Perhaps you fell and broke your arm halfway through a game of basketball in your friend’s driveway. Maybe you left after a visit with your aunt, only to slip down her wet front steps and suffer a traumatic brain injury.
Getting hurt on someone else’s property can be a particularly frustrating experience. Your own insurance might limit what it covers, putting you in a position where you feel like you can’t get care or have a lot of bills that you can’t pay because you are able to go to work.
How should you handle a serious injury that happens on someone else’s property?
Get the medical care that you need right away
If you don’t have health insurance or have a policy with a lot of out-of-pocket costs, you might actively avoid going to the doctor when you get hurt. However, if you don’t receive proper diagnosis and treatment, it will be much harder for you to make a claim for lost wages and other necessary compensation.
Additionally, if you inform the hospital or doctor is that the injury is the result of something that happened on someone else’s property, the information they put down in your medical record should help you in the future. Those records will make it easier for you to make an insurance claim and get coverage that won’t require a co-pay or for you to meet a deductible.
Talk to your friend or family member about their insurance
Everyone with a mortgage typically needs to have a homeowners insurance policy. Even people who own their house outright often have homeowners policies to protect them from damage to their home and liability. That liability coverage is what applies to you.
Your friend has premises liability because you got hurt on their property. You can make a claim against their insurance for your losses without causing your friend or loved one any direct financial losses. Their insurance policy will pay for your medical care and unearned wages, which means you don’t have to absorb all those losses just to protect your relationship.
An insurance claim can help you cover medical bills, lost wages and even property damage. Realizing that you can make an insurance claim could help you limit the long-term impact of a recent personal injury on someone else’s property.
