Understand the Difference Between Restitution and an Insurance Claim

In a lot of car crashes, particularly high speed or drunk driving car crashes, you end up finding that during the course of your case, there's actually two sets of justice going on. You've got the criminal case, and that's being prosecuted by a prosecutor from a DA's office. Then you have your civil case, where you're pursuing insurance and compensation for loss.

Sometimes, these get confused by our clients, because what ends up happening at some point during the criminal case, is you very well may get something called a notice of restitution or a questionnaire about restitution. Well, restitution is the idea that part of the criminal sentence should include that anything that that drunk driver, negligent driver did to you, he or she should be responsible to pay back as a condition of any eventual plea bargain in the criminal case.

What you don't want to do is spend all your time filling out a restitution form, only for the DA's office to throw it out when they realize, there's insurance to cover these things. When a DA's office is asking you to talk about your losses it's called restitution. It may not be necessary for you to even complete that paperwork, after you've had a chance to talk to a lawyer, we'll be in a better position to advise you on that.

Anything that's not restitution, if there is insurance, is actually called a claim. You have restitution and you have a claim. When you hire us, we're handling the claim, but what we're also happy to do is help you understand the difference in the two justice systems, and how we might be able to advise you as to what you need to complete and maybe don't need to complete, when you're dealing with and responding to what the DA's office is asking of you, with respect to you being a victim.

This is a great opportunity, if you've got questions, give us a call. For more information, contact us at 303-782-9999.

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