Hello, my name is John Alexander, and I am a personal injury attorney with offices in Oakland county and practicing throughout the entire state of Michigan. Today I want to talk to you about how to survive making a first-party claim. That means, you were in an accident and your own insurance carrier should be paying your wage loss medical expenses, and replacement services and attendant care services. But there’s certain things that you need to do so that the insurance company will not deny your claim. So for any of these expenses that you’re claiming; your wages, your medical expenses, your attendant care services, or your placement services, is very important that your doctor writes a written prescription for these things.

For example, if he disables you from work, it should be in writing. You are disabled and it could be as being on a little script, like a medication script. That’s all it has to be on. Or, it should be in writing that you need attended care services at, let’s just say ten hours a day, or replacement care services. That’s your housework.  Those should all be in writing, and they should be current. If they’re not in writing, and they are not current, your insurance company will absolutely deny your request for those expenses.

Secondly, if somebody is performing work for you, assisting you around the house, or giving you some therapy, or taking you to doctors, or dressing, bathing you, things like that, those persons that are helping you must write out a log of what they’re doing, the date they’re doing it, and how much time they are spending. There must be written logs that you turn into the insurance company so that these people assisting you will get paid. If there are no written logs your friends or family member who are assisting you will not get paid.

Also it is very important to know that when your helper is writing out this log and must be done at the same time or shortly thereafter they did the service.  That is another reason for your insurance company to deny your claim. For example, they can’t help you choose first and then August first comes around and, oh, I didn’t do that affidavit. I better fill it out. That’s not going to work. The insurance company can deny your claim if it is not in the log and is not written near the time that the service was performed. And last thing I want to tell you, if your insurance company then ever denies your claim, you have one year to sue them, after the last expense arose that they did not pay. After that year passes, you will be forever barred from suing them for those expenses within that year.