Indiana Car Accident Attorney

A serious car accident rarely gives you any warning. One moment you’re driving to work, picking up your kids, or running an errand, and in an instant it seems as if your world has suddenly turned upside down.

Unfortunately, a significant number of Indiana car accidents result in a wide array of injuries, medical bills, time off work, property damage, and countless questions. These consequences have the potential to affect your life for several weeks, months, or possibly years. Even a collision that appears minor can leave a person with real, lasting effects.

In addition to the physical and financial toll of a car accident, victims are quickly confronted by an insurance company whose job is to limit what it pays, not to make sure the injured party is treated fairly. Adjusters call quickly, ask for recorded statements, and look for any reason, however small, to reduce or deny a claim.

For these reasons, it’s important for injured Hoosiers to consult with an experienced Indiana car accident attorney before speaking with an insurance company, making rash decisions, or accepting any type of settlement offer.

Attorney Matt Boulton has over 30 years of experience helping Indiana’s car accident victims and families recover the maximum amount of compensation for their damages and losses, as well as navigate their post-accident lives.

When you contact Boulton Law Group with your car accident questions, you speak to attorney Boulton directly. Not a secretary, call center, or paralegal fielding a new client intake. And there’s no rotating cast of associates who’ll pick up your file somewhere down the line.

Indiana’s accident victims should never settle for less, and ensuring each client receives one-on-one personal care from the firm’s founding attorney is just one way attorney Boulton makes sure his clients are treated like family.

Why You Need an Indiana Car Accident Attorney

Indiana law doesn’t require you to hire an attorney after a car accident, and many victims will try to handle a claim by themselves. In many cases, the injured person will accept a settlement because they believe the insurance adjuster is on their side or they took advice from family, friends, or other non-attorneys. Most come to regret it.

Insurance companies have adjusters, investigators, and in-house attorneys whose sole job is to reduce what a personal injury claim is worth. An unrepresented car accident victim, often dealing with pain, missed work, and medical appointments, all at the same time, is negotiating against a team built specifically to outlast and outmaneuver them. That’s hardly an even playing field, and it’s exactly why Boulton Law Group’s Zero Fee Guarantee exists: to give everyone, no matter their personal or financial situation, equal access to award-winning legal representation that is exclusively on your side.

An experienced attorney does more than negotiate. Attorney Boulton investigates the crash independently of the police report, identifies every available source of insurance coverage, documents the full scope of your injuries and losses, learns about every detail of your personal experience, and knows how Indiana’s personal injury laws and claims are applied in practice, not just on paper. That type of knowledge is the difference between an insurance company’s first offer and what a case is actually worth.

What Happens When You Call Attorney Boulton?

Indiana car accident claims move through a handful of predictable stages, and knowing what’s ahead can help to make the process far less stressful for you.

When you first contact Boulton Law Group, you can typically expect the following:

Free case review – You tell your accident story to attorney Boulton, and he talks with you directly about the details, what you’re dealing with medically, and whether you have the legal right to seek compensation for your injuries and damages.

And if your accident left you with serious injuries, attorney Boulton can meet with you at the hospital, your home, or wherever is most comfortable for you. Nothing about this first step costs you anything or creates any type of obligation.

Attorney Boulton will let you know if he believes the overall value of your case would benefit from official legal representation, and you can then decide if you’d like to sign a contingency fee retainer to officially hire Boulton Law Group.

Investigation – Attorney Boulton gathers the official police report, photographs, witness statements, and any available video and begins constructing the initial chapter of a powerful narrative designed to support your claim.

Treatment and documentation – Focusing on your health and recovery is your only responsibility. While you continue treating, attorney Boulton tracks your medical care and updates the file accordingly, so nothing is missing when it’s time to make an official demand.

Demand and negotiation – Once you’ve reached maximum medical improvement, or your treating doctors and physicians can reasonably project your future care, attorney Boulton prepares a professional demand package that is tailored specifically to you and negotiates directly with the insurance company.

Resolution – Attorney Boulton’s 30-year track record is built upon successful settlements and jury trials. That said, he is able to settle the majority of his client’s cases. However, if the insurance company refuses to offer fair compensation, he is prepared to file suit and take your case to trial in any one of the state’s county courts.

Indiana Car Accident Laws You Should Know

Indiana sees car accidents every day, on interstates, city streets, and quiet county roads alike, and most people find themselves unfamiliar with the state’s rules the first time they’re involved in one.

