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some questions I need answers for
As they're relevant to my Big Bang. Anyone who can answer these will have my undying devotion :)
Life Insurance: in the event of a death (auto accident, not the policy holder's fault), how soon would the named beneficiary receive the payout? Is it paid as a lump sum, or in installments? Are taxes taken out of it, or does the beneficiary have to take care of that?
Auto Insurance: how would this work, if it's the fault of the other party? Would that party's insurance contact the survivors of the accident, or do the survivors have to do the contacting? Presumably doctor bills, etc., would be either paid up front or reimbursed by the party at fault?
Medical: you have a 16yr old brought to your ER. Both parents are dead; nearest surviving relative is on the way, but not expected for several hours. Patient is bleeding internally, in addition to a broken leg and assorted contusions, etc. Would the doctors take the patient into surgery w/out a signed consent form, rather than risk patient's life further? Or would they be forced to wait? Could the emergency (non-relative) contact give prelim consent for the surgery?
Any help is greatly appreciated :)
Life Insurance: in the event of a death (auto accident, not the policy holder's fault), how soon would the named beneficiary receive the payout? Is it paid as a lump sum, or in installments? Are taxes taken out of it, or does the beneficiary have to take care of that?
Auto Insurance: how would this work, if it's the fault of the other party? Would that party's insurance contact the survivors of the accident, or do the survivors have to do the contacting? Presumably doctor bills, etc., would be either paid up front or reimbursed by the party at fault?
Medical: you have a 16yr old brought to your ER. Both parents are dead; nearest surviving relative is on the way, but not expected for several hours. Patient is bleeding internally, in addition to a broken leg and assorted contusions, etc. Would the doctors take the patient into surgery w/out a signed consent form, rather than risk patient's life further? Or would they be forced to wait? Could the emergency (non-relative) contact give prelim consent for the surgery?
Any help is greatly appreciated :)
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I'm not sure about the specifics of auto insurance in terms of who contacts whom, but not all policies have coverage for medical bills (mine does, pretty substantially, because we'd just done a bunch of personal-injury cases in Torts class when I took out the policy!), and there's typically a limit, which often isn't very high (people decrease it to try to get their premiums down). OTOH, if the accident victims had health insurance, that would probably be the primary method of covering hospital expenses (you might end up with a situation where the victim's health insurer sues the at-fault party's auto insurer to recoup, but that's probably more legalities than are necessary here).
Oh, and as several people have said, the hospital would absolutely go ahead and treat the kid in an emergency situation. If the next-of-kin was reachable by phone, somebody would probably try to do that just to have it on record, but the priority would be stabilizing and treating the injured person. (For adults, if the person is unconscious, the law assumes that they would want to have life-saving treatment. For a minor, I would guess that the legal assumption is similar: that the parents would want their child to have life-saving treatment.)
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