One side effect of being involved in a car accident are the lost wages from your job while you recover and go to doctor appointments. If you are an hourly employer, there will be a clear monetary loss with every single day of work you miss. If you are a salary employee, you will be losing out on sick days or PTO that you could use for another day. Here are some tips that you should know about recovering those lost wages.
Find Out If You Have PIP Insurance
Many people involved in an auto accident have trouble paying for their medical bills and expenses due to the accident. While those losses will be given back to them after receiving a settlement, there is an immediate problem with the bills that are due at the moment of the accident. It is possible that you have a personal injury protection (PIP) insurance as part of your own auto insurance policy.
The nice thing about PIP coverage is how it not only helps you cover your immediate expenses, but how it can also help cover those lost wages as well. This helps ensure that you are not going into debt because of an accident that is not your fault. The only catch is that your insurance provider will want to be paid back if you win compensation for those losses in your injury case, so do not assume that you will collect that form of compensation twice.
Request A Wages Verification Form
Part of receiving compensation for your lost earnings is to have your employer provide a wage verification form. This will save you the hassle of having to prove how much money you lost due to your injury, since all that information will be verified by your employer.
If you are an hourly employer, your exact hourly wage should be documented, as well as what you make while working overtime and how many overtime hours you average per week. If you are a salaried employer, you will need to know what your average wages are per day, and how much sick leave or PTO time you used for your injury. You should be reimbursed the equivalent of your daily salary for those days that you did not work and used earned time off.
It will help to work with an auto accident attorney to help receive compensation for your lost earnings, since they can help prove that your time off was caused by the injury you suffered.
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