Are you working a placement job? If you’ve been in a car accident on the job, you might think you only have one claim to pursue, but that’s incorrect.
Getting hurt in a crash on the clock puts you in front of two insurance companies instead of one.
On the one hand, workers’ comp covers some of what you lost. On the other, another slice comes from your own auto policy.
However, where the two overlap, your potential payout can quietly shrink.
We’ve seen cases like these all over the Twin Cities from countless clients. Find out how you can pursue a car accident claim alongside a workers’ compensation claim in Saint Paul and Minneapolis.
Two Claims, One Crash
A crash on the job opens a workers’ compensation claim against your employer’s insurer and a no-fault claim against your own car insurance.
Both start before anybody decides who caused the wreck. Fault comes into it later, once you turn toward the driver who hit you.
Now, comp and no-fault cover much of the same ground, mainly your medical treatment and your lost pay. Because they overlap, Minnesota wrote rules about which one goes first, and that’s why your benefits can look nothing like what a coworker told you to expect.
For this reason, you must report the crash to your employer and insurer even if the other driver clearly caused it.
Skipping either report gives an adjuster a reason to stall later. Plus, workplace injury claims carry reporting steps your auto insurer never mentions.
Where Your Money Comes From First
Both claims send you money. However, the amounts rarely match what you’re picturing, and the order they arrive in is what trips people up.
What Your Auto Policy Covers
Every auto policy in Minnesota carries Personal Injury Protection, or PIP for short.
The no-fault statute sets the payout at $40,000 per injured person, and it’s split into $20,000 for medical care and $20,000 for everything else.
That second pot replaces your paycheck at 8% of your gross wages, capped at $500 a week, and it pays for household help you can’t manage yet.
Why Workers’ Comp Goes First on Wages
Two claims don’t mean two checks. Under Minnesota’s coordination rule, if workers’ comp pays or owes you wage benefits, your auto insurer owes you nothing for lost income.
It pays only when comp comes in under what PIP would have paid, and only for the difference. For instance, say you workers’ compensation payout amounts to $380 a week where PIP would have sent $450. Here, your auto insurer adds the $70.
Arguing with your car insurer about wage loss goes nowhere. Instead, you ought to put that energy into the comp claim because the comp sets your weekly payout or benefit.
The Four Doors into a Personal Injury Claim
Neither claim pays you a dollar for pain, for lost sleep, or for the parts of your life the injury took. How do you reach that money? You go after the driver who hit you, and Minnesota puts a gate in front of that step.
The tort threshold statute gives you four ways through it.
- Medical bills above $4,000: Not every charge counts toward that total, so the number on your statements isn’t always the number that counts.
- Permanent injury: Something won’t go back to how it was, and your doctor is willing to write that down.
- Permanent disfigurement: Scarring or visible damage that treatment won’t clear up.
- Disability of 60 days or more: The law measures this against your normal daily activities, not against whether you can work.
You might already be through the gate, since imaging, therapy, and follow-up visits add up fast.
For guidance, ask a personal injury car accident attorney in Minneapolis to check your file early.
What Sharing the Blame Costs You
Sooner or later the other insurer will float the idea that part of the crash was on you. Real money rides on that idea.
How the Percentage Works
Minnesota’s comparative fault law lets you recover if your share of the blame isn’t greater than the other driver’s. Cross that line and you get nothing. Stay under it and your award drops by whatever percentage lands on you, so $100,000 in damages at 20% fault leaves you $80,000.
Every point they move onto you is money off your settlement. Ten points on a six-figure claim is real money, which is why the argument starts early and gets pressed hard.
Why Adjusters Circle the Same Questions
Nobody calculates those percentages. Both sides argue them, so the adjuster keeps returning to what you were doing in the seconds before impact, hoping for a sentence they can build on.
A personal injury car accident attorney in Saint Paul can push back on a figure the evidence doesn’t support. An attorney from our firm can check and invoke the elements of negligence and on which side documented them first.
How Long You Actually Have
Unlike other no-fault states, Minnesota gives you longer than most states. The six-year limit covers most personal injury actions, and the clock starts the day you got hurt, not the day you finished treatment.
Six years sounds like room to breathe but consider the following.
Scene photos get wiped off phones during an upgrade. Salvage yards crush your vehicle before anyone inspects the damage pattern.
The dispatcher who knew the other driver’s route can move to another company, leaving no means for contact.
Your own account softens too. A defense lawyer will test your memory of the intersection years later against a police report written that same afternoon, and the report wins every time.
In short, think that comp deadlines run much shorter than six years. Doing so puts you in the right headspace to immediately speak to a personal injury car accident attorney in Saint Paul or Minneapolis.
Get Both Claims Working as One Case
A crash on the job leaves you with two insurers who each have reason to point at the other, and the bills keep coming either way. Luckily, we’re a consultation call away in the Twin Cities.
We’ve represented clients in workers’ compensation and personal injury cases side by side, and our downtown office puts a personal injury car accident attorney in Minneapolis within reach.
Are you looking for a personal injury car accident attorney in Saint Paul?
Contact our law firm today to schedule a consultation and start your comeback journey.