Carlos never made a claim.
No adjuster ever called him. No offer ever arrived. Seven months after a car ran a stop sign into his delivery van in Salt Lake City, he had exactly what he thought he was owed: nothing.
"I was more worried about the route"
Carlos is 39. Three hundred stops a day. He finished the shift the day of the crash.
He waited two weeks to see a doctor. A sprain, they said. It would settle.
It did not settle.
What a sprain became
By spring he could not lift the heavier boxes. He was taking pain pills to get through the day.
He still did not call anyone. "I thought if you didn't do it right away, that was it. And I thought a sprain wasn't worth anyone's time."
Then a co-worker heard him talking about his back.
"You know you can still check, right?"
Carlos did not know. He did the check in the van on his lunch break. Eight questions, no card, no Social Security number.
The third question asked when the crash happened. He tapped six months to a year. A line under the question told him something he had never heard: every state has a deadline, and in Utah his had not passed.
The estimate came back well above the zero he had assumed. We will get to the number.
That afternoon, a person called.
What a late claim needs
Medical records. The police report. And a lawyer who has handled cases where treatment started late, the case specialist explained. A Utah lawyer whose focus is car crashes with back injuries called him.
He never paid out of pocket. His case closed for $41,000.* The company he never called paid it.
Years, not weeks
Most states give you years to bring a claim. The insurance company will not remind you. And people with a lawyer get about 3.5 times more than people who settle alone, according to the Insurance Research Council. Carlos would have settled for nothing.
Which brings us to you.
Are you in this story?
Your crash was months ago. You never filed. You took the first offer, or you took nothing. The pain got worse instead of better.
Then you are where Carlos was on his lunch break. His case is his. Yours is yours. The check tells you where you stand, and whether your deadline has passed, in 45 seconds, for free.
