Setareh Law
January 9, 2024
Personal injury accidents tend to prove considerably more expensive than many people believe. Between the onslaught of medical bills and reduced income throughout your recovery, you may find yourself going into debt to a considerable number of people.
While a law firm like Setareh Law operates on contingency to spare you the stress of thinly stretched finances, you still have to decide who you need to pay first after receiving a fair settlement. Let’s break down parties you may owe money to after a personal injury accident and determine which of them ranks the most important on your payment list.
What Kind of Settlement Did You Receive?
Before you start distributing money from your personal injury settlement, consider what kind of settlement you received. Settlements can come in one of two forms:
Structured Settlements
Structured settlements arrive in small payments over an extended period of time. You can work with a liable party to agree how frequently these payments come and how much money they provide you with.
You have a significant amount of say over the process of receiving structured settlements. You may receive the settlements on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. Note that a liable party does have to account for inflation should the cost of repayable losses increase over time.
Structured settlements tend to serve parties in need of long-term care the best. These settlements also work well for parties who want to integrate structured settlements into a larger budgeting plan.
Lump-Sum Settlements
You can also request to receive accident-related damages as a lump sum as soon as your case concludes. Lump sums see that you receive your compensation all at once. Lump sums tend to prove most helpful to parties interested in both paying off immediate expenses and investing what they receive from a liable party.
Unfortunately, parties who receive lump sum payments can often find themselves overwhelmed by the amount of money they now have to manage. It can prove challenging to safely use that money over time. Even so, you may request a lump sum payment and use that payment to address your most pressing bills immediately following an accident.
Who Are the Payable Parties After Your Personal Injury Claim?
In the days following an accident, you may find yourself in debt to certain parties in order to recover. Medical professionals, health insurance carriers, and similar parties can all assume liens on your property that you have to address over time.
When it comes time to start paying parties after you’ve received a personal injury claim settlement, consider addressing your liens as soon as possible. The faster you can get out of debt, the less interest you have to pay over time. Once you’ve paid interest gathering bills off, you can address additional accident-related expenses or even invest your earnings.
Make sure you keep an eye on payable bills’ due dates, too. If you have some expenses with more pressing deadlines than others, it’s in your best interest to pay those off first.
You can discuss which forms of settlement payments might suit your efforts to pay off supportive parties the best. Our personal injury lawyers can sit down with you following the conclusion of your trial to help you determine which of the parties facilitating your recovery needs payment the soonest.
You Can Turn to a Personal Injury Lawyer at Setareh Law for Payment Guidance
It’s not easy to know who to pay with the finances you received from a successful personal injury claim. Fortunately, you can reach out for help with financial management if you need help distributing your new funds to the right people. Doing so can limit your exposure to debt while also preserving your financial health for the future.
If you have questions about the kind of settlement you can receive in personal injury cases, contact our team today. You can call us at (310) 659-1826 or reach out to us online to book a free case evaluation with our experienced attorneys.
