How Can a Passenger Sue for Injury in Indiana?

Car accidents often involve more than just the drivers. Bystanders, pedestrians, cyclists, and passengers can also be injured. When you are injured as a passenger, you can still be entitled to an injury claim, but filing might be confusing without an insurance company to go through.

In Indiana, insurance claims actually work on an at-fault basis, meaning you file with the at-fault driver’s insurance. You do not need your own insurance policy to file a claim. When you sue, you go straight to the courts anyway. In any case, you should work with a lawyer to get the proper paperwork and claims filed on time in the proper court.

For help with your case, call Wruck Paupore’s Indiana car accident lawyers at (219) 322-1166.

Filing a Claim for Injury as a Passenger

The general process of filing a claim looks like this:

Gather Info

At the scene, there is a lot of evidence and information you can get. You should always get the drivers’ names and contact info, as well as their insurance details. This allows you to file a claim with/against all of the drivers involved, if needed.

Call a Lawyer

Do not try to handle claims on your own. Our lawyers can help you get the proper claims filed through the right channels and avoid any errors with paperwork or filings that could hurt your case.

Prepare Case

We need to get all of our facts and available evidence straight before filing. This can take a few weeks or months, depending on how complex the claim is and how much we need to finalize before our initial filing.

File Claims

An insurance claim can be filed against each at-fault driver. We will go into this in more detail below, but this could mean filing against the driver you were in the car with as well as the other driver involved.

Lawsuits can also be filed. You file these in court by having our Indiana car accident lawyers prepare a Complaint and filing it in the proper court. Then we serve the defendant with a copy.

Do You File Through Insurance or File a Lawsuit?

Often, both are done. Our lawyers pursue claims through both insurance claims and in the courts, as needed, to get the damages you deserve. Insurance claims often offer low-dollar payouts, especially if multiple people were hurt. Taking them to court may be the only way to get full damages if they refuse to negotiate for a fair settlement value.

What if You Don’t Have Insurance as a Passenger?

This isn’t a problem. Insurance follows the fault in the crash, meaning that the innocent passengers are not going to be the ones paying through their insurance for their own injuries.

Because we use an at-fault system, you file your case with the at-fault driver’s insurance. This could be the driver you were in the car with, or another driver in another car, or both.

In any case, they cover you; you do not need your own insurance to file through. And you are not expected to have insurance as a passenger, anyway.

Does My Driver’s Insurance Cover Me?

The driver you were riding with is required to have insurance. In most cases, this means liability insurance to cover the injuries they cause. However, they might have additional “first-party” insurance benefits that cover them and the people in their car.

Some add-on policies work like no-fault policies, in that they cover the driver and their passengers regardless of fault. This can help supplement the damages you get from another driver if your driver was innocent of causing the crash. However, you need to be careful that you do not accidentally settle your case by accepting money through these policies.

Which Driver is at Fault?

The ideal crash involves one driver who was totally innocent and one who was totally at fault. However, reality is often less clear-cut.

Requirements to Be at Fault

To hold anyone responsible for a crash, they need to meet the bare minimum requirements to be “at fault.” In a car accident case, this usually means they committed negligence, which has four elements:

1. They owed a legal duty.
2. They breached that duty.
3. That breach contributed to causing the crash.
4. That crash caused you damages and injuries.

Assigning Partial Fault

Once a driver is found to be past that threshold question of whether they breached a legal duty to contribute to causing the crash, we determine how much they contributed. This can range anywhere from very slight fault – e.g., 1-5% – to being mostly at fault – e.g., 95-100% at fault.

Your driver and other drivers can share fault, as can other parties. This could include a commercial driver’s employer, an auto manufacturer, etc.

Translating Fault to Damages

Each at-fault party then pays their share of the total damages. For example, if your driver was speeding significantly, but the other driver was drunk and ran a red light, a court might say your driver was 10% at fault, and the other was 90% at fault.

Contributory Negligence

Often, when a driver is the victim suing for damages, they can be partially blamed for the crash. Being partially at fault for your own accident would reduce your damages.

Fortunately for passengers, they cannot typically be blamed. You were not in control of the vehicle and could not have done anything to cause or prevent the crash, so holding you partially responsible would be exceedingly rare.

How Long Do You Have to Sue?

Victims in car accidents get 2 years to sue under Indiana law.

Can You Sue as a Rideshare Passenger?

Passengers in an Uber or Lyft car can file a claim against whichever driver was at fault. Uber and Lyft might also have insurance that takes over and pays for any time a passenger is injured in a crash.

However, you may have trouble suing the rideshare companies themselves, as they insist their drivers are contractors, not employees.

Should I File Through Insurance Against a Friend or Family Member?

This may seem harsh, but yes, you should. Their insurance is there to cover injuries from a crash. This is exactly what that policy is there for, and it says nothing against your loved one to use their insurance.

If they have no-fault insurance, it might also cover you without accusing them of doing anything wrong. You might ultimately file through their insurance and then still accuse someone else of being at fault.

Call Our Indiana Car Accident Lawyers Today

For your free case evaluation, reach out to Wruck Paupore’s Indianapolis, IN car accident attorneys by calling (219) 322-1166.