Clare Louise

If you pass away without having a clear will, you may be leaving your assets to the wrong people. If you don’t create a legally compliant plan, your loved ones may not inherit your assets.

Don’t make the mistake of trying to DIY your estate planning. Or worse yet, avoiding it completely. Not planning your estate or planning it poorly will have major effects on those you leave behind.

When you hire a lawyer, you can ensure your loved ones will be protected after your death. Read on for the top 5 reasons you want to find a estate planning lawyers franklin, tn to help you with your estate planning.

1. They Have Experience

When you hire an attorney, you’ll want to find someone with expertise. If you google “lawyer near me,” that may not cut it. Be sure you’re looking for an estate planning lawyer.

Ask friends and family for recommendations too. You’ll want the best lawyer you can afford to help.

If you don’t comply with legal regulations in your state, your plans may go awry after your passing. Estate planning requires experience and knowledge of local rules.

2. They Help You With Your Will

You’ll want to work with your lawyer on preparing your will. You’ll want to work with your lawyer on getting clear on your assets.

If you have property or accounts, you’ll want to plan what will happen after you die. The same goes for life insurance.

3. Make Sure the Right People Inherit

Your lawyer will help you create legal directives. These are the instructions explaining what you want to happen with your assets.

You need to get clear on who you want to inherit what. These people, called your beneficiaries, will inherit your assets as per your wishes.

4. They Can Handle Complex Situations

If you have a complex scenario, legal help is vital. For example, you may have half-siblings or stepchildren. You’ll want to be clear about what they should inherit from your assets.

They’ll help you create legally compliant documents to set out these wishes. You don’t want to leave this up to the courts.

If you die without estate planning, your loved ones will have to defer to local laws. That may mean a beloved stepchild receives nothing while an estranged sister does.

5. They Work With You on Guardianship

If you have young children, you’ll want to set up a planned guardian. Also, keep in mind rules if you own property in multiple countries or states. Your lawyer will help you prepare the paperwork.

Your lawyer will also work with you to periodically update your estate plans. Every five years or so, it’s good to revise your plans and update them as needed.

Hire a Lawyer to Protect Your Loved Ones

When you hire a lawyer to do estate planning, you’re protecting your loved ones. You’re making sure their future is secure and without drama.

We’re here to help with your legal research. Be sure to check out our other helpful articles for more useful advice.

Clare Louise

Being a victim of a car accident can take an emotional, physical and financial toll on the victim and their families. When one has been a victim of an accident they are entitled to benefits. You must reach out to an Accident Benefits lawyer. Having a lawyer by your side through this process will make things a lot easier and less stressful for you. When it comes to filing a claim there are certain regulations that one needs to abide by. The lawyers are well aware of these. The claim needs to be filed within a particular time frame after the accident. This article will share some critical timelines that you should be mindful of.

Important timelines to keep a track of

When you have been a victim of a car accident and you want to pursue a personal injury claim, then you need to take action as soon as possible. To be able to file a claim you need to adhere to the deadlines which have been put there statutorily. You have a week to notify your insurance provider about your plan to seek accident benefits. Once you have done that, you have a maximum of a month or 30 days to prepare and submit your OCF-1 and Accident Benefits Application Package (ABAP).

If you are filing a case against the at-fault party then you need to notify them of your intent to sue within 120 days, or else the claim for pre-judgment interest and costs could be prejudiced. According to the Ontario’s Limitations Act, no claim can be brought before the 2nd anniversary of the date where the claimant sustained injuries or would’ve been aware of the same, damages were done due to the negligence of the other. In most situations, this limitation period expires on the second anniversary of the accident. However, there are certain exceptions to the rule, and your lawyer would explain the same.

Why should you reach out to a lawyer?

Accident benefits claims are extremely complicated to navigate through. Having a lawyer by your side will help you to ensure that you obtain all the benefits that you are entitled to. The legislation behind claims for accident benefits is a complex process, and the laws are dynamic. When you aren’t represented by a lawyer you might fail to adhere to the strict limitation periods. A failure to notify the insurer of the intent to file a claim or filing it late can hinder the chances of your compensation. There are timelines that one needs to adhere to.

Having a lawyer by your side will make the whole process easier. A lawyer who is qualified and has your best interests in mind. They will explain all the nuances of the law concerning the statutory accident benefit, tort and limitation periods. Claiming an accident benefit is a highly complicated process. A lot of the time, insurers deny the compensation. A lawyer will help you to build a strong case from the very beginning.

