My significant other had a car accident on the way to work:
I know everyone will say lawyer, but I wanted to ask if someone had experience with this first.
She was driving a company car on her main road to work.
Someone came from a side street and ran into her.
She is still in the hospital and has a serious condition, but it seems to be getting better slowly. Not sure when and/or a full recovery will be made.
It has not been decided yet, but it seems like the rate will be 80/20% or 90/10%. In principle she did nothing wrong, but she was not able to stop in time I guess and it seems if you are not at a standstill it is rarely 100%.
The first thing I want to confirm is if there is a limit for submitting the paperwork. We are not in need of money, so if possible we would like to wait until we know how much things cost and if any disability is leftover.
It seems like my wife needs to make a choice on which type of accident to report it as.
It seems like the possibilities are below (and possibly a combination):
通勤災害, 労働災害, 自賠責保険
The other person’s (sleazy) insurance guy called my wife and came to our house to try and ‘explain’ to us that 通勤災害 is the best option as 労働災害 has lower payout, claiming that the only benefit to them is they can more easily negotiate the price with the hospital. He never mentioned 自賠責保険 as an option.
The company says we should be using 自賠責保険 and not 通勤災害. They are not a sleazy company at all, but my wife is working for a small satellite office and they probably have one way of solving a situation like this and stick to what they know?
I looked online and I can get some answers from lawyer offices. If I understand it correctly the optimal way would be to use 通勤災害 for the hospital and 自賠責保険 to get 感謝料。Unless her hospital costs are less than 120万 and any permanent disability is less than 4000万, then it be easier to use 自賠責保険 for everything.
However, this would in her case go against the company policy. She actually just started working (long enough to be seishain, although that does not matter it seems) but really likes the job itself. It would also mean to have to undergo tests twice and do twice the paperwork. If our “loss” would be less than say 200万、I do not think it will be worth it to go against the company. Sure they cannot fire her for this, but if you are the pariah and work with only 3-4 people that is not going to last long.
Ideally, I would like to wait until everything is clear about her situation and we know the actual costs and/or residual disability.
Is a lawyer really necessary? I would like to do as little paperwork as possible and do not super care about the money, but I am the type of person who would be very resentful if someone took advantage of my wife.
Sorry if I am a bit all over the place, but with two kids, full-time job and now this, I have been running double shifts. I just want her to be fine and come home :'( .
5 comments
> Is a lawyer really necessary?
Yes. This situation isn’t straightforward, and you need someone in your corner who understands the situation AND has your interests first and foremost. The other driver’s insurance has the goal of minimizing their payout, and your wife’s employer presumably has the goal of minimizing their insurance rate increase.
Don’t have any advice for you, but hope your wife makes a full recovery soon.
First, I hope your wife is getting better soon and there are no long -lasting issues!
I am not a lawyer and I cannot provide so much information on how to resolve a few things as basically each case is different, however I was involved in accident already more than 10 years ago on my way to work and my wife had the similar kind of car accident as your wife with no hospital involved.
1. Even if the job is new or so you health is more important than any job!
2. About the insurance, and which pays, what did they say at the hospital. If it was for a trip on work time with the company car then this should all be handled by the company insurance so it would be 通勤災害. It might be 労働災害 but this has probably to do what kind of work environment is applied here. For me I slipped on the stairs to my workplace and felt dizzy. I went to the hospital and some chiropractic and it was all handled by 労働災害. Of course you need to fill out some documents but you do not have to handle all the stress.
3. As said my wife had the same accident but it was on the way back from shopping. She was about to turn and waited for the traffic light to turn green. When it turned and she just started to go an old guy did not stop and rammed in on the side. The police labeled it 90/10 so only a small portion from our side as she was already moving, however the other sides insurance claimed to the police that my wife should have looked better (she stand still waiting to turn and only barely moved the car when the person with red rammed her) and they change it to 50/50 and so we had more stress than we wanted and just did not talk with the insurance further. One reason was the car at the time was not worth so we left it as it was.
Of course it would be better to ask some kind of specialist but it really sounds like a work related accident so it should be covered by the company insurance.
On the other hand you probably want get so much benefits other than the treatments, etc are paid by the company insurance and probably no other financial benefits.
Im sorry to hear that, hope she got full recovery soon.. also cant imagine going with all the paperwork in japanese, i would hire a lawyer who can translate well and have my interest
They say 労災保険に慰謝料は含まれない。