Have you ever thought about what it would mean if you or your loved one never received the compensation you deserved from a car accident? Your unfair emotional trauma, excruciating injuries, and loss of a family member or friend would be for nothing. We believe the legal system turning a blind eye to your personal injury case and suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
Getting your just car accident settlement will not only bring meaning to your auto accident but also help to pay expensive medical bills and vehicle damages.
There are also damages you have suffered that you may never have thought the courts would consider helping ease your burden. You can better understand what to expect for your average car accident settlement when you take the various damages and factors affecting it into account.
Three Damage Types for Your Insurance Claim
It is easy to get caught up trying to force the defendant’s insurance adjuster to pay for your accumulating medical treatments and vehicle damages. However, you have undergone other physical, mental, and emotional sufferings that deserve financial reimbursement. Attaching meaning to your car accident settlement and pursuing justice means valuing every part of your suffering and believing each warrant the same attention as others.
You want to ensure filing economic, non-economic, and punitive damages when filling out your insurance claim. These are key pieces of evidence in your personal injury case that you will use to combat any low car accident settlements (if the adjuster lowballs you with their first offer). You or a personal injury lawyer can work with law enforcement who reported the accident, hospitalization doctors, and other professionals to record all the different damages so you can maximize your settlement.
- Economic Damages: Financial losses, including medical bills (ambulance rides, surgeries, appointments, etc.), vehicle repairs, property damage reimbursement, and lost wages.
- Non-Economic Damages: These account for emotional trauma and relational loss you may have never known the courts cared about. A few to note are loss of consortium, pain and suffering, and mental illnesses (PTSD, depression, anxiety).
- Punitive Damages: Your average settlement amount will increase if the other driver had clear intentions to crash into you. Punitive damages punish the at-fault driver for their malicious behavior and deter future drivers from doing the same. Common examples of drivers that cause punitive damages are drunk drivers and those driving under the influence.
Factors that Affect Your Settlement Offer
You or an experienced personal injury lawyer can identify the various factors that affect your average car accident settlement. Although it is impossible to know your average compensation before meeting with an attorney, these factors will help give you a better idea of what you are eligible for. Then, you can ensure the highest payout possible and receive the justice you deserve for your car accident case.
- Injury Severity: Although it is common sense that more severe injuries increase your settlement’s worth, your particular injury type determines the severity. Broken bones, bruises, and cuts will earn significantly less than spinal cord injuries, concussions, and body paralysis.
- Loss of Wages: You should also factor in the income you would lose as a result of the car accident. Most of the time, this time is lost from recovering from physical injuries and hospitalization, where you are physically unable to earn a living. However, if you suffer from mental illness and emotional trauma that prevents you from going back to work, the judge will also include these in your loss of wages.
- Liability: Your injury severity and loss of wages cannot stand on their own without liability to support them that the judge assigns. If the car accident was your fault and the court’s ruling concurs, you must pay for surgeries, appointments, and missed workdays out of your pocket. The opposing insurance adjuster will attempt to blame accident fault on you in their settlement letter, claiming your previous injuries caused your current situation. Keep careful watch of your first offer, so they do not take advantage of you.
Get an Idea of Your Average Settlement
When you file your insurance claim and fight the insurance adjuster for your best settlement, we recommend keeping these types of damages and factors in mind. They will inform your eligible compensation and show you suffering that you did not know the courts force the defendant to reimburse. These are ways to ensure you or your loved ones never suffer in vain and receive justice for the crash, helping you move forward.
However, our law firm believes legal experience is just as necessary to obtain your average car accident settlement as knowledge of what affects it. Achieving existential meaning through battling the insurance adjustor, recording all your specific sufferings, and knowing exactly what you’re eligible for happens with an experienced car accident lawyer.
Give our Tuscon office a call at (520).638.6496, and we can help show you how to make the most of your car accident tragedy. Bobbi Berry can assist if it ever comes down to filing a lawsuit in probate with her over 25 years of experience.