A few basics worth knowing:

Responsibility at the Accident Scene

Any car accident that causes property damage requires the drivers involved to stop and exchange driver’s license, registration, and insurance information.

If someone is seriously injured or entrapped in the collision, Indiana law requires that reasonable assistance and aid be given, as directed by a law enforcement officer, medical personnel, or a 911 phone operator.

As soon as possible after an accident involving injury, you (or someone else) must contact 911 or the local police department.

And if the property damage from the accident is believed to exceed $1,000, the collision must be reported to the appropriate local police department within 10 days.

Who Is at Fault, and Why It Matters

Proving fault after an Indiana car accident is not always as simple as it sounds. Outside of a clear rear-end collision at a stoplight, the other driver’s insurance company will look for any angle possible that could potentially shift a percentage of fault onto you, because every percentage point they can attach to you is a percentage point they don’t have to pay.

Attorney Boulton draws on over 30 years of case experience and a collection of tactics and strategies to absolve his clients of any fault, or as close to zero as possible. When some degree of shared fault is unavoidable, the goal shifts to minimizing that percentage so more of the compensation you’re owed actually reaches you.

The evidence that typically determines fault and affects the strength of your case includes the official Indiana accident report, witness statements, photographs and video of the accident scene, vehicle damage, injuries you sustained, and your medical records and physician’s notes.

Comparative Fault: What Happens If You Were Partly to Blame

Indiana follows what’s known as a modified comparative fault rule. If you’re found to be 50% or less at fault for an accident, you can still recover compensation, but the amount is reduced by your percentage of fault. If a jury or insurance company determines you were more than 50% at fault, you’re barred from recovering anything at all, even if you were genuinely injured.

For example, if your personal injury claim is originally valued at $80,000 but you are later found to be 20% at fault, your new case value is $64,000.

Indiana’s comparative fault laws make the liability percentage attached to your case one of the most consequential numbers in the entire claim, and it’s rarely determined fairly without an attorney reviewing the facts. An initial fault determination made by police or an insurance adjuster isn’t always the final word. Attorney Boulton reviews the details of every case at no cost to determine whether that percentage has actually been applied correctly, and if he believes it hasn’t, he is prepared to push back.

How Indiana Car Accident Claims and Lawsuits Work

It’s a common misconception that a car accident claim is filed against the other driver personally. In nearly every case, it’s the at-fault driver’s insurance company that’s actually responsible for paying your compensation. If the other driver turns out to be uninsured, attorney Boulton will pursue an uninsured motorist claim through your own policy instead.

Wherever you are in the process, attorney Boulton can step in. If you haven’t filed a claim yet, he’ll handle that from the start. If you’ve already filed, he’ll send a letter of representation to the insurance company so every future call, letter, and request runs through Boulton Law Group instead of you or your home.

Once a claim is open, the insurance company assigns an adjuster to investigate. Most claims resolve through negotiation. When they don’t, Matt is prepared to file a lawsuit and take a case through litigation and, if necessary, trial.

Dealing With the Insurance Company After a Crash

The other driver’s insurance company will often reach out within a day or two of a crash, sometimes before you’ve even seen a doctor. That call is not a courtesy. It’s usually the first step in building a file that limits what they’ll eventually pay.

A few things Matt tells every client about that first contact:

You don’t have to give a recorded statement, and you shouldn’t until you’ve talked to an attorney. Anything you say, including a reflexive “I’m fine,” can be used later to argue your injuries were less serious than they turned out to be. The same goes for the first settlement offer, which is almost always lower than what a fully documented claim is worth. Accept it and sign a release, and the case is closed for good, even if new injuries or medical needs surface later.

Once Matt is involved, the insurance company deals with his office directly. That single change, taking the conversation out of a stressed and injured person’s hands and putting it in front of someone who does this every day, is one of the most immediate ways an attorney changes the outcome of a claim.

What Compensation Can You Recover

Indiana law allows injured car accident victims to pursue compensation for:

• Past and future medical bills
• Lost wages and diminished earning capacity
• Pain and suffering

Pain and suffering is the most subjective piece of any claim, and it’s the main reason no two cases, even ones that look similar on paper, resolve for the same amount. Matt encourages every client to keep a simple journal of how the accident has affected daily life. Those details do real work when it comes time to present a demand package to the insurance company.