Clare Louise

By signing a separation agreement, you are agreeing to a legally enforceable agreement that specifies how specific issues in your relationship will be handled. Whether formed by a lawyer or not, such an agreement is legally binding. You may get caught up in the emotional elements of moving on, and without knowing the relevant legislation and your rights, duties, and entitlements may put you in a potentially dangerous legal position. If you find yourself in this position, you should carefully consider hiring a family law attorney that works in this field every day.

To Avoid Giving Up Your Legal Rights

Each party’s lawyer helps write a separation agreement or nowadays you can also download separation agreement template. The Separation Agreement may handle child custody, child support, property split, and debt problems. It’s possible that essential provisions are left out or needless clauses are included if you don’t utilize a tailored separation agreement prepared by your lawyer. Some parts of the agreement may be too unclear to execute or may need judicial interpretation. To prevent future disputes about the meaning of the contract, it is best to have it drafted by a lawyer from the start.

For example, a common provision in lawyer-prepared separation agreements requires an annual financial report. For example, personal tax reports, personal tax notices of assessments, financial statements, insurance statements, and company financial statements must be given to and from your ex-spouse. If either party’s financial situation changes, child support is typically modified. The change may be positive or negative.

To Avoid Giving More Than Is Legal

Your lawyer can assist safeguard your legal interests by ensuring a fair distribution of family property. Your lawyer may point out sentimental and commercial worth to assist you avoids emotionally charged choices. Based on your age and income, your ex-age spouse’s and income, the length of your cohabitation, the number of children, their ages and other factors, your lawyer will advise you on the suggested range for spousal and child support. Your lawyer will also consider adding a review date.

To Help You Get What You Want

Your lawyer may be able to assist you to accomplish or abandon elements of your divorce that are important to you. For example, if you are connected to a house or remain the principal residence, you may try buying out your ex-spouse.  You can also look for the agreement online as if you can download separation agreement template.

To Provide Enough Details/Implementation Procedures

You and your ex-spouse may agree on many points in theory but disagree on the specifics. A 50/50 parenting plan with your kid and alternating weekends may be agreed upon by you and your ex-spouse, but the specifics must be worked out. So, where will the exchanges be after school is out? How are holidays split up? If a parent cannot take the kid at the specified time, does the other parent have the first refusal, or may the child go to the grandparents? Can a parent make up missed time with their child? What if a parent wants to relocate? These are just a few examples of issues that should be addressed in a separation agreement to prevent future disputes.

Clare Louise

An important part of every personal injury case is calculating the value of your claim. It’s impossible to say without knowing your specific situation, but insurance adjusters frequently use the same techniques and focus on the same essential elements when evaluating a claim.

What an Insurance Company Has to Pay Out

To figure out how much your claim is worth, you must first understand what kinds of damages you could be entitled to get compensation for in the event of an accident or injury.

When someone is judged to be at fault in an accident, his or her liability insurance company is responsible for paying for the following expenses for the injured person:

• Medical care and associated costs
• Earnings lost as a result of the accident, such as lost wages due to time away from work or treatment for injuries, or disfigurement. Loss of family, social, and educational experiences, such as missed classes or training, vacations or recreation, or a special event. “Pain and suffering.” and emotional damages such as stress, embarrassment.

Damages Calculation Formula for the Insurance Industry

It’s easy to tally up the money spent and money lost when figuring out compensation, but it’s much more difficult to quantify things like pain and suffering, missed chances, and missed experiences. This is where the damages formula of an insurance company comes in.

When negotiating a personal injury settlement, an insurance adjuster will often start by adding up all of the medical bills linked to the accident. Medical special damages, or “specials,” are the terms used to describe these costs. With that number, the adjuster can determine how much to pay the injured party for non-economic damages such as pain and suffering and other intangible losses, known as “general” damages.

If the injuries are minimal, the adjuster may increase the amount of special damages by 1.5 or 2. In cases where the injuries are severe or long-lasting, the adjuster has the option to increase the amount of exceptional damages by a factor of five.

If the adjuster is employing a formula, this may be the end of it. Medical specialties are multiplied by a number between 1.5 and 5, then added to lost income to arrive at this number. However, this is not the ultimate compensation sum; rather, it is the starting point for compensation negotiations. Find out how to deal with the insurance company while negotiating a personal injury settlement.

Calculating the Percentage of Fault attributable to Each Party

Whether or whether the insurance company will pay depends largely on how much each party contributed to the original accident. The damages formula offers you an idea of what your injuries might be worth, but you won’t know the true compensation value of your claim (according to injury law) until you factor in the issue of fault.

In most cases, you and the insurance adjuster will at least have a good notion of whether the insured person was fully at blame, or whether you were little at fault, or if you were significantly at fault. Whatever your comparative culpability percentage is, it will be subtracted from the damages formula total to arrive at a final value of 10 percent, 50 percent, or 75 percent. Learn how to determine who was at fault in an accident.

