choice for the exchanges, possibly emphasizing to republicans that the insurance would be provided through non-public corporations. Any such plan would make our coverage markets extra green, extra competitive, and much more likely to supply true fitness care to thousands and thousands of americans.

The Insane Amount Of Money Disney May Collect From Insurance, Following Carrie Fisher's Death

Last week become tragically marked by the unexpected passing of actress/creator/activist carrie fisher on december 27 (in addition to her mom, actress debbie reynolds, just a day later) after she suffered a heart attack 4 days in advance. On the time, fisher was selling her memoir the princess diarist, however she changed into still additionally worried within the superstar wars franchise, having finished her paintings on episode viii several months in advance. But, because of fisher's demise, walt disney studios should collect approximately $50 million from insurance.

In keeping with coverage insider, disney took out a "settlement protection cover" as insurance in case carrie fisher turned into not able to meet her responsibilities to appear within the new superstar wars films. On the grounds that fisher will not be taking part in superstar wars: episode ix, that is due for launch in 2019, this claim ought to reportedly trigger and be unfold throughout 20 companies "at the binder." the coverage become written by way of amazing chance advisors in new jersey, however lloyd's of london can be coping with matters from right here. Assuming disney takes the $50 million payout, it might be the "biggest ever single non-public twist of fate coverage claim." but, to be clean, one of these payout hasn't passed off but, and neither disney, carrie fisher's spokesperson nor any of the events worried have officially commented on the matter.

Carrie fisher was one of the 5 primary players from the authentic star wars trilogy to be delivered back for the sequel trilogy that kicked off in december 2015. While episode viii is included thanks to primary pictures having already completed, disney has yet to reveal how fisher's absence will affect episode ix. Will leia organa be written out, leaving it to every other man or woman to deal with her destiny? Will the manufacturing group try to tug off the same form of cgi wizardry they did with wilhuff tarkin in rogue one? We're going to should be patient.

Because han solo's demise inside the pressure awakens means that harrison ford's time with the franchise has apparently concluded, that leaves anthony daniels (c-3po), mark hamill (luke skywalker) and peter mayhew (chewbacca) as the handiest primary original actors left to continue acting, and we do not even know for certain yet if all of them will be back for episode ix. As for leia organa, she can certainly be visible in theaters right now, because the young princess from alderaan seems inside the very last minute of rogue one, with Seventies carries fisher's likeness laid over actress ingvild deila's face.

Why the biggest insurance groups are pouring into silicon valley

Have you ever wondered why the word “farm” seems so frequently within the names of yank insurance organizations? It stems from the dissatisfaction farmers felt after being charged the identical coverage charges as metropolis dwellers, despite leading some distance much less risky lives. This pushback caused a enormous shift inside the way insurance groups regarded and protected their clients, as companies fast found out that people who face less risk need to be entitled to preferred rates.

The sector maintains to trade, and insurance organizations realise it’s time to catch up. In just a few months, 30 of the most important insurance groups have joined plug and play’s insurtech software for one-on-one get entry to to nowadays’s most up to date coverage-centered startups, displaying they may be prepared to innovate the industry.

But to sincerely understand in which the disruption is stemming from, we first want to take into account that at its basis, the coverage commercial enterprise comes down to handling danger and customer service. That is very wide, so that you can make matters simpler, we bucketed the regions ripe for disruption.
Product innovation and development

Nowadays’s insurance businesses built empires on traditional enterprise models which have now not modified in many years, and thus have end up extraordinarily inefficient. Then again, these days’s purchasers have advanced significantly, quick adapting to new products and services being released day by day. Provider vendors with gradual response instances or clunky interfaces don't have any location in a world wherein a taxi can be called inside minutes of a unmarried click on. In running with today’s insurance giants, we've got identified the primary areas of improvement in 4 categories:

Improving user enjoy is without question a top precedence amongst enterprise leaders. User enjoy touches almost every facet of a enterprise, specially inside an industry as carrier-centered as insurance. Startups are improving consumer experience via leveraging technology like video chat for instant declare processing, bundling services for streamlined policy control, the use of drones to make underwriting quick and painless, using chatbots for higher customer service or adding devices to automobiles and houses to immediately notify authorities within the case of an emergency. It may take 10 years to build an amazing popularity — and 10 seconds to break it. Insurance companies assist consumers at their most vulnerable moments, so it is imperative that the consumer-going through part of the commercial enterprise need to be as seamless as feasible, or a lifelong patron can be lost over a unmarried terrible enjoy.