Who Can Be Held Responsible

Identifying every party who owes you compensation is one of the first things Matt does when he opens a case.

Everyday Drivers

Most Indiana car accidents involve someone driving a personal vehicle. The at-fault driver is named in the claim, but it’s their auto insurance policy that pays.

Commercial and On-the-Job Drivers

If you were struck by someone driving for work, whether that’s a delivery vehicle, a rideshare driver, or a company car, Matt investigates every available source of coverage, since these cases often involve more than one insurance policy.

Semi-Truck Drivers

Accidents involving semis are governed by both state and federal trucking regulations, and they present some of the most complex cases in Indiana accident law. Federal law generally requires commercial trucks to carry between $750,000 and $1,000,000 in insurance coverage, and Matt has handled semi-truck claims involving multiple policies that add up to several million dollars in available coverage. Depending on the facts, Matt may pursue a claim against both the driver and the employer.

Government Entities and Poor Road Conditions

Occasionally, a car accident is caused or made worse by something other than another driver, such as a poorly maintained roadway, a malfunctioning traffic signal, or a hazard a government entity failed to address. These claims involve different procedures and much shorter deadlines than a standard car accident claim, sometimes as little as 180 days, so it’s important to raise this possibility with Matt as early as possible if you believe road conditions played a role in your accident.

Indiana’s Statute of Limitations for Car Accident Claims

Indiana gives car accident victims two years from the date of the crash to resolve their claim or file a lawsuit. Miss that window, and you’re generally barred from recovering anything, regardless of how strong your case might have been.

There are exceptions. A minor injured in a car accident, for example, has two years from their 18th birthday to settle a claim, not two years from the date of the crash. Determining the exact deadline that applies to your case is one of the first things Matt handles, because getting it wrong can cost you your entire claim.

Common Types of Car Accidents We Handle

Matt has represented clients across nearly every kind of collision Indiana’s roads produce, including:

• Rear-end collisions
• Head-on collisions
• T-bone and side-impact crashes
• Rollovers
• Single-vehicle accidents
• Drunk and impaired driving crashes

Years of handling each of these case types have given Matt a clear sense of the injuries victims are likely to face and the evidence needed to prove liability and properly document a claim.

Where Indiana Car Accidents Happen

Attorney Boulton has spent more than three decades investigating accident scenes across Indiana, and if there’s one thing that experience has taught him, it’s that the state’s roads don’t discriminate. A serious accident can happen on a packed interstate or a quiet county road with equal ease.

Boulton Law Group regularly represents clients hurt in and around Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Bloomington, and Lafayette, along with Hoosiers across the state involved in accidents on roadways such as I-65, I-74, I-70, I-465, I-69, SR 37, US 31, US 40, US 36, US 136, Ronald Reagan Parkway, College Avenue, Georgetown Road, and Meridian Street.

No matter where your accident happened, attorney Boulton makes sure it gets his full attention.

Common Car Accident Injuries

The human body wasn’t built to absorb the force of a serious car accident, and Matt’s clients have suffered nearly every kind of resulting injury, including:

• Back and neck injuries
• Broken bones
• Shoulder injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Spinal cord injuries
• Cuts and lacerations
• Psychological trauma and PTSD
• Burns
• Various soft tissue injuries
• Wrongful death

Whatever the injury, prompt medical attention and full compliance with your doctor’s recommendations matter for your health and for the value of your claim. Gaps in treatment give insurance companies an easy argument that your injuries weren’t as serious as you say.

An Indiana Car Accident Case Example

Note: An updated Boulton Law Group case example and recent outcome are currently being prepared for publication.

How Long Does a Car Accident Claim Take

There’s no single timeline that applies to every case, and Matt tells clients that honestly rather than offering a number just to sound reassuring.

A claim generally can’t be finalized until your medical treatment has reached a stable point, since settling before then risks leaving future medical needs uncovered. A straightforward claim with clear liability and a shorter recovery might resolve in a few months. A claim involving serious injuries, disputed fault, or litigation can take a year or more. What stays consistent throughout, regardless of how long a case takes, is that Matt keeps clients informed at every stage rather than leaving them to wonder what’s happening with their case.

Mistakes That Can Hurt Your Car Accident Claim

Some of the most damaging mistakes in a car accident case happen before a client ever calls an attorney, often because the choice seemed harmless at the time.

