Personal Injury Accident Abroad? Here’s What To Do
Personal Injury Accident Abroad? Here’s What To Do
The last thing that you want to worry about is getting into an accident while abroad. Although you are in vacation mode where everything feels like sunshine and cocktails, a host of bad things can still happen to you. Slips, falls, motor-vehicle accidents, ferry accidents – just about anything that can happen to you at home can also happen to you abroad.
Check your travel insurance
The first thing to do after getting medical help is to check whether your travel or car insurance will compensate you for your costs.
Check that you have all the evidence
Just as with any personal injury case, you need to have evidence if you want to file a case for compensation. Take pictures of the scene of the accident. Get a police report at the local authorities. Get the contact details of any witnesses as well as the information from the negligent party. You don’t want to get back home without any evidence of what happened during the accident abroad.
Check the jurisdiction
If you want to file a case against someone, you have to file it in a court which has jurisdiction over the subject matter and the individual that you’re suing. So, if you want to sue in New York, the person that you’re suing must have been in New York at some point e.g. or should have done business in New York or give consent to fall under New York jurisdiction. If the person responsible for your accident abroad has never set foot outside his home country, you’ll have to sue him in his own country.
Check whether you have a contract
If you have a contract with the person, tour operator, hotel etc. your contract will usually specify where and how you should file your complaint.
