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GB Law Firm
(516) 444-1000The most common crash on Long Island, and the one carriers still find a way to dispute
Traffic on the Long Island Expressway stops the way it always does, without warning and all at once. The driver behind you does not. It is the most ordinary crash there is, and it accounts for more of the injury claims filed in Nassau and Suffolk County than any other single collision type.
Being ordinary does not make it simple. The driver who struck you is usually at fault, and in most cases that is not seriously contested for long. What gets contested is everything after it: whether your injury is as serious as you say, whether this crash caused it or merely revealed something already there, whether the fortnight between the collision and your first MRI means you were not really hurt.
That is where a rear-end file is won or lost. Liability is the short argument. Injury, causation and value are the long one, and the carrier begins building its side of it from the first notice of claim.
A rear-end case is rarely lost on who hit whom. It is lost on proof of injury, and that has to be built from the first week, not the last.
New York treats a collision into a stopped or stopping vehicle as a case of negligence against the driver behind, without anything further needing to be shown. The burden moves to them. That is a strong starting position, and it is why liability is rarely the fight.
To shift it back, the other driver has to offer a real reason: a sudden unexplained stop, a mechanical failure, a vehicle that cut in. Most of these do not survive a deposition. They do, however, keep the claim open for months while they are tested.
New York uses pure comparative negligence, so a share of the blame reduces a recovery rather than ending it. Carriers know this and use it as a discount rather than a denial — a brake light said to be out, a stop said to be unnecessary.
Three cars means three carriers, each pointing at the one behind it. Whether you were struck once and pushed, or struck twice, changes who pays and how much. It is settled with damage patterns, vehicle data and witnesses, and it is settled early or not at all.
The vocabulary a New York rear-end claim runs on. None of it is optional reading — two of these carry deadlines that end claims.
Your own insurer pays initial medical bills and a portion of lost earnings regardless of who caused the crash. The application generally has to reach them within 30 days of the collision, and this is the deadline people miss while they are still in treatment.
No-fault covers the bills, but it does not open the door to a claim for pain and suffering. To sue the driver who hit you, the injury has to fall into one of the categories New York defines by statute. Whether it does is the central question in most rear-end cases.
The at-fault driver's own coverage, and the source of any recovery for pain and suffering. New York's required minimum is low enough that in a serious case it is often exhausted before the claim is finished.
Supplementary Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage on your own policy. It is what stands behind you when the driver who caused the crash carried too little insurance to cover what they did, and it is claimed against your own carrier.
An examination the insurance company arranges and pays for. It is scheduled at the point the carrier wants a written opinion that you have recovered, and it usually produces one.
Three years from the date of the crash for most New York personal injury claims. Where a city, town or public authority is involved the clock is far shorter and starts with a notice of claim, not a lawsuit.
If any of these have already been raised with you by an adjuster, it is worth a conversation before you answer. Call (516) 444-1000.
Most of what decides a rear-end case is settled in the first few weeks, usually by people who do not yet know they are deciding anything.
It fixes the date, the location, the vehicles and any citation in an official record, and it is the document every adjuster reads first.
Soft-tissue and disc injuries commonly present a day or two later. A gap between the crash and the first treatment note is the single most useful fact the defence has.
This is with your own insurer, and it is not affected by who caused the crash. Late applications get denied on the deadline alone.
Both vehicles, the damage, the road, the sight lines and any visible injury. A repaired bumper cannot be photographed later, and low visible damage is the carrier's standard argument against a serious injury.
You are under no obligation to give one to the other driver's insurer. The call comes early precisely because you do not yet know how badly you are hurt.
Every bill, every prescription, every day of work missed. Lost earnings are provable on paper or they are not part of the claim.
Call GB Law Firm at (516) 444-1000 for a free, confidential consultation. There is no obligation and no fee unless we win.
A rear-end claim is handled here the way it would be handled if it were going to a jury, because that is the only preparation a carrier responds to. The medical record is built properly, the causation question is answered before the defence asks it, and the file is ready long before anyone needs it to be.
Our attorneys are admitted to practice in New York state and federal courts. You will be told what your claim actually turns on, including when the honest answer is that it is worth less than you were hoping, and you will hear that early rather than after a year of treatment.
Free case review, and no fee unless we win. Call (516) 444-1000.
An admission at the scene settles very little. Their insurer is not bound by what their driver said on the roadside, and fault was rarely the part of your claim that was going to be difficult. What is contested is the injury — how serious it is, whether this crash caused it, and what it is worth. That argument starts immediately whether or not anyone apologised.
Nobody can answer that honestly at the first phone call, and you should be careful with anyone who does. Value depends on the injury and whether it meets New York's serious injury threshold, the treatment it requires, earnings actually lost, and how much insurance coverage exists to pay it. The last of those sets a ceiling no argument can lift.
It is used against you, and it is one of the most common defence arguments in rear-end cases. Modern bumpers absorb impact and hide it, which says something about the vehicle and much less about the forces that went through the person inside it. It is answered with medical evidence rather than by arguing about the photographs.
No, and it is the ordinary pattern rather than a suspicious one. Adrenaline masks soft-tissue and disc injury for a day or more. Get examined now and say clearly that the onset followed the crash, so the record connects the two. The longer that gap runs, the more work it takes to close.
Your own no-fault coverage does, regardless of who caused the crash, up to the limits of the policy. It is a separate track from any claim against the other driver, and it runs on its own deadline — generally 30 days from the collision to get the application in.
The claim usually moves to your own policy. Uninsured motorist coverage is required on every New York auto policy, and supplementary underinsured coverage applies where the other driver carried less than you do. Being your own insurer does not make it a friendly negotiation.
Not before anyone knows what your treatment is going to be. An early offer arrives while the injury is still developing, and accepting it generally closes the claim permanently, including for the surgery nobody has mentioned yet. It is an opening position, not a valuation.
It depends almost entirely on the medicine. A claim cannot be valued sensibly until treatment has reached the point where the lasting effect is known, and pushing for a number before then means guessing low. Straightforward files can resolve in months; a case that has to be put into suit runs considerably longer.
Most cases settle without a trial. Every file here is prepared as though it will not, because a carrier's offer moves in response to how ready the other side is, and readiness is not something that can be assembled at short notice.
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.