Posting about the accident on social media, even a vague update letting friends know you’re okay, can be used by an insurance company to argue your injuries aren’t as serious as claimed. Waiting too long to see a doctor, or skipping follow-up appointments once the initial pain fades, creates gaps in the medical record that adjusters rely on to dispute a claim. Giving a recorded statement before speaking with an attorney, signing anything from the insurance company, or accepting a fast settlement offer are all common ways a case gets undervalued before it ever has a chance to be built properly.

None of these mistakes are fatal on their own, and Matt has helped plenty of clients recover fully even after one or two missteps. But avoiding them from the start makes a real difference in what a case is ultimately worth.

How Much Does It Cost to Hire an Attorney

Under Boulton Law Group’s Zero Fee Guarantee, it costs nothing to talk to Matt about your case, and it costs nothing to hire him. Attorney fees are paid as a percentage of what’s recovered, and only if a recovery is made. If Matt doesn’t win your case, you owe nothing for his time or effort.

This fee structure exists so that the ability to hire an experienced attorney isn’t limited to people who can afford to pay by the hour while they’re also missing work and paying medical bills.

Why Choose Boulton Law Group Over Another Indiana Firm

Indiana drivers are surrounded by attorney advertising on television, billboards, and radio, which makes finding the right fit harder than it should be. A few things worth looking for, and where Boulton Law Group stands on each:

Check the reviews. Google and Facebook reviews cut through advertising and give you a real sense of how a firm treats its clients once the case is underway.

Look for a dedicated injury attorney. An attorney who also handles divorces, criminal defense, or other unrelated matters is less likely to stay current on Indiana’s evolving accident law. Matt’s practice is devoted entirely to personal injury.

Never pay for advice. A car accident attorney should offer a free consultation and work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing while your case is open. Matt’s Zero Fee Guarantee means every consultation is free, and the firm is only paid after your case is won.

Ask who will actually handle your case. At many firms, the attorney who signs you up is not the person who negotiates or tries your case. At Boulton Law Group, Matt handles every case personally, from the first phone call to the final resolution.

Make sure you’re treated like family. No attorney should ever pressure you into hiring them. You should feel comfortable, heard, and genuinely cared for from the first conversation. It’s the standard Matt holds himself to on every call.

What Our Clients Say

Boulton Law Group is humbled by the many reviews from our car accident clients. Whether it’s from Google, Facebook, or a video testimonial, we hope their thoughts and experience with Matt help other victims with their search for the right attorney.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does it cost anything to talk to Matt about my case?

No. Every consultation is free, and under the Zero Fee Guarantee, you never pay Matt a fee unless he recovers compensation for you.

Will my case have to go to trial?

Most car accident claims settle without a trial. Matt prepares every case as though it could go before a jury, and that preparation is what gives him leverage to negotiate a fair settlement. If the insurance company won’t offer what your case is worth, he’s ready to try it.

What if I was partly at fault for the accident?

Indiana allows you to recover compensation as long as you’re found to be 50% or less at fault, though your recovery is reduced by your percentage of fault. Matt reviews the facts of your accident to make sure fault has been assessed accurately before accepting any determination as final.

Do I need a lawyer if my accident seems minor?

Injuries from a car accident don’t always show up right away, and an insurance company’s early, informal offer is often based on incomplete information. A free consultation costs nothing and gives you a clear picture of whether your claim is worth more than what’s been offered.

What if the other driver didn’t have insurance?

Matt will pursue an uninsured or underinsured motorist claim through your own policy, so a lack of coverage on the other side doesn’t leave you without options.

Talk to Matt About Your Indiana Car Accident

Attorney Matt Boulton has spent more than 30 years helping car accident victims and their families across Indiana, and he brings the same personal attention to every case, no matter how large or small.

When you have questions, you’ll get answers. When you talk with him about what you’re hoping for, he’ll tell you honestly what’s realistic. That’s the whole approach at Boulton Law Group.

Of the firm’s many awards, Boulton Law Group is especially honored to have earned the gold standard in attorney ratings by achieving an AV-rating from Martindale Hubbell. This award was bestowed upon attorney Boulton by his legal peers, and it recognizes attorneys who have demonstrated strong legal acumen as well as high ethical standards.

Every Indiana car accident victim is entitled to a free case review under the firm’s Zero Fee Guarantee, and you won’t owe a dime until we win or settle your case.

Call attorney Boulton directly at 317-350-2680, or reach out through the confidential contact form below. He looks forward to hearing your story.