The injuries that you suffer in a car crash could easily prevent you from working for some time. Whether you suffer a broken bone, a serious soft tissue injury, a traumatic brain injury or a spinal cord injury, you may need weeks for recovery and medical care.
You shouldn’t have to worry about trying to make ends meet while you can’t work because of someone causing a serious car crash. Thankfully, as a Connecticut resident, you could have several options available for wage replacement in this difficult situation.
If you are driving for work, you may qualify for workers’ compensation
If you were working at the time of your car crash, regardless of the insurance that you have or the insurance of the other driver involved, you may potentially qualify for temporary disability benefits through workers’ compensation. If you do, those benefits will replace 75% of your post-withholding income.
The other driver may have insurance that replaces your wages
Lost wages typically fall under the umbrella for bodily injury liability coverage. Connecticut only mandates $25,000 of this coverage for one injured person and $50,000 for two or more hurt parties from a single crash. If the medical care expenses use up that coverage, there may not be adequate benefits for lost wages. The longer you will have to take leave from work to recover, the more likely you are to run out of insurance coverage.
You could have existing insurance coverage to replace lost wages
If you have purchased your own supplemental short-term disability insurance policy, you may have your own coverage for your lost wages after a car accident. Barring that, you may be able to make a claim against underinsured driver coverage on your insurance policy in some cases. This protection can help you if the other driver doesn’t have enough insurance to repay all of your losses after a crash, such as your lost wages and medical expenses.
If you don’t have insurance to replace your lost wages and the other driver doesn’t either, you may need to consider bringing a personal injury claim against the driver to offset the financial hardship that they caused you.