Clare Louise

A driving distraction is anything that takes your attention away from driving your vehicle safely. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA),3,142 people were killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers in a single year in the U.S.  

There are several different types of distracted driving, and each one is dangerous and often deadly. As people become busier and busier with seemingly less time to do everything they need to do at home or at work before getting in the car to drive, drivers are spending more time in their vehicles, often attempting to multitask doing other things while driving.

If a distracted driver hit you and caused you injuries, you need to hold them accountable for your losses. Speak with a Nashville personal injury attorney about a possible claim today. 

Common Types of Distracted Driving

The Center for Disease Control (CDC)explains that there are three primary types of driving distractions, and these are as follows:

Visual Distractions

Visual driving distractions are those things that cause you to take your eyes off the road, even for a fraction of a second. Examples here include activities such as glancing at your GPS or phone, looking at your hands-free display in your car, or checking on kids in the back seat through the rearview mirror. The driver may have both hands on the wheel and thinks he or she knows what they are doing, but such visual distractions – no matter how short – are dangerous because they can often lead to accidents.

Manual Distractions

Manual distractions are those distractions that cause you to literally take your hands off the steering wheel while driving, such as taking a drink, eating, smoking, adjusting the radio, inputting directions on your navigation system, reaching for something on the floor, or using or trying to use your phone with one hand while trying to steer the car with the other.

Cognitive Distractions

Cognitive distractions are those things that take your focus and attention away from driving. This could be things such as talking to other passengers in the car, listening to a podcast, engaging in road rage, or even daydreaming. Being fatigued or stressed while driving can also fall in the same category.

Of all these types of distractions, driving while drowsy and losing focus on the road is a type of cognitive distraction that is suspected to contribute to over 100,000 accidents each year — and that includes 40,000 injuries and about 1,550 deaths.

At the same time, two of the most common distractions – talking on cell phones or texting while driving – are particularly dangerous because they both fall under all three types of distracted driving. It is for this reason that many states cracked down and enacted laws making the use of phones or texting illegal while driving.

A Nashville Personal Injury Lawyer is Here to Help

If you are the victim of an accident caused by a distracted driver, we can help you seek compensation for your injuries.Contact Bednarz Lawtoday for a free consultation and to learn how a Nashville personal injury attorney can help.

Clare Louise

Purchasing business insurance is a necessary part of Australian industry. Whilst it’s probably not the most exciting thing about owning a business, it’s still a vital element that can protect your business in a variety of ways.

So, having insurance is important, but what’s even more important is having the right insurance policy! If you need to make a claim but have the wrong policy you could find your business really suffering.

But it can be hard to know what the right policy is for your business and then secure it – this is where business insurance brokers come into the fray. These experienced professionals can go into bat on your behalf, finding the right policy for you before negotiating for it, allowing you to focus on other important aspects of running a business whilst your insurance is virtually taken care of for you.

So, what are some of the benefits of enlisting a business insurance broker? And how can they ensure you get the policy for your business’s needs?

• They make things easier

There are so many elements to running a business that it’s understandable you might not want to bother too much with finding the right insurance policy for it – this is where business insurance brokers can help.

They do all the hard work for you, researching and brokering the best deal on business insurance on your behalf whilst you can continue focusing on the other important details of starting/running a business.

• They take the time to learn about your needs

A good, experienced insurance broker will take the time to learn about and understand your business before going to work on finding the right policy for it. They want to build lasting, happy business relationships and will work hard on your behalf to ensure you are satisfied with their service – this is why business insurance brokers typically have the same clients for many years!

• They have the experience to achieve top results

Experienced brokers have been working in the industry for years, ensuring businesses get the best results from their insurance policy and finding one that is most suitable for their needs. They know their insurance markets, and they know the different kinds of policies, meaning they can provide you with best advice on your policy as well as broker it on your behalf.

• They help in the event of a claim

It can be quite difficult to deal with insurers – you probably know this as an individual or business owner. They often make things difficult in the event of a claim and this can be really frustrating. But if you have a reputable business broker working on your behalf they can handle the claim for you and likely get a better result due to their experience and industry knowledge!

• They provide ongoing expertise

Modern business is an ever-changing game and insurance products are made to reflect these changes. When you’re running a business, it’s likely you won’t be spending too much of your time keeping on top of all the different products entering the market at any given time as there’s just not the time to do it!

However, a business insurance broker keeps on top of any risks facing your industry and can provide you with solid advice on whether your policy reflects these risks. Furthermore, they can help your business scale up or down in regards to its policy – they simply always have your back!

Clare Louise