Danger evaluation and underwriting is on the very middle of the enterprise. An insurer’s potential to protect its clients at a honest price is only as exact as its potential to calculate and underwrite the chance. There has been a large push in leveraging gadget gaining knowledge of and new statistics assets to higher apprehend the dangers we face on a daily foundation. We're constantly accumulating new statistics factors to provide perception into our daily lives, and with this statistics, insurance agencies may be higher equipped to protect customers from unexpected tragedy at a fair top rate.
Prevention of loss is turning into extra of a focal point for insurers, with a shift inside the enterprise to transport from merely compensating for risk to mitigation of it. Safety is more than just supporting you up after you have fallen, it’s about preventing the fall earlier than it takes place. Advancements in cybersecurity, sensors for the auto enterprise and connected domestic devices are all contributing to lowering chance earlier than an incident. This isn’t particular to p & c insurance both. Life and medical insurance businesses are closely making an investment in preventable fitness technology thru fitness trackers, academic apps and packages that incentivize more healthy existence on the way to reduce the fee of healthcare.

Value reduction is a key thing to any enterprise and is frequently the distinction between fulfillment and failure. Many insurance companies are beginning to leverage new technologies to streamline outdated approaches. This will be something from more worthwhile ways of enhancing the employer through the usage of uniform packages across industries to more niche applications along with lowering fraud. Similarly, technology permitting on the spot declare processing, higher underwriting equipment or improving retailers’ skills with the aid of digitalization can reduce down the operational fees on a massive scale.
New coverage merchandise

Many new technologies have brought about a large shift inside the way we have interaction with the arena round us. With those advances come unexpected liabilities, dangers and market possibilities. For example, with technologies like self sustaining riding, there's an expected decrease inside the automobile coverage market length, because of this companies will want to compensate via locating new product offerings and becoming “area of expertise insurers” in preference to just a traditional auto insurer. Risks in the future will no longer be as smooth to phase or blanket with overreaching regulations and will require more particular understanding, gear and flexibility with the shift of legal responsibility.

However, generation can empower traditional sorts of insurance offerings, as properly, and open the way for extraordinary companies to offer products that have been now not value-green before. As an instance, blockchain-enabled technology can result in assorted methods to insure or improve the way products are provided and disbursed (i.E. Smart contracts permitting on the spot declare settling, virtual currencies playing a large position in microinsurance, and so on.).
New market tendencies

Risk exists anywhere, consequently coverage packages are infinite. Developments in the market, cultural shifts, political modifications and many other elements can play a big position inside the insurance market indirectly. For example, while the concept of “shared economy” got here into life, it ended in accelerated danger for belongings like houses and automobiles by means of getting used for business functions. This now not most effective opened the door for insurance giants to enlarge their product presenting, but also created an opportunity for nimble startups to move in and chew off a bit of this speedy increasing marketplace. Startups like slice, which makes a speciality of flexible policy services for the shared economic system, or stride health, a new medical health insurance platform for the extended quantity of independent people, are capitalizing on developing area of interest markets that have been formerly omitted by using coverage giants.

Those trends received’t be be slowing down anytime quickly, and there are continually going to be technology that effect markets and social behaviors in big scales. It might be wise for insurance corporations to stay in advance of such tendencies throughout industries. At plug and play, a commonplace hobby of the insurers is to have scope across all the industries, from mobility to new substances, to stay beforehand of the modern-day tendencies which could have an effect on their markets.
End

Coverage is on the verge of a huge overhaul. Many technologies have modified the manner customers buy and use their maximum valuable belongings, so shouldn’t their guidelines change too? Drones armed with high-tech sensors, iot and big facts evaluation provide full-size quantities of extra information to insurers. Technologies like ai and new distribution fashions streamline the way clients engage with their providers.

Coverage touches each a part of our lives, and out of lots of startups in silicon valley, nearly all relate lower back to insurance in one way or every other. Insurance giants are flush with capital and are are flooding to silicon valley to find the next startup to exchange the destiny of insurance.