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GB Law Firm
(516) 444-1000The rarest of the serious crash types, and the one most likely to be worth more than the policy behind it
A head-on collision is the least common of the serious crash types and the most likely to change a life permanently. Two vehicles closing on one another combine their speeds at the moment of impact, and the forces that produces are the reason these files so often involve surgery, permanent limitation, or a death.
Fault is rarely the whole argument. Someone crossed a centre line, drifted off a shoulder or entered a ramp the wrong way, and the physical evidence at the scene usually says which. What gets contested is scale — the difference between a life interrupted and a life changed, and whether the insurance standing behind the crash comes anywhere near covering it.
That second question decides most head-on files on Long Island. A catastrophic injury against a minimum policy is not a liability problem, it is a coverage problem, and it is solved by finding every policy that might respond rather than by arguing harder with the first one.
In a head-on case the question is rarely whether you will recover. It is whether enough insurance can be found to make the recovery mean anything.
A vehicle that leaves its lane and strikes oncoming traffic starts from a position that is difficult to defend. Gouge marks, debris fields and the final rest positions fix the point of impact, and they are read off the road long before anyone gives their account of it.
A swerve to avoid an animal, a medical emergency, a mechanical failure. Each is a real defence in principle and each is testable — against maintenance records, against medical history, and against whether anyone else saw the hazard that supposedly caused it.
The at-fault driver's own coverage is the first place to look and rarely the only one. A vehicle owned by someone else, an employer's policy where the driver was working, a commercial umbrella, and your own supplementary underinsured coverage can each respond.
Where an injury is permanent the claim is not the bills to date. It is future surgery, lost earning capacity and the cost of care across decades — none of which appears on a hospital invoice. It has to be built with the people qualified to project it.
The vocabulary of a serious New York collision claim. In a head-on file the words about coverage matter as much as the words about injury.
New York permits a claim for pain and suffering only where the injury falls into one of the categories set by statute. In most head-on cases that is met early and clearly, which moves the argument from whether you may claim to what the claim is worth.
Supplementary Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage on your own policy. Where the driver at fault carried the state minimum and the injury is catastrophic, this is frequently the largest recovery available, and it is claimed against your own insurer.
New York holds the owner of a vehicle responsible for the negligence of anyone driving it with permission. Where the driver and the owner are different people that is a second policy, and often a considerably larger one.
Where a crash is fatal two separate claims arise: one for what the person suffered before death, and one for what the family lost by it. They are governed by different rules and different deadlines from an injury claim, and both are brought by a representative appointed by the court.
Losses that have not happened yet — the operation still to come, the earnings that will now never be earned, the care that will be needed for thirty years. They are proved by expert projection rather than by receipts, and in a serious file they are usually the largest part of the claim.
Three years from the crash for most New York personal injury claims; a wrongful death claim runs two years from the date of death. A claim involving a city, town or public authority runs on a far shorter clock and begins with a notice of claim.
Where a serious injury or a death is involved, the coverage question should be answered in the first weeks rather than the first year. Call (516) 444-1000.
In a catastrophic file the decisive work happens while the injured person is still in hospital, usually before anyone has thought about a lawyer.
Crush measurements, restraint data and the recorded seconds before impact all live in the vehicles. A salvage sale or a repair destroys that permanently, and nothing recreates it.
Gouge marks, debris and tyre evidence survive days rather than weeks. Where the crash is serious enough, a reconstruction expert should see the road while it still carries the marks.
A release signed to get a vehicle paid out can be drafted broadly enough to reach the injury claim. Property damage is settled separately from injury, and it should be settled carefully.
Yours, the at-fault driver's, the vehicle owner's if that is someone else, and any employer's. Coverage sets the ceiling on the claim, and it is found by looking rather than by asking once.
Who provides it, what it costs, and what the family does that a professional would otherwise be paid to do. Unpaid family care is a recoverable loss and it is almost never written down.
You are under no obligation to give one to the other driver's insurer. In a serious file the request arrives early, and it arrives early for a reason.
Call GB Law Firm at (516) 444-1000 for a free, confidential consultation. There is no obligation and no fee unless we win.
A catastrophic file is not a larger version of an ordinary one. It is different work: the coverage has to be found, the future loss has to be proved by people qualified to project it, and the preparation has to be finished long before a carrier decides how seriously to take it.
Our attorneys are admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts. Where the honest answer is that the available insurance limits what can realistically be recovered, you will hear that early, together with what can be done about it.
Free case review, and no fee unless we win. Call (516) 444-1000.
Yes. The claim runs against their estate and, in practical terms, against the policy standing behind it. Their death does not extinguish your right to recover. It does change some of the procedure, and it makes early investigation more important, because their account of what happened no longer exists to be tested.
That is the central difficulty in most head-on cases, and it is why coverage is investigated rather than assumed. Other policies frequently respond — the vehicle's owner where that is a different person, an employer if the driver was working, and your own supplementary underinsured coverage.
Two, and they are separate. A wrongful death claim compensates the family for what they have lost; a survival claim compensates for what the person endured before death. They run on different deadlines from an ordinary injury claim, and both must be brought by a representative appointed by the court.
No. It is an explanation to be tested, not accepted. Whether anyone else saw an animal, whether the manoeuvre was a reasonable response, and whether the driver was travelling as they should have been in the first place are all live questions.
By what the injury will cost across a lifetime rather than what it has cost so far — future treatment, lost earning capacity and care needs, projected by people qualified to project them. The insurance actually available then sets a practical ceiling on what any of it can produce.
Not before it has been examined. The vehicle carries crush and restraint evidence and, in a newer car, recorded data about the seconds before impact. Once it is salvaged that is gone for good.
Longer than a routine one, for a reason worth understanding: a permanent injury cannot be valued until its permanence has been established medically. Pushing for a number before then means guessing low about the rest of someone's life.
More often than in a routine claim. Serious files are where carriers dispute value hardest, and readiness to try the case is what moves an offer. Most still resolve before a verdict.
No-fault coverage pays first, regardless of who caused the crash, up to the limits of the policy — which a catastrophic injury commonly exhausts. Health insurance generally takes over from there, and any insurer that pays may assert a lien against an eventual recovery.
The consultation is free and the case is handled on a contingency basis — no fee unless we win. If there is no recovery there is no fee, and the arrangement is set out in writing before anything begins.